Guitar GMO (Full Article)

Guitar (Fr. guitare; Ger. Gitarre; It. chitarra; Sp. guitarra; Port. viola; Brazilian Port.
violão)
Guitar (Fr. guitare; Ger. Gitarre; It. chitarra; Sp. guitarra; Port. viola;
Brazilian Port. violão)
Thomas F. Heck, Harvey Turnbull, Paul Sparks, James Tyler, Tony Bacon, Oleg V. Timofeyev and Gerhard Kubik
https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.43006
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001
Thomas F. Heck
A string instrument of the lute family, plucked or strummed, and normally with frets along the
fingerboard. It is difficult to define precisely what features distinguish guitars from other members of the
lute family, because the name ‘guitar’ has been applied to instruments exhibiting a wide variation in
morphology and performing practice. The modern classical guitar has six strings, a wooden resonating
chamber with incurved sidewalls and a flat back. Although its earlier history includes periods of neglect as
far as art music is concerned, it has always been an instrument of popular appeal, and has become an
internationally established concert instrument endowed with an increasing repertory. In the Hornbostel
and Sachs classification system the guitar is a ‘composite chordophone’ of the lute type (seeLute, §1,
andChordophone).
1. Structure of the modern guitar.

Harvey Turnbull and Paul Sparks
Fig.1 shows the parts of the modern classical guitar. In instruments of the highest quality these have
traditionally been made of carefully selected woods: the back and sidewalls of Brazilian rosewood, the neck
cedar and the fingerboard ebony; the face or table, acoustically the most important part of the instrument,
is of spruce, selected for its resilience, resonance and grain (closeness of grain is considered important,
and a good table will have a grain count about 5 or 6 per cm). The table and back are each composed of two
symmetrical sections, as is the total circumference of the sidewalls. The table is supported by struts of
Sitka spruce, which contribute greatly to the quality of sound. Over-extraction of many of these woods led
to a global shortage at the end of the 20th century, and luthiers, having exhausted their old stocks, turned
to alternative materials. Indian rosewood and maple were often used instead of Brazilian rosewood (trade
of which was banned throughout the world), the table was sometimes made from Canadian or western red
cedar (acid rain and war in the Balkans having affected supplied of European spruce), mahogany from
Honduras and Brazil was occasionally used for the neck, and African blackwood was being considered as a
substitute for ebony.
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Guitar (Fr. guitare; Ger. Gitarre; It. chitarra; Sp. guitarra; Port. viola; Brazilian Port. violão)
Exploded diagram of a modern guitar showing the Spanish and dovetail (see inset) methods of construction; the fan-strutting is in
the traditional Torres pattern
The traditional arrangement has the struts radiating from below the soundhole under the lower part of the
table; hence the term ‘fan-strutting’. Various other patterns have resulted from experiments by different
makers: some makers use a much thinner soundboard and a grid pattern of fine longitudinal struts with a
smaller number of larger lateral struts, creating a membrane supported by a delicate but strong grid;
others prefer a diagonal grid of struts (which include carbon fibre for extra strength). As high sound
quality has been achieved by several of these makers, it is clear that one cannot speak of a standard
Page 2 of 54

strutting pattern; whatever the pattern, the table must be allowed to vibrate adequately. Vibrations of the
strings are transmitted to the table by a rosewood bridge, which also acts as lower string fastener. The
lower vibrating length of each string is determined by an ivory or bone saddle in the bridge and by a nut,
also ivory or bone, at the upper end. The frets (usually 19), giving a total range of three and a half octaves,
are of nickel silver. The three upper strings are made of nylon, the three lower of nylon strands overspun
with fine metal. Tuning is effected by rear pegs activating a geared mechanism that turns the bone or nylon
rollers. The standard tuning is E–A–d–g–b–e′. Guitar music is notated an octave higher than it sounds.
There are two methods of joining the neck to the body – the ‘Spanish method’ and the ‘dovetail
method’ (fig.1). In the former the neck is projected into the body, and the sidewalls are slotted into the heel
of the neck, while in the latter the body is completed first and the neck fitted into the top block. The
Spanish method is more difficult to achieve but results in a stronger joint between neck and body and is
hence preferable as this is an area of great tension. Modern guitar decoration is limited to a wooden mosaic
inlay surrounding the soundhole; the inlay may be repeated in the bridge but the bridge more often has
ivory, wood or synthetic purfling, which is also functional as it protects the wood from the pressure of the
strings. Typical measurements for a guitar are: overall length 98 cm; string length 65 or 66 cm; width at
the lower bout 37 cm, at the waist 24 cm, and at the upper bout 28 cm; body length 48·5 cm; nut to body 30
cm; depth at the lower bout 10 cm, at the upper bout 9·5 cm.
2. Origins.
There has been much speculation on the origin of the guitar, and several theories have been proposed to
account for its presence in Europe. Some have regarded it as a remote development from the Ancient Greek
kithara – as suggested by the etymological relationship of ‘kithara’ and ‘guitar’; others have seen guitar
ancestors among the long-necked lutes of early Mesopotamia and Anatolia or in the flat-backed ‘Coptic
lutes’ of Egypt. One subject of disagreement has been whether the guitar was of indigenous European
development or was instead among the instruments introduced into medieval Europe by the Arabs; but the
application of the name ‘guitar’, with its overtones of European musical practice, to ancient and oriental
lutes betrays a superficial acquaintance with the instruments concerned.
Short-necked lutes, among which the European guitar is classed, appeared many centuries later than the
long-necked type. The earliest representations of the guitar shape in a short-necked lute appeared in
Central Asia in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. From that time until the 4th century CE Central Asian lutes
were of many kinds; the guitar shape is found in examples dating from the 1st to the 4th century CE. The
type is not met again until its appearance in Byzantine miniatures of the 11th century as a bowed
instrument, and from this time the guitar form was similarly depicted in medieval iconography
(seeFiddle). Plucked lutes appeared in a variety of shapes in the Middle Ages; some citoles (which were
plucked with a plectrum) approach guitar shape and are depicted with frets (seeCitole).
The history of the guitar in Europe can be traced back to the Renaissance. Guitars from this period were
constructed with both curved and flat backs and the main identifying feature of the Renaissance guitar is
the characteristic outline of its frontal aspect, a shape it shared with the vihuela.
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Instrument names related to ‘guitar’ occur in medieval literature from the 13th century onwards, but many
are now thought to refer to the gittern, which differed in several respects from the Renaissance guitar (for
a discussion of some of these early names, seeGittern). However, the late 15th-century gittern was,
according to Tinctoris (c1487), tuned 4th–major 3rd–4th, a tuning used also for the contemporary four-
course lute and some four-course guitars. Iconographical evidence suggests that the extension of the
range of the European lute dates from the beginning of the 15th century (paired strings having been
introduced in the 14th). A fifth course was added in the treble, and later in the 15th century a sixth course
was added in the bass, resulting – to judge partly by 16th-century musical evidence – in the tuningG/g–c/
c′–f/f′–a/a–d′/d′–g′. This interval pattern, but with all the courses tuned at unison, was shared by the
vihuela de mano, which replaced the lute in Spain. ‘Vihuela’ was first qualified by de mano (finger-plucked)
in the 15th century; earlier related names were Vihuela de peñola and vihuela de arco. It seems clear that the
finger-plucked vihuela was an adaptation of the guitar-shaped bowed instrument. The basic form was
retained, but features better suited to a plucked instrument were adopted, namely a lute-type bridge and a
central rose.
It was also during the 15th century that the Renaissance four-course guitar appeared, an instrument which
had much in common with the lute and the vihuela. The strong influence from these two instruments is
attributable to their artistic superiority to the guitar: the wider range afforded by their extra strings would
have allowed more ambitious music to be played on or composed for them. Depictions of the four-course
guitar from various regions have enough in common to indicate that a single type of instrument had been
established in general usage; the complete outline of the guitar is apparent in them all, as are the central
rose, the lute-type bridge and frets. In 16th-century depictions the guitarist’s right hand approaches the
strings from above; no plectrum is used (as this would not allow polyphonic music to be realized). One of
the four-course guitar tunings had doublings at the upper octave in the lowest course. Other features of the
lute that appeared in the guitar were the rose, the bridge (fixed to the table) and the rounded, ribbed back.
The flat back was shared with the vihuela, as was the waisted frontal outline (for illustrations, seeVihuela).
3. The four-course guitar

James Tyler
(Fr. guiterre, guiterne; It. chitarrino, chitarra da sette corde, chitarra Napolitana; Sp. guitarra de quatro ordines).
16th-century guitars were much smaller than the modern instrument, and the four-course instrument
could be described as a treble guitar. Juan Bermudo (El libro llamado Declaración de instrumentos
musicales(Osuna, 1555/R, chap. lxv) described the guitar as smaller (mas corto) than the vihuela and this is
borne out both by contemporary iconography (fig.2) and by the technical requirements for the left hand in
much of the surviving music. In the 16th century even five-course guitars (as opposed to the five-course
vihuelas described by Bermudo) seem to have been small instruments. The length of a five-course guitar
made by Belchior Dias in 1581 (Royal College of Music, London) is only 76·5 cm. Other features of the 16th-
century instrument – shared by other plucked instruments of the period – were a rose, often of intricate
construction, instead of an open soundhole; gut frets tied round the neck (eight to ten frets seems most
usual); and a bridge set low in the table (this allows the Dias guitar to have a vibrating string length of 55·4
cm).
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The basic interval pattern of the gut strings was 4th–major 3rd–4th; there was, however, a variety of
tunings applied to the courses. Bermudo described and gave letter names for tunings which result in the
following: g′/g–c′/c′–e′/e′–a′ (temple nuevos) and f′/f–c′c′–e′/e′–a′ (temple viejos). He said that the old
tuning (viejos) was better for ‘old romances and strummed music’, and that the new tuning should be
preferred for ‘modern music’. (The old tuning is found in contemporary French guitar books as ‘à corde
avalée’,see Cordes avallées). Both the old and new tunings have the fourth course in octaves; the lower, and
thicker, of the pair of strings is called a ‘bordón’ by the Spanish and a ‘bourdon’ by the French. The
particular stringing arrangement of the fourth course (with the lowest string closest to the third course) is
deduced from internal evidence of the instrument’s full repertory, and is corroborated both by similar
evidence for the five-course guitar (see §4) and the survival of this practice in folk guitars from Spain,
Portugal, Brazil etc. Not all music sources require this lower string. Scipione Cerreto (Della prattica musica,
Naples 1601/R) gave a totally re-entrant tuning with no lower octave on the fourth course: g′/g′–d′/d′–f♯′/
f♯′–b′, that is, Bermudo’s temple viejos intervals but a tone higher. This tuning is corroborated by an
anonymous print of 1645, Conserto vago, a suite of pieces for a trio consisting of guitar, lute and theorbo, in
which the guitar has to be tuned as above in order to comply with the normal tunings of the other two
instruments.
In addition to guitar tunings, Bermudo provided information about how pre-existing vocal and
instrumental music could be intabulated for the guitar. He noted (f.xxixv), that one could imagine
(ymaginar) guitars, vihuelas etc. tuned to any desired pitch level, so that even if the written pitches did not
happen to fit the actual tuning of the instrument, they would still fit comfortably on the fingerboard. In
other words, one could transpose the music to fit on one’s instrument. Many modern editors have
misunderstood this practical instruction, and have produced editions in which the music is transcribed
into unlikely pitches. Bermudo went on to advise the beginner to make fingerboard diagrams for various
pitch levels to aid in making intabulations (f.xcviv). It seems clear from his discussion that one size of
instrument tuned to one actual pitch level was intended for all the music, and not different size guitars and
pitches.
Most of the evidence of iconography, music sources and tuning instructions indicate that the four-course
guitar was a small, treble instrument; however, fragments of An Instruction to the Gitterne (almost certainly
a translation and edition by James Rowbotham (London, c1569) of Adrian Le Roy’s lost Briefve et facile
instruction pour … la guiterne, Paris, 1551), gives the tuning pitches in staff notation as c–f–a–d′. If taken
literally, this implies a larger four-course guitar. Michael Praetorius (PraetoriusSM, ii), who is likely to have
consulted one of these prints, cites the same pitches. But as this is the only evidence for a larger
instrument, the possibility of a printing error in the Rowbotham print must be considered. The C clef in the
tuning chart appears on the fourth line, but may have been intended for the second; in which case, the
tuning would be the same as Bermudo’s temple nuevos. Certainly, all present evidence suggests that from
the mid-17th century the term ‘gittern’ was used in England to refer to a small, treble instrument
(although, by this time, but not before, there is evidence that it may have pertained to a wire-strung,
cittern-like instrument).
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In the performance of polyphonic music guitar technique was similar to that of the lute and vihuela; the
right hand was supported by the little finger resting on the bridge or on the table, and the production of
sound was generally achieved by the thumb and first two fingers plucking the strings. Such a position was
made possible by the low height of the strings over the table, which itself lay flush with the fingerboard.
Music was notated in tablature. The various systems used four lines to represent the courses; in music
printed in Spain and Italy the lowest line represents the highest-sounding course (establishing a physical
correspondence between the instrument in playing position and the music), while this is reversed in
French sources (establishing an intellectual relationship between the highest line and the higher sounds).
The Spanish and Italian systems use numbers to indicate the frets to be stopped (0, open string; 1, first fret
etc.); the French system uses letters (a, open string; b, first fret etc.). Rhythm is indicated by note values
above the ‘staff’; these follow the quickest-moving part, so longer-held notes have to be inferred by the
performer. Although Bermudo gave advice on locating notes that might not be obtainable in some
positions because of ostensibly Pythagorean tuning systems, guitar tablature is actually based on a
temperament with most of the semitones equal in size.
The earliest surviving music for the four-course guitar appears in Alonso Mudarra’s Tres libros de musica en
cifras para vihuela (Seville, 1546/R): four fantasies (one in the viejos tuning), a ‘pavana’ and a setting of O
guardame las vacas, which uses the romanesca ground. The music is of the same high quality as Mudarra’s
vihuela music, which comprises the bulk of the collection. The earliest Italian source is Melchiore de
39
Barberiis’s lutebook Opera intitolata contina … Intabolatura di lauto … libro decimo (1549 ) in which are
found four ‘fantasias’ for guitar. These are actually light dance pieces; one of them was reprinted by
34
Guillaume Morlaye (1553 ) as a ‘branle’.
Typical four-course guitar: title-page of Guillaume Morlaye’s ‘Premier livre de chansons … en tablature de guiterne’ (Paris: Granjon,
1552); note the small size of the guitar in comparison with the book on which it rests
St. Gallen, Kantonsbibl. (Verdiana), Vad. Slg. P3050

