The Origins of Guitars
Guitar is a traditional musical instrument of Spain so it is believed that this instrument comes from Spain. But there is also a saying that the history of the guitar begins long before AD is in Babylonian times. At first this instrument is small and has four strings each paired in pairs. During the Renaissance, guitar instruments were unpopular and unpopular. But after Alonso Mudarra began introducing this instrument through his works, people immediately became interested in listening and playing the guitar. And at that time the guitar began popular among the community.
In the 17th century or Baroque period strings (string) guitars were added to five, each paired in a paired wire, allowing players to play more complex and extensive music.At the end of the 17th century two important changes were made to this instrument :
- Before, each string in pairs (double) then now replaced by single strings.
- Previously has five strings then now added to 6 single strings which used until now.
In the classical period around the 1750 - 1775 gave birth to many famous guitar composers such as Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, Matteo Carcassi, D. Aguado and Fernando Carulli. They write music and often hold guitar concerts in various places. At that time the guitar instrument is very popular and enthused by many people. In addition there is also a Nicolo Paganini besides a well-known violinist also a guitar player whose works are still often heard until now.
At the end of the 19th century the guitar was falling off and many people were unaware of this instrument, but later re-popularized by Francisco Tarrega who was a great composer of classical guitars. Many of his famous musical works include: Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Estudio Brillante, Capricho Arabe and many more. He also wrote and developed a method for teaching guitar and his teaching method has become the standard of teaching on classical guitar lessons until now. He also teaches a lot and not a few of his students who become big composers such as himself is Miguel Llobet.
In addition to composers - guitar composers there is also a guitar designer who contributed to the development of this instrument is Luthier Antonio Torres. He tried to increase the size of the guitar and tried to improve the guitar sound to make it louder and aligned. He refined many guitar forms, much like he made the guitar neck wider and thinner than the previous guitar form. He also made a standard string guitar with a length of 65 cm which still in use until now. From the results of this experiment, the guitar he made is a standard modern guitar that is used until now. Before Torres, there is also a Stradivarius who is famous in making the violin and guitars.
In 1946 the guitar string previously made of Gut (a string made from animal gut) was replaced with a string made of nylon (string nylon). By using string nylon then the resulting sound bigger and better. Guitar musical instrument continues to grow until now and has become a world instrument. The number of players, teachers, composers, and guitar makers today is overwhelming, schools and guitar courses are also easy to find in every place and even now there are magazines specializing in guitars. Because the development of science and technology so rapidly, the guitar is not left behind also affected and now we have known the name of Electric Guitar.
There's the origins of guitars. In my next post i will discuss about the origins of electric guitars. See you in my next post...
It's nice to know about it.