History And Types of Guitars

The guitar (violao) is a musical instrument that utilizesstring guitars; Arch-top guitars; Renaissance or
strings to produce sound. Usually, guitar is made withBaroque guitars; Resonator, resophonic or Dobro
six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve stringguitars; Russian guitars; Acoustic bass guitars; Tenor
guitars are not rare.guitars; Harp guitars; Extended range guitars; Guitar
Guitar (violao) is considered as an instrument in manybattente.
forms of music like blues, country, flamenco, rock andElectric guitars: Electric guitar bodies are solid,
even pop. Acoustically playing, the guitar involvessemi-hollow or hollow. The sound produced is little and
production of the tone by vibration of the string andlow without amplification. An amplifier forms an integral
modulation by the hollow body. Electronic manipulationpart of electric guitars. Vibrations of steel strings
can also be done on the tone using an amplifier.converted into electric signals by electromagnetic
Combinations of various woods, with either nylon orpick-ups are fed in to an amplifier using a cable or
steel strings are used for the construction of guitars.radio transmitter. The sound is often modified either
The person who makes and repairs string instrumentsusing electronic devices or through distortion of valves
like guitar is called a luthier.naturally. The pick-ups here are of two types: single line
History and development of string instruments similar toor double line, each can be either active or passive.
guitar (violao) can be traced back to at least 5,000Electric guitar sound is most commonly used in jazz,
years. In those days, when synthetic material was notrock-n-roll and blues style of music.
available for making guitars, a guitar was defined as `aConstruction of the guitar (violao) is based on whether
long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and athe player is left-handed or right-handed. Usually,
flat back instrument, most often with incurved sides`.players use their dominant hand to pluck the strings.
There are two major types of guitars:For most of the people, it is the right hand. The other
Acoustic guitar (violao): A soundboard (present in thehand of the player is on the frets for depressing and
front of the guitar body in the form of a piece ofgripping guitar strings.
wood) is used to produce the sound from this kind ofThe various major guitar components include:
guitars. No external arrangement or device is neededheadstock, nut, fretboard, frets, truss rod, inlays, neck,
to produce sound. This makes the acoustic guitarheel or neck joint, strings, guitar body and pickups.
quieter than other commonly found band or orchestraThere are certain accessories that might be helpful
instruments and often an external amplifier is used towhile playing a guitar (violao). Accessories like: Plectrum
make the guitar sound audible and to match the sound- also called the guitar pick, is used for picking the
of other band instruments. The latest range of acousticstrings. It is made of a plastic like hard material; Slides -
guitars come with a host of pick-ups for amplifying andused for creating glissando effect in blues and rock
modifying the raw guitar sound.genre of music. Neck of a bottle, knife blade or round
Within the acoustic guitar type, the sub-categoriesmetal bar, any of these can be used as a slide;
include: Classical guitars; Flamenco guitars; Steel stringCopatasto - it is used for changing pitch of open
guitars (include the flat top or `folk` guitar); Twelvestrings.