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St. Gallen, Kantonsbibl. (Verdiana), Vad. Slg. P3050
It was in France that music for the four-course instrument flourished. Beginning with the (lost) first book
of Guillaume Morlaye (1550), a series of guitar books published by the printers Granjon and Fezandat
34
included music by Morlaye (book 1, RISM 1552³²/R, see fig.2; book 2, 1553 /R (Fezandat alone); book 4,
1552³³/R(Fezandat alone)) and Simon Gorlier (book 3, 1551²²/R). A concurrent series was published by the
printers Le Roy and Ballard with music by Le Roy (book 1, 1551²³/R; book 2, 1555/R; book 3, 1552/R; book 5,
1554³³/R) and Grégoire Brayssing (book 4, 1553/R). The repertory in these publications comprises a wide
range of material from simple dance settings and intabulations of chansons to rather fine fantasias. Some
of the dance settings have virtuoso divisions and the fantasias include four by the famous lutenist Alberto
da Ripa which compare favourably with his best lute fantasias. Le Roy’s second and fifth books are entirely
for solo voice and guitar. Among Spanish sources Miguel de Fuenllana’s vihuela collection Orphenica lyra
(Seville 1554/R) also contains guitar music, including Juan Vasquez’s Covarde cavalleroand a romance,
Passavase el rey moro, both for voice and guitar (the vocal line is indicated by red ciphers within the
tablatures). There are also six fantasias and a setting of ‘Crucifixus est’. In England and elsewhere the
four-course instrument also enjoyed some popularity. In addition to Rowbotham’s An Instruction to the
Gittern, there are some English lute manuscript sources which contain samples of four-course guitar
tablature (GB-Lbl Stowe 389; GB-Lbl Add.30513; US-NH‘Braye lutebook’ (ed. in Ward, B1992)). Phalèse,
35
who was active in Leuven, printed two collections for the instrument (1570 , 1573, lost). Much of the
music in the first book was taken from the earlier French publications. The instrument was widely used in
Italy, and a number of Italian manuscript sources from the late 16th and early 17th centuries survive in
European libraries. (For an extensive listing of guitar sources see Tyler, A1980, pp.123–52).
Although the four-course instrument is generally regarded as a Renaissance guitar because of its 16th-
century repertory, it continued to be widely used, mainly for playing popular music, throughout the 17th
and 18th centuries. Agostino Agazzari (Del sonare sopra ’l basso, Siena, 1607) recommended its use in a
continuo ensemble; the 1645 Conserto vagocollection has already been mentioned. Pietro Millioni (Corona
del primo, secondo, e terzo libro, Rome, 1631) provided a chord chart for the four-course as well as for the
larger, five-course guitar, and thus provided a clue as to its use in the enormous repertory of strummed
guitar music. In London, John Playford published A Booke of New Lessons for the Cithern and Gittern (?2/
1652), half of which is devoted to English popular tunes arranged for a small instrument tuned to guitar
intervals. It is not clear whether this instrument, the gittern, is wire-strung like the cittern or whether the
term ‘gittern’ was still used at this late date to indicate the guitar.
All known editions of Joan Carles Amat’s Guitarra españolafrom 1626 to c1819 (1st edn, ?1596, lost) contain
a chapter on the four-course guitar, indicating perhaps the little instrument’s continued, if limited, use
into the 19th century. In Spanish and Portuguese cultures, both in the Old and New Worlds, small treble
guitars have been in use and continue in use to the present day. The modern ukulele tuning g′–c′–e′–a′ is
the same as Bermudo’s tuning (without a bordón), and the alternative ukulele tuning a′—d′–f♯–b′ is
remarkably similar to Cerreto’s re-entrant tuning of 1601.
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4. The five-course guitar

James Tyler
(It. chitarra spagnuola; Sp. guitarra). Iconographic sources confirm that five-course guitar-like instruments
were in use from at least the end of the 15th century, especially in Italy. The Italian term ‘viola’ was applied
to these as well as to instruments with six and seven courses. The terms ‘viola’ and ‘viola da mano’ (and
their Spanish equivalent ‘vihuela’) were often used generally to mean instruments of this general type and
shape; sometimes the small four-course instrument was also included. Fuenllana (f.IV), for example,
wrote about the ‘vihuela de Quatro Ordenes, Que Dizen Guitarra’. He also printed the earliest known music
for a five-course instrument (‘vihuela de cinco ordenes’), fantasies and vocal intabulations that require an
instrument tuned to guitar intervals (starting from the fifth course; 4th–4th–major 3rd–4th), though he
made no mention of specific pitches or stringing. Bermudo referred to a ‘guitarra de cinco ordenes’, saying
that one could be made by adding to the four-course guitar a string a 4th above the existing first course
(f.xxviiiv). He also described new and unusual tunings for it as well as for a ‘guitarra grande’ of six courses
and for the four-course instrument. No music survives for any of these tunings. The previously described
Dias guitar could be an example of Bermudo’s ‘guitarra de cinco ordenes’ (later Italian sources call this
type of small instrument a ‘chitarriglia’).
A French source, the drawings of Jacques Cellier (Recherches de plusieurs singularités, c1583–7; F-Pn fonds
fr.9152), shows a four-course instrument (seven strings) with a tuning chart for a five-course instrument:
g–c/c′–e–a–d′ (octave stringing is shown only for the fourth course). This re-entrant tuning would be, if
the third course were raised a semitone, a typical stringing arrangement (with its bourdon on the fourth
course) for the playing of much of the later Italian and French ‘art’ music written for the guitar. A first
course at d′ was fairly common (see, for example, Benedetto Sanseverino, Intavolatura facile (Milan, 1620)),
though a first course at e′ was to become the standard. Spanish sources often recommended bordónes on
both the fourth and fifth courses, especially if the guitar was to be used only for strumming. The earliest
known edition of Amat’s booklet on the guitar (1626) gives the following tuning:A/a–d/d′–g/g–b/b–e′;
one assumes that the lost first edition (?1596) gave the same information.
From the 17th century, tuning information frequently indicated no bourdons at all. This produced a totally
re-entrant tuning: a/a–d′/d′–g/g–b/b–e′ with the lowest pitch that of the third course (see, for example,
Luis de Briçeño:Método … para aprender a tañer la guitara a lo español (Paris, 1626/R); Marin Mersenne:
Harmonie universelle, ii (Paris, 1636–7/R); Francesco Valdambrini:Libro primo d’intavolatura di chitarra
(Rome, 1646), Libro secondo (Rome, 1647); Antoine Carré: Livre de guitarre(Paris, 1671/R); Gaspar Sanz:
Instruccíon de música sobre la guitarra española (Zaragoza, 3/1674)). Two Italian sources for this re-entrant
tuning offer another variant: a/a–d′/d–g/g′–b/b–e′ with an upper octave on the third course (I-MOe
Campori 612.X.L.10.21 and I-Bc AA360). The most common modification to the re-entrant type tuning was
a/a–d′/d′–g/g–b/b–e′ which, judging by the musical requirements of their tablatures, was used by the
leading composers of guitar solos of the time: Francesco Corbetta, Angelo Michele Bartolotti, Giovanni
Battista Granata, Robert de Visée (ex.1), Ludovico Roncalli, and others.
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Ex.1 Robert de Visée: Suite no.9 (Livre de pièces pour la guittare, 1686)
The reason for these re-entrant tunings becomes clear from the original tablatures: in much of the ‘art’
music for guitar (as opposed to exclusively strummed music), the high, re-entrant fifth course was used
melodically in scale passage-work in conjunction with the other treble courses; rarely was the fifth course
used as a bass. The fourth course too was used most often in the same fashion as the fifth. A typical idiom
was that which Sanz called ‘campanelas’ (little bells): as many open strings as possible were employed in
the notes of scale passages, so that the notes rang on, one melting into the next in the manner of a harp or
bells (see ex.2). Even when a bourdon was used on the fourth course the stringing arrangement was
technically important, with the upper octave string placed nearest the fifth course and the bourdon nearest
the third course; this allowed the player the choice of striking the upper of the pair alone (needed most
frequently), or including the bourdon when the music required the lower octave. This stringing was
mentioned by Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz, Antonio Stradivari and Denis Diderot among others and is shown in a
number of iconographical sources.
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Ex.2 Gaspar Sanz: ‘Canarios’, Instrucción de música, i (1674)
It was up to the player to decide which of the variety of possible tunings and stringings was suitable for
each source of music; this was not always easy. In general, the sources for exclusively strummed music
could be used with any tuning because questions of proper chord inversions and harmonic niceties were
rarely touched upon in this repertory. For much of the mixed style of guitar music, which used Punteado
(It. pizzicato) technique, some strummed chords (Sp. Rasgueado; It. Battuto, battente), and frequent
campanela passages (found in the most important Italian and French sources), a re-entrant tuning, usually
with a bourdon on the fourth course, was suitable. Occasional sources such as Francisco Guerau’s Poema
harmónico (Madrid, 1694/R) seem to require bourdons on the fourth and the fifth courses.
With its unique tunings and its emphasis on brighter, higher-ranged music, in an idiom generally quite
unlike that of the lute or any other plucked instrument of the time, the five-course guitar was very
different from the modern guitar. Only from the middle of the 18th century did the character of the guitar
begin to approach that of the instrument we know today in its development of a bass range and its playing
technique. Average measurements of the five-course Baroque guitar were: overall length 92 cm; string
length 63–70 cm; widths 20 cm–17 cm–24 cm; depth varied according to whether the back was flat or
rounded (vaulted). The five-course guitar retained features of the smaller, four-course instrument, but
curved pegboxes with laterally inserted pegs no longer appeared.
Although many guitars had rounded backs, this feature alone does not identify the later, special type of
guitar known today by its 19th-century name, the chitarra battente. Developed in the mid-18th century
along the lines of the newly perfected Neapolitan mandolin, the instrument usually had a deeply vaulted
back, but metal rather than gut strings and frets. The strings passed over a movable bridge and were fixed
at the bottom of the body. Like the Neapolitan mandolin, the table of the chitarra battente was canted
downwards from the bridge instead of being completely flat as on the gut-strung guitar. Although it
generally had paired strings, thechitarra battente could also have three strings to a course. It seems to have
been used primarily for popular music accompaniments, and was probably played with a plectrum. There is
no known repertory for it, although the parts in alfabeto notation for the ‘chitarr’ a battendo’ that
accompanies the ‘chitarr’ a penna’ (an eight-course instrument most likely to have been a Neapolitan
mandolone) in a mid-18th century, possibly Neapolitan manuscript may be for the chitarra battente (I-Mc
Noseda 48A).
Many Baroque guitars have survived, particularly the highly decorated ones, which were more likely to be
preserved by collectors than the plainer models. A survey of contemporary pictures reveals that
instruments made of plain woods and with relatively little decoration were more common. In museum
collections there are many instruments by makers such as Matteo and Giorgio Sellas, Giovanni Tessler,
René and Alexander Voboam, Joachim Tielke and Antonio Stradivari. The two surviving instruments by
Stradivari are beautifully proportioned with little decoration, though their plainness has been heightened
over the years by the removal of decorative details such as the traditional ‘moustaches’ on either side of
the bridge.
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The earliest notation specifically for the five-course guitar dates from the latter part of the 16th century,
when a new symbol system developed to represent complete, five-note chords. It seems to have first
appeared in an Italian manuscript (I-Bu 177 iv), which contains the top parts of madrigals and canzonettas
from the 1580s by such composers as Marenzio and Vecchi. There, lower case letters of the alphabet
representing specific chords are found about the words and at places where there are changes in the
harmony. Other early Italian sources (all song manuscripts) include one supposedly copied c1595 by
Francesco Palumbi (F-Pn Español 390), and one dated 1599 (I-RvatChigiani L.VI.200). These contain
mostly Spanish texts, but use the Italian letter (alfabeto) notation. There are some Spanish sources for the
chord system, e.g. Amat’s (lost) booklet of 1596 (and its 17th-century reprints) and Briçeño (1626), in
which the chords are symbolized by numbers instead of letters. The number notation is rarely
encountered, while Italianalfabeto became the standard chord notation. Radically different from any
previous type of notation, this system, which implied that the performer was to think only in terms of
vertical block harmonies (as modern rhythm guitarists do), developed in conjunction with the rise of
Italian monody. Indeed, some of the earliest manuscript sources of monody by such composers as Peri and
Caccini (for example, I-Fc Codex Barbera G.F.83) contain alfabeto. It is, perhaps, significant also that in the
1589 Florentine intermedi, a major landmark in the development of the new monodic style, two guitars
were used in Cavalieri’s famous Ballo del Gran Duca, a piece which remained popular for at least another
century.
The first appearance in print of the alfabeto system was Girolamo Montesardo’s Nuova inventione
d’intavolatura per sonare li balletti sopra la chitarra spagnuola, senza numeri e note (Florence, 1606). During
the early 17th century an abundance of guitar books appeared in print using only this system for strummed
chord solos (many of the pieces could also be considered accompaniment parts for use in ensembles). The
important writers of alfabeto books were: Foriano Pico (1608), G.A. Colonna (1620, 1623, 1637),
Sanseverino (1620), Carlo Milanuzzi (1622, 1623, 1625), Millioni (1624, 1627), Millioni and Lodovico Monte
(c1627, 1637, 1644, etc.), G.B. Abatessa (1627, 1635, c1650, 1652), G.P. Foscarini (1629), Tomaso Marchetti
(1635), Corbetta (1639), Agostino Trombetti (1639), Antonio Carbonchi (1643), Carlo Calvi (1646),
Giovanni Bottazzari (1663), Giovanni Pietro Ricci (1677) and Antonio di Michele (1680); for full details of
second and subsequent editions of many of these collections see Tyler, A1980, pp.123–58. The last known
alfabeto book was an edition of Millioni and Monte’s 1637 book in 1737.
In addition to the alfabeto sources of guitar solos, there is an enormous body of publications of Italian arias
employing the guitar as the instrument to accompany the voice. In this repertory are found publications by
many of the major vocal composers of the time, such as Stefano Landi (1620, 1627) and Sigismondo d’India
(1621, 1623), and several books by Andrea Falconieri, G.G. Kapsperger, Milanuzzi, G.B. Vitali, Biagio Marini,
Guglielmo Miniscalchi, Allessandro Grandi (i), and others. In the collections with contributions by various
7
composers are found five arias by Monteverdi (Milanuzzi, 1624, RISM 1634 ) all unique to these prints, as
16 7
well as arias by Frescobaldi (VogelB 1621²), Domenico Mazzocchi (RISM 1621 ) and Cavalli (RISM 1634 ).
The subject of guitar accompaniment in this important 17th-century aria repertory has yet to be studied
thoroughly, and the role of the guitar as a widely used continuo instrument has not been sufficiently
stressed.
Page 11 of 54

Technique of playing the guitar near the bridge (for punteado playing), and above the rose (for strumming): two sketches of a
guitarist by Antoine Watteau, chalk, early 18th century (British Museum, London)
In addition to devising accompaniments from the harmonic indications of thealfabeto, 17th-century

guitarists also learnt to read and improvise aContinuo accompaniment from the bass line (both with and
without figures). Although the Baroque guitar was often unable to sound the true bass note because of its
tunings, an idiomatic continuo accompaniment could be realized for the proper harmonies. The true bass
line was played by an appropriate instrument such as a theorbo or cello. The preface of most of the aria
books gives a chart instructing the guitarist on how to read from the bass, but many of the books of solos
give far more detailed instructions. Corbetta’s books of 1643 and 1648 give continuo-playing information,
as do Foscarini’s of 1640. Sanz devoted an entire section of his book to guitar continuo playing and
Santiago de Murcia’s Resumen de acompañar la parte con la guitarra (Madrid, 1717/R) was, as its title
suggests, in large part devoted to instruction in guitar continuo playing. But the most thorough and
extensive instructions of all appeared in Nicola Matteis’s Le false consonanse della musica(London, c1680)
and the later English edition The False Consonances of Musick (1682/R). This tutor for guitar continuo
playing is one of the most useful and detailed of any 17th century continuo treatise for any instrument
(including keyboard).
As well as the strummed style of guitar music found in the alfabetosources of the early 17th century, a new
style of guitar music began to appear in print from about 1630 with Foscarini’s second and third books
(published together, n.d.). Although one of the chief assets of the guitar was its ability to play block chords
in a rhythmic strumming style (this was considered to be the true idiom of the guitar), Foscarini adapted
lute tablature and technique in combination with the strummed chords to arrive at a mixed style of solo
guitar writing. In his preface he was apologetic about the lute-like elements. It was this new mixed style
that was used by the finest guitar composers of the 17th century and the early 18th. Although Corbetta
included some very fine solos in his 1639 book, it was A.M. Bartolotti who, in 1640, produced the first fully
developed, masterful examples of the new idiom, and his second book (c1655) contained some of the finest
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Baroque guitar music of the 17th century. It was Corbetta, however, who became the best-known Italian
guitar composer, with his publications of 1643 and 1648, which contained music of the highest order. Other
major Italian writers for the guitar were Granata (1646, c1650, 1651, 1659, 1674, 1680, 1684), Valdambrini
(1646, 1647), Domenico Pellegrini (1650), Francesco Asioli (1674, 1676), Matteis (c1680, 1682) and
Roncalli (1692). It is ironic that, although the guitar was known as a Spanish instrument, it was in Italy
that its repertory was first developed.
In France the five-course guitar was not held in high esteem initially. Both Mersenne and Pierre Trichet
referred to it in disparaging terms, and the general opposition is mentioned in Briçeño’s Método… para
aprender a tañer la guitara (1626), a work advocating the chordal style of performance. Briçeño’s book did
not succeed in popularizing the instrument, and only later in the century did further publications appear.
These reflect an interest in the guitar in court circles engendered by Corbetta, whose La guitarre royalle of
1674 was dedicated to Louis XIV. Although the rasgueado style is a strong feature of the pieces in the book,
the alphabet has been abandoned and greater freedom achieved by indicating the notes of the chords
individually. Corbetta was succeeded by Robert de Visée (?c1655–1732/3), who was formally appointed
guitar tutor to the king in 1719. His Livre de guittarre dédié au roy was published in 1682, and a second work,
Livres de pièces pour la guittarre, appeared in 1686; both contain suites of various length, made up of an
introductory prelude followed by dances – allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue, passacaille and others.
Visée also produced a collection of pieces for theorbo and lute, and left a number of works in manuscript.
Rémy Médard, in his Pièces de guitarre(1676), acknowledged his debt to Corbetta, who taught him, but like
Visée he cultivated a more delicate style. A concern with melodic and contrapuntal movement is also
evident in Nouvelles découvertes sur la guitare(op.1, 1705) by François Campion (c1685–1747).
Corbetta’s first La guitarre royalle (1671; fig.4) was dedicated to Charles II of England, who was an
enthusiastic performer. The guitar was extremely fashionable in England; Corbetta, who went to England
in the early 1660s and counted many of the nobility among his pupils. However, some distaste for the
instrument was expressed, and Pepys, for one, held the guitar in low esteem. (The inclusion in Pepys’s
library, which survives intact in Cambridge (GB-Cmc), of a manuscript by guitar tutor Cesare Morelli, and
the evidence of his own compositions for guitar and voice (written out for him by Morelli), suggests,
however, that he was eventually won over by the instrument.) The distinction drawn by William Turner (i)
in 1697 between the ‘brushing way’ and the ‘pinching way’ indicates that, as well as Corbetta’s more
complex music, there was no lack of strumming in England. Indeed it is likely that a lost work, Easie
Lessons on the Guitar for Young Practitioners, recorded in 1677 as by Seignior Francisco, was by Corbetta
himself. In 18th-century England the guitar went out of fashion. It was replaced by the English guitar,
which had little in common with the guitar proper, being similar in shape to the cittern and having metal
strings tuned c–e–g–c′–e′–g′.
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Page from Francesco Corbetta’s ‘La guitarre royalle’ (Paris, 1671), engraved by Hiérosme Bonneüil
The five-course guitar was first known in Germany as an instrument for strumming. Praetorius so
described it, but he also related that ‘it can be used to good effect in other graceful cantiunculae and
delightful songs by a good singer’. Later in the century the guitar appeared in consort with the lute,
angélique and viol, accompanying a collection of songs by Jakob Kremberg, Musicalische Gemüths-
Ergötzung (Dresden, 1689).
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Corbetta’s presence in the Netherlands is attested by his Varii scherzi di sonate per la chitara spagnola,
published in Brussels in 1648. The interest engendered by Corbetta was maintained through the 17th
century, although native sources are lacking until the following century, when François le Cocq’s Recueil
des pièces de guitarre appeared (c1729). As well as Le Cocq’s compositions, the collection contains works by
Corbetta, Sanz, Visée, Granata and other 17th-century guitarists (added by Jean-Baptiste Castillon, to
whom Le Cocq had dedicated the book). A mid-18th-century manuscript collection from the Netherlands is
the so-calledPrinces An’s Lute Book, for five-course guitar (NL-DHgm4.E.73).
Despite its title, a late 17th-century Spanish source by Antonio de Santa Cruz, Música de vihuela (E-Mn M.
2209), is not to be compared with the 16th-century vihuela books, as its contents consist of 17th-century
Spanish dances notated in five-line tablature. It includes the chord alphabet and was obviously intended
for the five-course guitar. The most important source of guitar music in 17th-century Spain is the
Instrucciónby Gaspar Sanz, eight editions of which appeared between 1674 and 1697. Sanz, in his preface,
states that he went to Italy to study music and became an organist in Naples. He later went to Rome where
he studied the guitar with an important composer of the time, Lelio Colista (some of whose guitar music
survives in B-Bc, littera S no.5615). He also states that he studied the works of Foscarini, Granata and
Corbetta. There are many Italian as well as Spanish dance pieces in his publications and he employs a
mature and fully integrated style of mixed writing with an equal balance of strummed chords and punteado
style, especially in his later passacalles of 1697.
The Luz y norte musical (Madrid, 1677) by Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz is a work devoted to the guitar and the
harp; most of the guitar music was plagiarized from Sanz. Guerau’s book of 1694 is notable for containing
music in an almost totally punteado style, quite different from Sanz and the majority of other guitar
composers. Other Spanish sources are Santiago de Murcia’s Resumen (1714), his manuscript Passacalles y
obras(1732, GB-Lbl Add.31640) and his manuscript collection of dance variations (Archive of Elisa Osorio
Bolio de Saldívar, Mexico City, Codice Saldívar, 4), which contains music of a very high standard; Murcia’s
own prelidios tend to be both original and masterful, though a study of concordances reveals that the
majority of pieces in these two works are actually arrangements of French court music, many of pieces by
Lully as well as Le Cocq and Corbetta.
The music for the five-course guitar discussed so far can be regarded as the ‘classical’ repertory for the
late Renaissance and Baroque instrument. On the whole, this music calls for the characteristic re-entrant
tunings that were so important to the playing style and idioms employed during these periods and which
made the guitar unique. But the nature of the guitar changed noticeably in the middle of the 18th century,
along with musical styles in general. The change seems to have occurred first in France, where the guitar
began to be used primarily to accompany the voice, using an arpeggiated style similar to that of keyboard
instruments. The new style required true bass notes and as early as 1764 (Journal de musique, April)
instructions for proper accompaniments stressed the use of a bourdon on the fifth course. The appearance
of many guitar tutors in France between 1763 and c1800, all for a five-course guitar tuned A/a–d/d′–g/g–b
/b–e′, as well as the gradual abandonment of tablature in favour of staff notation, leaves little doubt that
the guitar was becoming an instrument much closer in character and playing styles to the modern guitar
than to the Baroque instrument. Soon, even the double courses in octaves were abandoned in favour of
single strings and, as early as 1785, a sixth string was indicated (Etrennes de Polymnie, Paris, 1785, p.148).
Page 15 of 54

Historical statements referring to the guitar as an easy instrument should be treated with caution. Such a
dismissive attitude is valid only when it is directed towards the guitar at its simplest level. The judgment is
certainly not true in the context of art music, where textures more complex than a series of chord patterns
demand accuracy of fingering and a high degree of coordination. These are of particular importance for the
Baroque five-course guitar, which, though first used as a popular instrument, later gave rise to a literature
that presents textures similar to those of the lute. Five-course guitar music has yet to be heard widely on
the instrument for which it was written. Performance on the modern guitar is only an approximation of the
original sound, as modern stringing and tuning does not allow the music to be realized faithfully.
5. The early six-string guitar.

The transition from the Baroque five-course guitar to a recognizably modern instrument with six single
strings took place gradually during the second half of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th
century in Spain, France and Italy. A deep-bodied instrument in the Gemeentemuseum (The Hague)
labelled ‘Francisco Sanguino, me fecit. En Sevilla año de 1759’ is the earliest known six-course instrument,
and is also notable for pioneering the use of fan-strutting to strengthen the table. Documents relating to
the sale of musical instruments in Spain show that the six-course guitar became increasingly common
from 1760 onwards, steadily superseding the five-course instrument, and was the most common form of
guitar through Iberia by the 1790s. In Paris, the Italian-born guitarist Giacomo Merchi was still
recommending the traditional five double-course in Le guide des écoliers de guitarre (c1761), but by 1777 (in
his Traité des agréments de la musique exécutés sur le guitarre) was advocating ‘my manner of stringing the
guitar with single strings … single strings are easier to put in tune, and to pluck cleanly; moreover, they
render pure, strong and smooth sounds, approaching those of the harp; above all if one uses slightly
thicker strings’. Many of Merchi’s Parisian contemporaries still favoured five double-courses – for
example Bailleux (1773) and Baillon (1781) – while six double-courses remained the standard form of
stringing in Spain well into the 19th century, and it seems to have been guitarists from Italy and southern
France who were primarily responsible for the introduction of single strings, preferring the unambiguous
bass notes that they produced, and initially using them on instruments originally intended for double-
courses. By 1785, makers in Marseilles and Naples were building guitars specifically intended for six single
strings (the often-repeated claim that Naumann, Kapellmeister at Dresden, was responsible for the
addition of the lower E string at some point after 1688 can therefore safely be dismissed), and this new
design gradually came into general use throughout much of Europe.
Changes in the basic instrument were many, and the guitar lost much that it had in common with the lute,
establishing during the early decades of the 19th century the form that was to develop into the modern
guitar. Machine heads were used instead of wooden pegs, fixed frets (first ivory or ebony, then metal)
instead of gut; an open soundhole replaced the rose; the bridge was raised to a higher position (and a
saddle and pins introduced to fasten the strings); and the neck became narrower. The flat back became
standard, and proportions of the instrument changed to allow the positioning of the 12th fret at the
junction of body and neck. Separate fingerboards were introduced, at first flush with the table, later raised
to lie 2 mm or so above it. The rectangular peghead gave way to heads of various designs, often a
Page 16 of 54

distinguishing mark of the maker. Generally, lavish decoration disappeared, though some ornate guitars
were made in the 19th century and the use of fan-strutting was further developed in six-course guitars
made in Cádiz by José Pagés and Josef Benedid. As well as fan-strutting in the lower half of the table, a
cross-strutting system appeared in the part of the table above the soundhole. Other important makers of
this period were René François Lacôte of Paris and Louis Panormo, active in London.
Instruction books reveal that there was no standard approach to playing technique. Earlier traditions
persisted; the right hand was still supported on the table (on some instruments a piece of ebony was let
into the table to prevent wear), although Nicario Jauralde (A Complete Preceptor for the Spanish Guitar)
warned against resting the little finger on the table as this prevents the hand moving for ‘changes in Piano
and Forte’ and inhibits ‘the other fingers acting with Agility’. Right-hand finger movement was still
confined mainly to the thumb and first two fingers. The technique for attacking the strings was normally
tirando, with the fingertips rising after plucking; apoyando, in which the finger brushes past the string and
rests on the string below, was little mentioned and apparently not generally applied. Performers were
divided over whether or not to employ the fingernails in the production of sound; Fernando Sor (1778–
1839), the leading Spanish player, dispensed with nails, while his compatriot, Dionysio Aguado (1784–
1849), employed them. The left-hand thumb was sometimes used to fret notes on the lowest (E) string, a
technique made possible by the narrow fingerboard. The instrument was held in a variety of ways, and was
often supported by a strap round the player’s neck; Aguado even invented a special stand – the tripodion –
on which to rest the instrument.
Tablature was abandoned in the second half of the 18th century, with staff notation superseding it, at first
in instruction books and song accompaniments. The earliest staff notation for guitar evolved in France and
in Italy, the notational conventions for violin music being evident in early solo pieces for 6-string – or, as
it is now known, classical – guitar. The convention of notating guitar music on one staff headed by the G
clef, the actual sounds being an octave below written pitch, is still in use.
The first published music for six-course guitar appeared in Spain in 1780, the date of Obra para guitarra de
seis órdenes by Antonio Ballesteros. Further methods appeared in 1799: Fernando Ferandiere’s Arte de tocar
la guitarra española and Federico Moretti’s Principios para tocar la guitarra de seis órdenes. In this latter
work, Moretti (a Neapolitan in the service of the Spanish court) provides an insight into the difference
between the instruments in general use in Spain and Italy at the end of the 18th century:
although I use the guitar of seven single strings, it seemed more appropriate to accommodate
these Principles to six courses, that being what is generally played in Spain: this same reason
obliged me to publish them in Italian, in 1792, adapted for the guitar with five strings, because at
that time the one with six was not known in Italy.
Both Sor and Aguado were indebted to Moretti for making them aware of the possibility of part-writing for
the guitar, and the two became very active outside their native Spain. Aguado, whose Escuela de guitarra
was published in Madrid in 1825, settled for a while in Paris, but Sor pursued the career of a travelling
recitalist, bringing the guitar to a much wider audience. Before leaving Spain, Sor had acquired some
reputation as a composer; his opera Telemaco nell’isola di Calipsowas successfully staged in Barcelona in
Page 17 of 54

1796. In Madrid, Sor’s patron was the Duchess of Alba. Also living in Madrid was Boccherini, who, inspired
by the enthusiasm of his patron, the Marquis of Benavente, made arrangements of several of his quintets
to include the guitar.
Sor left Spain in 1813, a move dictated by the political circumstances, and headed for Paris, where he stayed
for two years. He visited London, where he gave several recitals, returning to Paris for a production of his
ballet Cendrillon. The success of this work enabled him to visit Moscow and St Petersburg, where he played
before the court. He then returned to Paris and, except for a further visit to London, resided there until his
death in 1839. Paris was one of the main centres of interest in the guitar, and several other virtuoso
performers settled there, including Matteo Carcassi (1792–1853) and Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841). The
latter was responsible for L’harmonie appliquée à la guitare (1825), the only known theoretical work for the
instrument of the early 19th century. It is limited in scope, offering not much more than chordal and
arpeggio accompaniment, typical of much guitar music of the period. Paganini abandoned the violin for a
while in favour of the guitar, for which he composed several works. A French guitar made by Grobert bears
the signatures of Paganini and Berlioz. The latter, a competent guitarist, mentioned the instrument briefly
in his Grand traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes op.10 (1843), commenting that ‘it is almost
impossible to write well for the guitar without being a player on the instrument’.
The most important Italian guitarist was Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829). He first achieved fame in Vienna,
where he was established from 1806 to 1819. As well as giving solo recitals, Giuliani appeared with the
pianists Hummel and Moscheles and the violinist Mayseder. In 1819 he returned to Italy, settling in Rome
and later Naples, where he continued to give recitals. His daughter Emilia was also a talented guitarist, and
they performed together in public. Vienna, like Paris, had many enthusiastic guitarists, and much simple
music was published to cater for the demand: Leonhard von Call produced many pieces of this kind, as did
Diabelli. Although Francesco Chabran was teaching (and composing for) the guitar in London during the
late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was not until 1815, with the arrival in London of Sor (and of the Italian
virtuoso Guiseppe Anelli) that enthusiasm for the instrument became widespread. Numerous tutors were
published during the first third of the 19th century (fig.5), and the Giulianiad (one of the earliest journals
devoted to the guitar) appeared in 1833. Although interest waned in the second half of the century, the
publications – into the 1890s – of Mme Sidney Pratten (Catharina Josepha Pelzer), the leading English
performer, reveal that there was still a public for the guitar used in a facile way. During the final decade of
the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, amateur plucked instrument orchestras enjoyed great
popularity throughout Europe and the USA, with dozens of guitars and mandolins (and sometimes banjos)
being used to perform original works and transcriptions of light classical music. Britain, France, Germany,
Italy and the USA had many hundreds of such orchestras, the best of them competing in national and
international festivals.
Page 18 of 54

Title-page of Alfred Bennett’s ‘Instructions for the Spanish Guitar’ (London: Chappell, 1828); engraving by John Phillips
The majority of 19th-century publications were designed to acquaint the public with what was virtually a
new instrument; as such many are didactic, and also limited in scope, as it soon became clear that few
amateurs were sufficiently dedicated to master the more demanding works of the guitarist-composers.
The popularity of the guitar lay in the ease with which one could manage a simple accompaniment to a
song, and many of the practical tutors were limited to expounding the fundamental skills needed to
achieve this. The simple pieces that take the performer a stage beyond this elementary level contain many
Page 19 of 54

clichés and, as they are the products of guitarists, generally lie easily under the fingers. At a higher level
are the studies designed to prepare the performer for recital works; most successful in this context are
those by Aguado, Carcassi, Napoléon Coste and Sor, all of which are still of great value to students. It is to
the guitarists themselves that one must turn for the best compositions from this period. Although
composers of stature were acquainted with the guitar, they wrote nothing for it, and Berlioz’s criticism of
non-playing composers, that they ‘give it things to play … of small effect’, is valid. The achievements of
Sor and Giuliani in establishing a repertory of large-scale works is the most notable feature of this period.
Their output ranges from easy pieces – always in demand by the publishers – to extended works for the
solo instrument and diverse combinations of instruments. Giuliani composed many variation sets, three
concertos (opp.30, 36 and 70), a number of duos for guitar and violin or flute, a work for guitar, violin and
cello (op.19), and a set of three pieces for guitar with string quartet (op.65). Sor’s textures are sometimes
more complex than Giuliani’s, and richer in harmonic variety. In his sonatas opp.22 and 25 Sor introduced
a larger number of themes than is usual in this form, thereby compensating for the restrictions in
development imposed by the limitations of the instrument. His most successful composition was
theVariations on a Theme of Mozart op.9, a virtuoso showpiece that neatly summarizes the possibilities of
early 19th-century classical guitar technique and remains the most frequently performed piece of guitar
music of the period. Although they cannot be classed as works of great stature, the compositions of the
early 19th-century guitarists are often charming, elegant and vivacious enough to be heard with pleasure
(ex.3).
Ex.3 Fernando Sor: ‘Andante largo’, Six petites pièces op.5 no.5 (?1824)
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6. The modern classical guitar.

The early 19th-century guitar was further developed in the second half of the century by the Spanish
maker Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–92), whose experiments led to instruments that became models for
his successors. The guitar thus achieved a standard size and form for the first time in its history. Torres
increased the overall dimensions of the instrument and established the vibrating length of the strings at 65
cm; he developed the fan-strutting system introduced by his predecessors in Seville and Cádiz, using a
system of seven struts radiating from below the soundhole, with two further struts lying tangentially
below the ‘fan’. The modern bridge, with the strings passing over the saddle to be tied to a rectangular
block (fig.6) is also attributable to Torres, and has become standard since his time. It is in the strutting that
modern makers have experimented most, varying both the number and the pattern of struts, and even
extending the system to include the part of the table above the soundhole. Gut strings became obsolete
after the introduction of nylon strings in 1946, with players preferring the higher tension and greater
durability offered by the man-made material.
For a time the improvements brought about by Torres remained confined to Spain, where a number of
distinguished makers succeeded him: Vicente Arias, Manuel Ramirez, Enrique García, Marcelo Barbero and
– active in the mid-20th century – José Ramirez, Manuel Contreras, Marcelino Lopez Nieto and others.
The revival of interest in the guitar in the 20th century resulted in the appearance of outstanding makers in
other countries: Hermann Hauser (Germany), Robert Bouchet (France), David Rubio and Paul Fischer
(England), and others in Japan, where the instrument has become extremely popular. Although at the end
of the century most makers still built their instruments in the traditional Spanish manner perfected by
Torres, leading luthiers in the USA, Australia and Britain had begun in the 1970s to redesign the internal
structure of the classical guitar. They aimed primarily to increase the volume of sound a guitar can
produce, a consideration of increasing importance as many composers had begun to use the instrument
regularly in chamber and orchestral works. For example, the ‘TAUT’ system developed by Paul Fischer
used a very light rectangular latticework of spruce struts, running across the grain of the table as well as
along its length. This reinforcement permitted the thickness of the table to be greatly reduced (about 1·6
mm, as opposed to about 2·4 mm in a traditional Spanish guitar), resulting in a much greater flexibility. To
further increase the effective size of the diaphragm, Fischer also experimented with moving the soundhole
to the top of the table, and splitting it into two semicircles. The Australian maker Greg Smallman used a
somewhat similar system, although he preferred to place his grid at an angle of 45 degrees to the grain of
the table.
Page 21 of 54

Modern bridge on a guitar (‘La Salvaora’) by José Romanillos
Spanish Guitar Centre, Bristol
Spanish Guitar Centre, Bristol
Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909), though active in promoting the modern playing technique, did not invent
the apoyando stroke – it is a least as old as Dionysio Aguado. When used on a large instrument, such as the
Torres guitar, this technique and the unsupported tirando spurred on the development of a rich repertory
of original études and transcriptions for the classical guitar (as it was now called). The larger instrument
rested more comfortably on the left thigh than the early 19th-century guitar, and it became standard
practice to hold it in this way. Tárrega did not use the fingernails in his right-hand technique, and in this
he was followed by his pupil Emilio Vilarrubí Pujol (1886–1980), but Miguel Llobet (1878–1938), also a
pupil of his, preferred to use them. Segovia adopted a more relaxed right-hand position than that of
Tárrega (fig.7) and a technique employing the fingernails, in which he was followed by the majority of
other 20th-century recitalists. It is in the right-hand position that one sees most variations among
Page 22 of 54

modern performers. The Segovia position entails the strings being sounded by the left side of the nails,
whereas the position favoured by the French guitarist Ida Presti (1924–67), adopted by the American
recitalist Alice Artzt, brings the right side of the nails into contact with the strings.
Andrés Segovia, 1963
photo Erich Auerbach, London
photo Erich Auerbach, London
It is thus only during the last 100 years that the guitar has been established in its modern form and its
technique developed accordingly. At the beginning of this period it lacked a repertory that would have
given it a status comparable with that of other instruments. The problem of a meagre literature was first
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approached by transcribing works from other media, a practice initiated by Tárrega and continued by his
successors. Suitable material was obviously to be found in the repertories for instruments closely related to
the guitar (i.e. the lute and the vihuela), but works for bowed instruments, and keyboard, were also
featured in recitals. Much more important, however, is the extent to which the guitar’s repertory has been
enlarged in the 20th century by composers who were not guitarists. Segovia, the leading instigator of this
departure from the tradition of guitarist-composers, made it his life-work to raise the guitar’s status to
that of an internationally respected concert instrument, and his artistry was a source of inspiration both to
players and to composers.
In 1920 Falla wrote Homenaje ‘le tombeau de Claude Debussy’for Llobet, proof of his belief that the guitar ‘is
coming back again, because it is peculiarly adapted for modern music’. Other Spanish composers have
favoured a more nationalist idiom: Joaquin Turina (1882–1949), Federico Moreno Torroba (b 1891) and
Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–99). All produced works for Segovia, and Rodrigo dedicated compositions to other
Spanish recitalists such as Narciso Yepes (1927–97), Manuel Lopez Ramos and the Romero family; his
Concierto de Aranjuez (1939) was a tribute to Regino Sainz de la Maza y Ruiz (1896–1981). Many concertos
were written in the 20th century, the first of them by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) in 1939.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s prolific output for guitar includes a quintet (op.143, 1950) and Platero y yo (op.190,
1960) for guitar and narrator; and his works are dedicated to many guitarists: the German Siegfried
Behrend (1933–90), the American Christopher Parkening (b 1947), the Italian Oscar Ghiglia (b 1938), the
Venezuelan Alirio Diaz (b 1923), the Japanese Jiro Matsuda and others. He also composed several works for
guitar duo, including the Concerto for two guitars and orchestra (op.201, 1962). The combination of two
guitars allows more complex writing than is possible for the solo instrument (ex.4). The duo genre was
firmly established in the 20th century by Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya, and further consolidated by the
Brazilian brothers Sergio and Eduardo Abreu, the Athenian Guitar Duo (Liza Zoi and Evangelos
Assimakopoulos), and the French-Japanese combination of Henri Dorigny and Ako Ito. At the end of the
century guitar duos and trios were commonly encountered forms of music-making, as were guitar
quartets (composed either for four standard guitars, or for requinto, two guitars and bass guitar), a form
pioneered by Gilbert Biberian (b 1944).
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Ex.4 Guido Santórsola: Sonata a duo (1967), 2nd movt
Segovia’s influence spread to Central and South America, where the Mexican composer Manuel Ponce
(1882–1948) composed sonatas, variation sets and the Concierto del sur (1941). Villa-Lobos (1887–1959)
also wrote a concerto, but he is better known for his Douze études(1929) and Cinq préludes (1940). The
Etudes evidence some progress from 19th-century stereotypes, but formulae are still present, as they are in
the preludes. A more lightweight work is his Chôro no.1(1920), with its evocations of folk music. The guitar
features prominently in South American folk music, which permeates some of the compositions of Antonio
Lauro (1917–86) of Venezuela and Agustín Barrios (1885–1944) of Paraguay. The South American
repertory was augmented by the Brazilian Francisco Mignone (1897–1986), the Cuban Leo Brouwer (b
1939) and Guido Santórsola (1904–94) from Uruguay. Brouwer’s music has been particularly influential,
especially La espiral eterna (1970) andElogio de la danza (1972), both for solo guitar, and his four concertos,
although the Sonata op.47 (1976) by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1913–83) is widely
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considered the single most substantial work by a Latin American composer. Significant South American
performers have included Carlos Barbosa-Lima and Turibio Santos (Brazil) and Oscar Caceres (Uruguay).
The almost-forgotten tradition of the composer-guitarist was revived towards the end of the 20th
century: notable figures have included Brouwer, the Russian Nikita Koshkin (b 1956), the Czech Štěpán
Rak (b 1945) and the American Stephen Funk Pearson (b 1950).
Although the initial impetus came from Spain, the growth of modern guitar music was maintained
elsewhere in Europe, with works by Frank Martin, Krenek, Alexandre Tansman, Malipiero, Petrassi,
Milhaud, Daniel-Lesur and Poulenc. Despite its limited volume, the guitar played a small but significant
role in many 20th-century operas and symphonies, as well as in chamber works such as Schoenberg’s
Serenade op.24 (1920–23), Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître (1952–4, rev. 1957), Gerhard’s Concert for Eight
(1962) and Libra (1968), and Henze’s Carillon, Récitatif, Masque (1974). Henze has made frequent use of the
guitar and has written several important solo works, including Drei Tentos (from Kammermusik, 1958) and
two sonatas (based on Shakespearean characters) entitled Royal Winter Music (1975–7). In England, where
the leading performers at the end of the 20th century were Julian Bream (b 1933) and John Williams (b
1941), the guitar did not become established in music colleges until 1961. Nonetheless English composers,
or composers resident in England, made a significant contribution to the repertory. Concertos appeared by
Malcolm Arnold, Stephen Dodgson, Richard Rodney Bennett and André Previn, and the solo literature was
enriched by works from Britten (Nocturnal after John Dowland, 1963), Berkeley (Sonatina op.52/1, 1957,
Theme and Variations op.77, 1970), Dodgson (Partita, 1963, Fantasy-Divisions, 1973), Tippett (The Blue
Guitar, 1985), Walton (Five Bagatelles, 1970–71) and others. The guitar was also used effectively as an
accompaniment to the voice; settings includeSongs from the Chinese (Britten, 1957), Cantares (Gerhard,
1956), Five Love Songs (Musgrave, 1955) and Anon. in Love(Walton, 1959). John W. Duarte (b 1919) was a
significant influence in the development of the guitar repertory, notably for his transcriptions of the Bach
cello suites but also for some attractive original compositions (such as hisEnglish Suite op.31 (1967),
written for Segovia).
The 20th-century repertory exhibits a wide variety of textures and styles, ranging from the predominantly
tonal, romantic works inspired by Segovia to avant-garde compositions. Influences from folk music,
flamenco and jazz can be found; and experimenters have introduced unexpected sonorities and extended
the instrument’s percussive and idiophonic resources. In Petrassi’s Suoni notturni (1959), for example, the
performer is instructed to sound notes by pulling the strings so that they slap against the frets; elsewhere
sounds produced by tapping on the table are alternated with normally played sounds. Koshkin’s half-hour
epic The Prince’s Toys was composed to include as many unusual effects as possible, and produces a
remarkable range of sounds. Atonal writing and serial techniques were given expression on the guitar –
evidence of its viability in contemporary music. One of the most interesting aspects of the history of the
guitar in the 20th century is the extent to which its literature was vitalized in the transition from music
composed by guitarists (or written to the restrictions of a guitarist) to compositions not determined by a
conventional conception of the instrument’s possibilities (ex.5). This has led to the appearance of works of
considerable stature and the growth of an artistic compositional tradition such as eluded the guitar until
the 20th century.
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Ex.5 Stephen Dodgson: Partita for guitar (1965), 3rd movt
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
7. Variants of the classical guitar.

Tony Bacon
Instruments departing from the basic form of the guitar first appear in 1690, when Alexandre Voboam
constructed a double guitar, which had a small guitar attached to the treble side of a normal instrument.
However, the 19th century was a more productive period in this respect. A double-necked guitar –
Doppelgitarre – was made by Stauffer in 1807; and in the 1830s Jean-François Solomon constructed a guitar
with three necks – the ‘Harpo-lyre’ – which, like a number of 19th-century variant guitars, was designed
to improve what was felt to be an unsatisfactory instrument. About 1800 the Lyre-guitarenjoyed a brief
vogue. Methods and music were published for this instrument, which had two curved arms (recalling the
Ancient Greek lyre) in place of the upper bout. In another group of instruments the number of strings was
increased, sometimes in the bass, sometimes in the treble, and one instrument – the ‘guitarpa’ – had both
extra bass and extra treble strings. The 19th century saw the introduction of guitars that varied in size and
hence in pitch. These were the quinte-basse, quarte, terz andoctavine guitars; only the terz guitar, tuned G–c
–f–b♭–d′–g′, has a literature. In the 1960s Narciso Yepes introduced a ten-string guitar, the added strings
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lying in the bass, with the tuning G♭–A♭–B♭–C–E–A–d–g–b–e′. This tuning permits sympathetic bass-
string resonances for every note in the upper range of his guitar. A new ‘harp guitar’ (differing from the
early 19th-century instrument combining a short, thick guitar neck with a vaulted-back soundbox and
primarily triadic stringing; seeHarp-lute) gained some popularity around 1900. Such instruments, which
had an extra body ‘arm’ extension with additional sympathetic bass strings, were made especially in the
USA, by makers such as Gibson, Larson Brothers and Knutsen.
Of 20th-century variants, the flamenco guitar is closest to the classical instrument. As the traditional
posture of the flamenco guitarist necessitates holding the instrument almost vertically, it is desirable to
restrict weight; hence Spanish cypress, a lighter wood than rosewood, is used for the back and sides, and
gradually from the 1970s machine heads were used instead of wooden pegs. The string action is often
lower than that of the classical guitar, allowing the strings to buzz against the frets. A plate is positioned
on the table to protect the wood from the tapping of the right-hand fingers. Although the original function
of the flamenco guitar was to provide an accompaniment to singing and dancing (see Flamenco), it has
been increasingly featured as a solo instrument.
In the 20th century many changes were made to the basic design of the classical guitar, mostly for the
purpose of producing greater volume and penetration. These changes resulted in several distinct types of
guitar, each originally designed to meet the specific musical requirements of guitarists playing in popular
music forms, principally folk, jazz, blues, dance music and rock and roll.
Some guitarists, especially American country and western players and crooners, began early in the 20th
century to demand more volume from the flat-top acoustic guitar of traditional shape. The company that
initially did most to accommodate them was Martin, C.F of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, which began during
the 1920s to produce steel-strung guitars, altered structurally to bear the tension of heavier strings, and in
some cases larger than the standard instrument. Other American companies active in popularizing the use
of steel strings for guitars included Larson Brothers (from the 1880s) and Gibson (from the 1890s). Martin
is probably best known for the invention of the ‘Dreadnought’ flat-top acoustic guitar, apparently named
after the British battleship of the period. It was based on instruments made by Martin for the Ditson
company of Boston around 1915, though it was not marketed by Martin itself until 1931, when what would
become the D-18 and D-28 models were introduced. The Dreadnought was larger than a normal guitar and
had a much broader waist and rather narrower, squarer shoulders. Its resulting ‘bassier’ tone ideally suited
folk, country and western, blues and other popular music forms where the guitar’s role was to accompany
the voice. The design of the Dreadnought has been widely imitated by many guitar makers since its
introduction, most notably by companies such as Gibson (from 1934, beginning with the ‘Jumbo’ model)
and Guild (from the 1950s) in the USA and, later in the century, by Japanese guitar makers.
The large Dreadnought or Jumbo is not, however, the only type of steel-strung flat-top acoustic guitar;
steel-strung versions of the classical guitar of traditional size and shape, with some internal
strengthening, abound. Martin was, again, an innovator in this area of so-called ‘folk’ steel-strung
acoustics, and many guitar makers in the USA, Europe and East Asia followed them and produced similar
instruments.
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Flat-top, steel-strung acoustic guitars require a stronger and more complex network of internal bracing
than does either the classical or the arched-top guitar. The various styles of bracing that have developed
are often referred to by descriptive terms, such as ‘X’-bracing and ‘fan’-bracing. The woods used to
construct flat-top guitars vary depending on the degree of excellence required: the top is usually made of
spruce (occasionally of cedar); rosewood, mahogany or maple is used for the back, sides and neck; and
rosewood or ebony for the fingerboard. Cheaper flat-tops use laminated rather than solid woods. In 1966
the Ovation company in the USA began to produce guitars with a rounded back made of a synthetic
material resembling fibreglass, in combination with a wooden top, neck and fingerboard; the aim, once
again, was to improve the projectional qualities of an otherwise standard acoustic instrument.
Most flat-top guitars have a fixed bridge, like the classical guitar, to which the lower ends of the strings are
secured by pins. The most popular flat-tops are those with six strings, tuned to the standard E–A–d–g–
b′–e′ guitar pitches. But a variant, the 12-string flat-top, is also made; it was originally used in blues and
folk-based music, and has strings tuned in six courses, some in unison and others an octave apart.
Flat-top, steel-strung acoustic guitars have been widely used in all kinds of popular music since the 1920s,
most notably country, bluegrass, folk and singer-songwriter styles, and blues, less so in jazz. In rock, such
guitars still find a place in the recording studio as a largely percussive element, as a songwriter’s tool, and
onstage as a visual and musical prop for some vocalists. Playing styles and techniques associated with the
instrument vary widely, depending on musical idiom. Most often, particularly in folk music and other
styles where a chordal accompaniment is required, a plectrum is used to strike the strings. In ensembles
the instrument is occasionally used to play melody lines, melodic support, or jazz-like solos, though in the
late 20th-century this role was more usually taken by electric instruments. Sometimes the fingernails, or
false nails, are used to play finger-style (or finger-picking) patterns, a style also used on the nylon-strung
classical guitar.
Some players adapt the standard six-string tunings to suit their own styles and musical requirements, and
a number of patterns have evolved, mainly from blues and folk music. The most common adaptations are
‘open’ tunings, so named because the open strings are tuned to form a single chord (e.g. D–G–d–g–b–d′;D
–A–d–f♯–a–d′), which can be played at any pitch by stopping all the strings across the relevant fret. These
open tunings probably developed in Hawaiian-style (‘slack key’) playing and country music, in which a
slide, a bottleneck worn on one of the fingers of the left hand, or other suitable solid object, is pressed
down on the strings, stopping them all at the same point; the strings are not separately fingered, the slide
or bottleneck being moved up and down so that parallel chords and single-note runs can be produced.
More conventional players stop the strings in the same way but with the finger, using the ‘barré’
technique. The other common type of adapted tuning is the ‘dropped’, tuning, in which the pitch of one or
more strings is lowered to allow non-standard fingerings.
The arched-top (‘carved-top’, or, occasionally, ‘cello-bodied’) guitar was developed in the USA.
Experiments by Orville H. Gibson in the 1890s produced a small number of avant-garde carved-top guitars
and mandolins, but it was not until the 1920s that the arched-top guitar was commercially developed, as a
result of the relatively high volume at which dance bands were playing. Ordinary acoustic guitars could not
produce the sound levels needed; the arched-top guitar satisfied this requirement and became increasingly
popular in the jazz styles which emerged in the 1930s.
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Among the earliest such instruments was the GibsonL-5 (designed by Lloyd Loar), which was first issued
in 1922, and which defined the arched-top guitar. Its construction owed more to violin making than
traditional methods of guitar building and was influenced by Orville H. Gibson’s mandolins and guitars of
the 1890s. The quest for increased volume was at the root of all the alterations to conventional design
introduced in the L-5: it had steel strings instead of gut, the extra tension and weight of which
necessitated structural strengthening of the body; the top was strong and thick and carved into a
characteristic arched shape; in place of a single soundhole there were two f-holes, for greater projection of
the sound and enhancement of the sympathetic vibrations of the top; the bridge was not fixed but
‘floating’ (or adjustable) and the strings passed over it and were secured to a separate metal tailpiece
attached to the end of the body.
The first version of the Gibson L-5 had an ebony fingerboard on a maple neck, a birch or maple back, a
carved spruce top and spruce sides. It was not only the earliest arched-top to feature f-holes, but it was
also one of the first guitars to be fitted with a ‘truss rod’, an adjustable internal metal rod that counteracts
warping and minor movements of the neck. The most famous early user of the L-5 was Eddie Lang. From
1939 the L-5 and similar models were often constructed with a body cutaway, designed to give the player
easier access to the upper frets.
The L-5 heralded the arrival on the market of many other arched-top acoustic guitars. The makers of these
have been principally American, and include the Guild company, which was founded in New York in 1952
by Alfred Dronge and George Mann, moved to New Jersey in 1956 and was later purchased by Avnet Inc.;
D’Angelico, set up by John D’Angelico, who had trained as a violin maker, in New York in 1932, and carried
on by his protégé Jimmy D’Aquisto after D’Angelico’s death in 1964; Epiphone, established in New York by
Anastasios Stathopoulo in the early 1900s, and purchased by Gibson in 1957 after Stathopoulo’s death; and
Stromberg, set up in Boston by Charles A. Stromberg in the 1880s and carried on by his son Elmer from the
1930s.
The arched-top acoustic guitar fulfilled a specific role in the heyday of the American jazz and dance band;
although it was designed for plectrum playing and produced the greatest possible volume when a plectrum
was used, some guitarists played it with the right-hand fingers. The popularity of the arched-top acoustic
waned with the widespread use of theElectric guitar, which easily outclassed it in terms of response and
increased volume. Those arched-top guitars that survive, do so primarily as collectors’ items, although
specialist makers such as Bob Benedetto and John Monteleone emerged in the USA at the end of the 20th
century.
Other attempts were made in the 1930s to increase the volume projected by the acoustic guitar. Early in the
decade Mario Maccaferri (1900–1993) designed for the French company Selmer a series of guitars that had
distinctive D-shaped soundholes (later oval) and a unique extra sound chamber inside the body (later
removed); the resulting clear, piercing tone quality became the hallmark of Django Reinhardt’s playing at
that period. A similar idea was exploited from 1927 in the ‘ampliphonic’ or ‘resophonic’ guitar (commonly
known by one of its trade names, Dobro), which had one or more metal resonator discs mounted inside the
body under the bridge. The Dobro was often played across the lap and with a slide, like the Hawaiian guitar,
and both types were used at an early stage in experiments with amplification, which led to the
development of the electric guitar (see alsoResonator guitar).
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8. Regional variations.
(i) Russia: the seven-string guitar.

Oleg V. Timofeyev
In the late 18th century, schools associated with the seven-string guitar tuned D–G–B–d–g–b–d′
developed in Russia. Early tutors for the instrument were published there by Ignatz von Held (Methode facil
pour apprendre à pincer la guitare à sept cordes sans maître, 1798) and Dmitry Kushenov-Dmitriyevsky
(Novaya i polnaya gitarnaya shkola, 1808). Music for the seven-string guitar was developed to a high degree
of technical complexity by Andrey Sychra (1773–1850), who taught in St Petersburg from 1813; of his
students, Semyon Aksyonov (1784–1853), Vladimir Morkov (1801–64), Nikolaj Aleksandrov (1818–84) and
Vasily Sarenko (1814–81) wrote first-rate guitar music. In Moscow, guitar playing activity was centred on
the player-improviser Mikhail Vïsotsky (1793–1837), who emphasized left-hand effects (legato up to
seven notes, portamento, vibrato). The virtuoso Fyodor Zimmermann (1813–82) was also a composer and
improviser. Despite their popularity in Russia, none of these guitarists gained international acclaim. Two
guitarists, Nikolay Makarov (1810–90) and the Polish-born M.K. Sokolowski (1818–83) did become
known; both, however, played two-necked ‘Spanish’ guitars with extra bass strings.
In the early 19th century, music for the seven-string guitar consisted mostly of variation sets on Russian
folksongs and operatic arias, original dance pieces, transcriptions and potpourris; by mid-century
‘cosmopolitan’ forms such as preludes, études, nocturnes and ballades were favoured. A few large-scale
independent works also survive, for example Sychra’s Divertissement sur des aires russes (1813) and Practical
Rules in Four Exercises(1817), and the Sonata by Vïsotsky’s pupil Aleksandr Vetrov. Although the guitar
declined in popularity in Russia in the second half of the century, it experienced a revival around 1900 in
association with the writings of Valerian Rusanov (1866–1918) and the magazines Gitarist, Akkord
andMuzïka Gitarista. Throughout the 20th century six- and seven-string guitars co-existed in
conservatories and music schools.
(ii) Iberia, Latin America and the Pacific.

The small guitars of Renaissance Europe were the prototypes of instruments that have persisted in Spain
and Portugal, and which were carried through trade contacts to Central and South America and East Asia.
The growth in size of the classical instrument also finds its counterpart in the range in size of folk
instruments. Spain has the bajo de uña, a very large, short-necked guitar with eight strings, but the
guitarra tuned E–A–d–g–b–e′ is the standard instrument. The guitarra tenor has the tuning G–c–f–b♭–
d′–g′; the guitarra requinto is tuned B–e–a–d′–f♯–b′; and the smallest is the guitarillo with five strings
tuned a′–d″–g′–c″–e″ (the term guitarro also refers to a small instrument, with four or 12 strings, played
by strumming). Portugal has the normal guitar, which is calledviolão; the Portuguese guitarra is similar to
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the SpanishBandurria, and, in spite of its name, it does not have the waisted outline of the guitar; the
Portuguese machete (cavaco, diminutive cavaquinho), has either six or, more commonly, four strings; and
the rajão, which sometimes has the body in the form of a fish, has five strings (fig.8).
Portuguese rajão, 19th century (Horniman Museum, London)
B. T. Batsford Ltd, London / photo L. G. Aubin; Horniman Museum, London
B. T. Batsford Ltd, London / photo L. G. Aubin; Horniman Museum, London
The guitarillo is also known as the tiple (treble), and in the Canary Islands, where the name has been
transformed to timple, it has a vaulted back and either four or five strings; these may be tuned to the upper
intervals of the standard guitar tuning, but more traditional tunings arec″–f′–a′–d″ and f′–c″–e′–a′–d″,
which can be raised a tone for an E tuning. The name tiple is also applied to a small bandurria in Cuba,
which has five pairs of strings. Cuba also has the small guitar tres, with three pairs of metal strings. The
term guitarrilla is found in Bolivia, Guatemala and Peru. In the two last it denotes a small four-string
instrument, used to accompany song and dance. In Bolivia, where it is the only known string instrument of
the Chipaya people of the Department of Oruro, it has five double courses (tuned d′–a′–f′–c′–g′) and six
frets; it has a guitar-like body with ribs, a flat front and a slightly curved back. Guitarrillas are played in
pairs for textless wayñus de cordero (songs in praise of sheep) or tornadas del ganado (songs for cattle) at
the k’illpa (animal branding) festival. The Chipaya of the village of Ayparavi have three different sizes of
guitarrilla:paj, taipi and qolta, all with gut strings. The two largest are tuned as above, the smallest a 4th
higher (see Baumann B1981 and B1982).
The jarana (diminutive jaranita) is a small Mexican guitar used in instrumental ensembles and to
accompany dances; it is the equivalent of the charango, which is widely distributed in South America
(north-west Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Chile). The charango has five single or five paired strings, tuned g
′(g′)–c″(c″)–e″(e′)–a′(a′)–e″(e″); the body consists of an armadillo shell that has been dried in a mould to
produce the waisted guitar shape. The name violão has been retained in Brazil for the classical guitar. The
Brazilian folk guitar, by contrast, is calledviola and has a variety of tunings according to place and
function; most examples have five double courses (occasionally four or six). In Mexico the termguitarra de
golpe is used as an alternative to vihuela for a small five-course guitar used in folk ensembles. The modern
Mexican guitarrónis a large six-string bass guitar, tunedA′–D–G–c–e–a(19th-century versions usually
had four or five strings), while the Chilean type has up to 25 strings arranged in courses. Puerto Rico also
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has a five-course instrument, with four double courses and the fifth either single or double. It is played
with a plectrum. The Puerto Rican instrument is known as a cuatro, a name more logically identified with
the small Venezuelan guitar with four strings; the five-string guitar is called quinto in Venezuela. In the
hands of a virtuoso performer, the Venezuelan cuatro, in spite of its seeming limitations, is capable of more
complex textures than those it is obliged to provide in its folk setting, and two cuatros can accommodate
transcriptions of art music. The machete was introduced by Portuguese sailors to the Hawaiian islands,
where it was developed into the ukulele with its re-entrant tuning g′–c′–e′–a′ (for illustrations see
Ukulele). Also of Portuguese origin is the small, narrow kroncong of West Java, which has five strings. The
Montese of Mindanao in the Philippine Islands have a three-string guitar called tiape. (For discussion of
the use of the guitar in Indonesia, see Indonesia, §I, 3, (iv).)
In the last few decades of the 20th century the tremendous increase in global travel blurred the traditional
regional distinctions among the many hundreds of different guitar-like instruments. Once-obscure South
American variants were encountered on street corners in European cities, while Japanese-made classical
guitars could be found taking part in music-making in remote Andean villages.
(iii) Africa.
Gerhard Kubik
In the 20th century the factory-made Western guitar, first acoustic, then electric, rose to prominence
throughout sub-Saharan Africa. It assumed a central position not only in urban cultures but also in some
rural areas, where several home-made models were locally developed. It replaced many long-established
instruments previously used for personal music, such as lamellaphones and a variety of string
instruments, absorbing some of their playing techniques, melodic and harmonic patterns and musical
concepts. Several distinctive styles and innovative musical forms were developed by now legendary
composer-performers such as ‘Sam’ Kwame Asare (Ghana), Ebenezer Calender (Sierra Leone), Antoine
Kolosoy Wendo, Mwenda Jean Bosco, Losta Abelo, Edouard Masengo (Democratic Republic of the Congo),
Liceu Vieira Dias (Angola), Faustino Okello (Uganda) and Daniel Kachamba (Malawi).
From the early 19th century onwards, sailors from Portugal and other nations are likely to have played
guitars or guitar-like instruments on ships that called at African ports. Not surprisingly, therefore, the
first Africans to adopt this instrument were crew men – Kru sailors from Liberia. During the second half of
the 19th century they seem to have introduced the guitar to ports along the Guinea coast, and at the
beginning of the 1920s also to the port of Matadi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (according to
oral testimony by Wendo). But only with the rise of a gramophone industry in the late 1920s and of radio
broadcasting from African capitals during the 1930s and 40s did guitar music gain popularity. At first, local
guitar music was impregnated with European, Caribbean and North and Latin American styles. In the 1930s
and 40s major sources of inspiration were calypso (along the west coast), country music by Jimmie
Rodgers and others (for example in some parts of Kenya), and Hawaiian-style guitar music (in Zimbabwe
and neighbouring areas); these were soon followed by Cuban orchestral forms and Latin American dance
music (Central Africa). Each period of imitation soon gave way to creative reinterpretation, leading to the
rise of characteristic African guitar styles based on local musical concepts.
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Beginning in the late 1920s record companies realized the potential market for this new music: the
legendary Ghanaian guitarist ‘Sam’ Kwame Asare recorded with his Kumasi Trio in London in June 1928.
After World War II record companies devoted primarily to the new guitar-based dance music were formed
in Kinshasa, Brazzaville and West African cities, and the newly established radio stations spread guitar
music to remote villages. One of the first musicologists to record the new traditions was Hugh Tracey, who
documented many examples of the Katanga guitar styleof the 1950s. In February 1952 he discovered
Mwenda Jean Bosco (1930–97) in the streets of Jadotville (Likasi) in what was then the Belgian Congo, and
launched him on a full-time career. Bosco’s timeless compositions, Masanga,Bombalaka etc., stimulated
David Rycroft (1958–61, 1962–5) to carry out the first scholarly study of an African guitar style.
Most guitars used in Africa during the first half of the 20th century came from Europe or South Africa. The
most popular instruments, such as those produced by Gallotone of Johannesburg, had a narrow
fingerboard, since African guitarists used the thumb to stop the lowest string. Finger-style guitarists of
the period used a pencil, a piece of wood, or a nail, etc. as a capo tastoto raise the overall pitch level to
match the singer’s (African Guitar, B1995). Many different tunings were used; often the top five strings
were given a standard tuning while the sixth was raised by a semitone to F. The strings were sounded
almost exclusively by the thumb and index finger of the right hand. Special techniques such as the ‘pull-
off’ and the ‘hammer-on’ were used in the left hand (Low, B1982, pp.23, 58, 115 and African Guitar, B1995).
In slide guitar playing, called hauyani(‘Hawaiian’) in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, the strings were
tuned to a triad; Moya Aliya Malamusi plays in this style in African Guitar, B1995. Normally a small bottle
serves as a slider. In both finger-style and plectrum playing the melodic patterns heard by the listeners are
‘inherent patterns’, only indirectly related to those of the fingers; in the ‘I.P. [inherent pattern] effect’ a
complex succession of notes is split by the ear into several distinct layers (see Africa, §3(v) ).
The introduction of the electric guitar at the beginning of the 1960s generated a restructuring of guitar
music in Africa. A grouping of lead, rhythm and bass guitar replaced the solo guitarist, dividing the
material among them. Congolese groups, such as Franco Luambo Makiadi and his OK Jazz, Tabu Ley
Rochereau and his Orchestre African Fiesta, Kiamanguana Verckys and the Orchestre Vèvè, and Jean Bokelo
and his Orchestre Conga Succès, took the lead in African electric-guitar based music in the 1960s and 70s.
In Nigeria, following the popularity of Ghanaian Highlifemusic during the 1950s, which led to Yoruba and
Igbo versions,Jùjú came to dominate southern urban music. In Zimbabwe, guitar-based chimurenga music
by Thomas Mapfumo and others began to dominate the scene in the early 1980s. The music incorporates
traits from the mbira dza vadzimu lamellaphone, with its harmonic patterns of 4th and 5ths. In South
Africa, Isizulu solo guitar styles were transferred to the electric guitar. In 1995 electric guitars were being
used in mbaqanga, and Zulu maskandi solo music was experiencing a revival on both acoustic and electric
guitars (N. Davies, in Schmidt, B1994; see also South Africa, Republic of, §III).
At the end of the 20th century, in the era of digitally-created sound, the gap had widened between those
few African musicians with access to expensive equipment and those without. By the 1990s acoustic guitar
music, with the exception of the Zulu maskandi and some forms played on home-made instruments, had
almost completely disappeared in Africa. However, electric guitars were often too expensive for musicians
in economically deprived areas. In West Africa, ‘drum-matching’ and other sounds created by a
Page 34 of 54

synthesizer had replaced almost all instruments except the guitar in recording studios. All across Africa,
live music was being replaced in places of entertainment by often pirated cassette recordings transmitted
through powerful loudspeakers (Schmidt, B1994).
Bibliography
AND OTHER RESOURCES
A Bibliographies. B General. C The instrument. D Guitar technique. E Guitarists.
A: Bibliographies
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W. Moser: Gitarre-Musik: ein internationaler Katalog (Hamburg, 1973/R, 2/1977)
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M. Jape: Classical Guitar Music in Print (Philadelphia, 1989)
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pp.1–4
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A. Orel: ‘Gitarrenmusik in Wien zur Zeit Beethovens’, Österreichische Gitarre-Zeitschrift, 1/3 (1927), 46–50
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93–4
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B.L. Vol′man: Gitara i gitaristï (Leningrad, 1968)
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T.F. Heck: ‘The Role of Italy in the Early History of the Classic Guitar’, Guitar Review, no.34 (1971), 1–6
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(1974), 17–22; Ger. trans., enlarged in Gitarre und Laute, ii/1 (1980), 16–23
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L. Witoszynskyi: ‘Vihuela und Gitarre im Spiegel neuer Litteratur’, ÖMz, 30 (1975), 186–93
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Page 38 of 54

L. Witoszynskyi: ‘Die Gitarre in der Kammermusik und der Beitrag Wiens’, ÖMz, 31 (1976), 640–44
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(1977), 17–24
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(1978), 1–2
T.F. Heck: ‘Computerized Guitar Research: a Report’, Soundboard, 5/4 (1978), 104–7; ‘Postscript’, vi (1979), 12
K. Ragossnig: Handbuch der Gitarre und Laute (Mainz, 1978)
F.-E. Denis: ‘La guitare en France au XVIIe siècle: son importance, son répertoire’, RBM, 32–33 (1978–9), 143–50
M. Giertz: Den klassika gitarren: instrumentet, musiken, mästerna (Stockholm, 1979)
R. Pinnell: ‘The Theorboed Guitar: its Repertoire in the Guitar Books of Granata and Gallot’,EMc, 7 (1979), 323–9
J. Powroźniak: ‘Die Gitarre in Russland’, Gitarre und Laute, 1/6 (1979), 18–24
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A. Schroth: ‘Dem Gesang verschwistert: die Gitarre in der Romantik’, Musica, 33 (1979), 23–6
J. Sclar: ‘Guitar: Consort to the Voice. Chapter Two, Dominick Argento, Letters from Composers’, Guitar Review, no.45

(1979), 6–11
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LSJ, 21 (1979–81) [whole issue]
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Page 39 of 54

G. Wade: Traditions of the Classical Guitar (London, 1980)
G.M. Dausend: ‘Die Gitarre im Barockzeitalter: Instrumente, Komponisten, Werke, Notationsformen und Spieltechnik’,
Zupfmusik, 33 (1980), 85–6, 114–18; xxxiv (1981), 16–20, 71–4; 35(1982), 17–19, 87
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50 (1982), 12–23
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(1982), 5–23
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J.-A. van Hoek: Die Gitarrenmusik im 19. Jahrh.: Geschichte, Technik, Interpretation(Wilhelmshaven, 1983)
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J. Schneider: The Contemporary Guitar (Berkeley, 1985)
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C. Wolzien: ‘Early Guitar Literature’, Soundboard, 14 (1987), 57–9, 186–8; xv (1988), 48–51, 218–20
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24
C.A. Waterman: Jùjú: a Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music (Chicago, 1990)
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L. Glasenapp: Die Guitarre als Ensemble- und Orchesterinstrument in der Neuen Musik unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung der Werke Hans Werner Henzes (Laaber, 1991)
J. Huber: The Development of the Modern Guitar (Westport, CT, 1991)
T. Christensen: ‘The Spanish Baroque Guitar and Seventeenth-Century Triadic Theory’, JMT, 36 (1992), 1–42
G.-M. Dausend: Die Gitarre im 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert (Düsseldorf, 1992)
R. Nowotny: Vil Lute hörte ich erschallen: die frühe Geschichte der Fiedeln, Lauten- und Gitarreninstrumente (Essen,
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J.M. Ward: Music for Elizabethan Lutes (Oxford, 1992)
M. Esses: Dance and Instrumental ‘Diferencias’ in Spain during the 17th and Early 18th Centuries (Stuyvesant, NY, 1992–
4)
E.F. Madriguera: The Hispanization of the Guitar: from the guitarra latina to the guitarra española(diss., U. of Texas,
Dallas, 1993)
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T. Schmitt: Untersuchungen zur ausgewählten spanischen Gitarrenlehrwerken vor 1800 (Cologne, 1993)
N. Treadwell: ‘Guitaralfabeto in Italian Monody: the Publications of Alessandro Vincenti’,LSJ, 33 (1993), 12–22
H.G. Brill: Die Gitarre in der Musik des XX. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1994)
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M.A. Malamusi: ‘Rise and Development of a Chileka Guitar Style in the 1950s’, For Gerhard Kubik: Festschrift, ed. A.

Schmidhofer and D. Schüller (Frankfurt, 1994), 7–72
C. Schmidt, ed.: ‘The Guitar in Africa: the 1950s–1960s’, World of Music, 36/2 (1994)
African Guitar, videotape, dir. G. Kubik (Sparta, NJ, 1995)
G.R. Boye: Giovanni Battista Granata and the Development of Printed Music for the Guitar in Seventeenth-Century Italy
(diss., Duke U., 1995)
M. Burzik: Quellenstudien zu europäischen Zupfinstrumentenformen: Methodenprobleme kunsthistorische Aspekte und

Fragen der Namenszuordnung (Kassel, 1995)
L. Eisenhardt: ‘La guitarre royalle: de hoogtijdagen van der gitaar’, Tijdschrift voor oude muziek, 10/1 (1995), 9–11
T. Heck: ‘Guitar Notation: a Historical Overview’, Mauro Giuliani: Virtuoso Guitarist and Composer (Columbus, OH,

1995), 140–49
J. Monno: Die Barockgitarre: Darstellung ihrer Entwicklung und Spielweise (Munich, 1995)
C.H. Russell: Santiago de Murcia's ‘Codice Saldivar No.4’: a Treasury of Secular Guitar Music from Baroque Mexico
(Champaign, IL, 1995)
F. Cabrel, M.Ferstenberg and K. Blasquiz: Luthiers & guitares d’en France (Paris, 1996)
P. Trynka, ed.: Rock Hardware: 40 Years of Rock Instrumentation (London, 1996)
T. Heck: ‘Guitar-Related Research in the Age of the Internet: Current Options, Current Trends’,Soundboard, 25 (1998),
61–8
P. Schmitz: Gitarremusik für Dilettantren: Entwicklung und Stellenwert des Gitarrenspiels in der bürglichen Musikpraxis
der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts in deutschsprachigen Raum (Frankfurt, 1998)
O.V. Timofeyev: The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar: Repertoire, Performance Practice, and Social Function of Russian
Seven-String Guitar Music, 1800–1850 (diss., Duke U., in preparation)
J. Tyler and P.Sparks: The Guitar from the Renaissance to the Classical Era (Oxford, forthcoming)
C: The instrument
Arzberger: ‘Vorschlag zu einer wesentlichen Verbesserung im Bau der Guitarre’, AMZ, 11 (1808–9), 481–8
J.A. Otto: ‘Über die Guitarre’, Über den Bau der Bogeninstrumente(Jena, 1828), 94–7
F. Bathioli: Guitarre-Flageolett-Schule mit Bemerkungen über den Gitarrenbau (Vienna, ?1833)
M. Stakhovich: Istoriya semistrunnoy gitarï (Moscow, 1864)
A. Famintsyn: Domra i srodnye yey intrumentï russkogo naroda (St Petersburg, 1891)
Page 42 of 54

O. Chilesotti: ‘La chitarra francese’, RMI, 14 (1907), 791–802
J. Zuth: ‘Die englische und deutsche Gitarre des ausgehenden 18. Jahrh.’, Der Gitarrefreund, 22 (1921), 77–9, 88–90,
99–100
K. Geiringer: ‘Der Instrumentenname Quinterne und die mittelalterlichen Bezeichnungen der Gitarre, Mandola und
Colascione’, AMw, 6 (1924), 103–10
A. Koczirz: ‘Die alt-Wiener Gitarre um 1800’, Gitarristische Mitteilung aus Österreich, 1 (1925), no.3, pp.1–2; no.4, pp.2–3;

no.5, pp.2–3
E. Schwarz-Reiflingen: ‘Die Torresgitarre’, Die Gitarre, 9 (1928), 47–53
F. Schuster: ‘Zur Geschichte des Gitarrenbau in Deutschland’, Die Gitarre, 10 (1929), 83–7
G. Chase: ‘Guitar and Vihuela: a Clarification’, BAMS, 6 (1942), 13–16
M. Ivanov: Russkaya semistrunnaya gitara (Moscow, 1948)
F. Lesure: ‘Le traité des instruments de musique de Pierre Trichet: des instruments de musique à chordes’, AnnM, 4
(1956), 175–248, esp. 216; also pubd separately (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1957/R; Eng. trans., 1973)
T. Usher: ‘The Spanish Guitar in the 19th and 20th Centuries’, GSJ, 9 (1956), 5–36
J. Duarte: ‘Variants of the Classic Guitar, an Evaluation’, Guitar Review, no.25 (1961), 22–5
F. Jahnel: Die Gitarre und ihr Bau: Technologie von Gitarre, Laute, Mandoline, Sister, Tanbur und Saite (Frankfurt, 1963,
6/1996; Eng. trans., 1981)
J.C. Tanno: ‘A Brief Discussion of the Construction and Assembly of Guitars by Non-Spanish Luthiers’, Guitar Review,

no.28 (1965), 28–31
I. Sloane: Classic Guitar Construction: Diagrams, Photographs, and Step-by-Step Instructions(New York, 1966/R)
F. Hellwig: ‘Makers' Marks on Plucked Instruments of the 16th and 17th Centuries’, GSJ, 24 (1971), 22–32
D. McLeod: The Classical Guitar: Design and Construction (Woodbridge, NJ, 1971)
A. Artzt: ‘The Guitar: Wet or Dry?’, Guitar Review, no.37 (1972), 4–5
M. Kasha: Complete Guitar Acoustics (Tallahassee, FL, 1973)
E.F. Ciurlo: ‘La chitarra nella liuteria moderna’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.6 (1974), 20–31
J. Godwin: ‘Eccentric Forms of the Guitar, 1770–1850’, JLSA, 7 (1974), 90–102
H.E. Huttig: ‘The Tripodison of Dionisio Aguado’, Guitar Review, no.39 (1974), 23–5
M. Kasha: ‘Physics and the Perfect Sound’, Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future (1974), 128–43
J. Meyer: ‘Die Abstimmung der Grundresonanzen von Gitarren’, Das Musikinstrument, 23 (1974), 179–86
Page 43 of 54

J. Meyer: ‘Das Resonanzverhalten von Gitarren bei mittleren Frequenzen’, Das Musikinstrument, 23 (1974), 1095–1102
A.E. Overholtzer: Classic Guitar Making (Chico, CA, 1974, 2/1983)
D. Teeter: The Acoustic Guitar: Adjustment, Care, Maintenance, and Repair (Norman, OK,1974)
D. Brosnac: The Steel String Guitar: its Construction, Origin, and Design (San Francisco,1973, 2/1975)
E.F. Ciurlo: ‘Chitarra quartitonale’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.10 (1975), 25–6
T.F. Heck: ‘Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar’, Gendai Guitar, no.98 (1975), 64–71 [in Jap.]; Eng. orig.

〈www.uakron.edu/gfaa/stalking/html <http://www.uakron.edu/gfaa/stalking/html>〉
M. Longworth: Martin Guitars: a History (Cedar Knolls, NJ, 1975, enlarged 3/1998 asC.F. Martin & Co., Est. 1833: a
History)
I. Sloane: Steel-String Guitar Construction: Acoustic Six-String, Twelve-String, and Arched-Top Guitars(New York, 1975/R)
J. Tyler: ‘The Renaissance Guitar 1500–1650’, EMc, 3 (1975), 341–7
L. Witoszynski: ‘Vihuela and Guitar: some Historical Developments’, Guitar, 4/2 (1975), 19–21
D.R. Young: The Steel String Guitar: Construction and Repair (Radnor, PA, 1975, 2/1987)
M. Hall: ‘The “guitarra española”’, EMc, 4 (1976), 227 [letter]
J. Meyer: ‘Die Bestimmung von Qualitätskriterien bei Gitarren: Mitteilung aus der physikalisch-technischen
Bundesanstalt’, Das Musikinstrument, 25 (1976), 1211–22
D. Poulton: ‘Notes on the Guitarra, Laud and Vihuela’, LSJ, 18 (1976), 46–8
I.J. Schoenberg: ‘On the Location of Frets on the Guitar’, American Mathematical Monthly, 83/7 (1976), 550
K. Achard: The Fender Guitar (London, 1977/R)
D. Brosnac: An Introduction to Scientific Guitar Design (New York, 1978)
C. Elliker: ‘On Gasogenes, Penang Lawyers, Echiquiers and Terz Guitars’, Soundboard, 5 (1978), 112–13
M. Ophee: ‘La chitarra terzina’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.25 (1978), 8–24
J. Schneider: ‘The Well-Tempered Guitar’, Soundboard, 5 (1978), 108–11 [discusses interchangeable fingerboards]
T. Stone: ‘A New Tonal Universe for the Guitar: Interchangeable Fingerboards’,Guitar & Lute, no.6 (1978), 19–21
M. Weber: ‘Gitarrenkorpus geometrisch abgeleitet: Instrumentengeschichte aus Spanien’, IZ, 32 (1978), 774 only
K. Achard: The History and Development of the American Guitar (London, 1979)
D. Denning: ‘The Vihuela: Royal Guitar of 16th-Century Spain’, Soundboard, 6/2 (1979), 38–41
T. Evans and others: Guitares: chefs d'oeuvre des collections de France (Paris, 1980)
Page 44 of 54

T. Heck: ‘Mysteries in the History of the Guitar’, La guitarra, nos.37–8, 40–41 (1980) [series of short articles]
M. Sorriso: ‘La chitarra battente in Calabria’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.31 (1980), 29–31
D. Gill: ‘Vihuelas, Violas and the Spanish Guitar’, EMc, 9 (1981), 455–62
T. Heck: ‘The Historic Variety in Guitar Sizes’, La guitarra, no.42 (1981), 2
T. Rossing: ‘Physics of Guitars: an Introduction’, Journal of Guitar Acoustics, no.4 (1981), 45–67
J. Schneider: ‘The Microtonal Guitar’, Guitar & Lute, no.16 (1981), 42–6; no.17 (1981), 32–4; no.19 (1981), 28–31; no.20

(1982), 20–22; no.21 (1982), 33–4; no.25 (1982), 14–17
Acoustical Society of America Meeting CIII: Guitar Session: Chicago 1982 [Journal of Guitar Acoustics, no.6 (1982)]
J. Meyer: ‘Fundamental Resonance Tuning of Guitars’, Journal of Guitar Acoustics, no.5 (1982), 19
T. Wheeler: American Guitars: an Illustrated History (New York, 1982, 3/1992)
O. Christensen: ‘The Response of Played Guitars at Middle Frequencies’, Acustica, 53 (1983), 45–8
R.C. Hartman: Guitars and Mandolins in America, Featuring the Larsons' Creations(Schaumburg, IL, 1984, 2/1988)
H. Nickel: ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Gitarre im Mittelalter’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, 8 (1984), 131–

46
M. Hodgson: ‘The Stringing of a Baroque Guitar’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.41 (1985), 61–7
B. Hopkin: ‘The Bi-Level Guitar’, Experimental Musical Instruments, 1/4 (1985), 1 [with three pages of illustrations]
J. Meyer: Akustik der Gitarre in Einzeldarstellungen (Frankfurt, 1985)
D. Ribouillault: ‘La décacorde de Carulli et Lacote’, Guitare, no.13 (1985), 4–6
R. Carlin: ‘The Improbable Evolution of the Arch-Top Guitar’, Frets, 8/10 (1986), 26–32
J. Winter: ‘Aspecten van der guitaarbouw’, Jaarboek van het Volksmuziekatelier, 4 (1986), 61–84
W.R. Cumpiano and J.D.Natelson: Guitarmaking, Tradition and Technology: a Complete Reference for the Design and
Construction of the Steel-String Folk Guitar and the Classical Guitar (Amherst, MA, 1987)
P. Forrester: ‘17th-Century Guitar Woodwork’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.48 (1987), 40–48
G. Stradner: ‘Die Instrumente der Wiener Schrammeln’, Studia organologica: Festschrift für John Henry van der Meer,

ed. F. Hellwig (Tutzing, 1987), 445–52 [describes the bass guitar of c1900]
F. Gétreau: ‘René, Alexandre et Jean Voboam: des facteurs pour “La guitarre royale”’,Instrumentistes et luthiers
parisiens: XVIIe–XIXe siècles(Paris,1988), 50–74
K. Huber: ‘Zur Wiederentdeckung der Wappenformgitarre um 1900’, Quaestiones in musica: Festschrift für Franz

Krautwurst, ed. F. Brusniak and H. Leuchtmann (Tutzing, 1989), 251–69
Page 45 of 54

I.C. Bishop: The Gibson Guitar (Westport, CT, 1990)
A. Corona-Alcalde: ‘The Viheula and the Guitar in Sixteenth-Century Spain: a Critical Appraisal of some of the Existing
Evidence’, LSJ, 30 (1990), 3–24
G. Gruhn and W.Carter: Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars(San Francisco, 1991)
L. Sandberg: The Acoustic Guitar Guide (Chicago, 1991)
P.W. Schmidt: Acquired of the Angels: the Lives and Works of Master Guitar Makers John D'Angelico and James L.
D'Aquisto (Metuchen, NJ, 1991)
J. Peterson: ‘Harp Guitar: that Extra String Thing’, American Lutherie, no.29 (1992), 20–35
J. Peterson: ‘A New Look at Harp Guitars’, American Lutherie, no.34 (1993), 24–40
B. Brozman: The History and Artistry of National Resonator Instruments (Fullerton, CA, 1993) [focusses on ‘Dobro’

guitars]
G. Gruhn and W.Carter: Acoustic Guitars and other Fretted Instruments: a Photographic History (San Francisco, 1993)
B.E. Richardson: ‘The Acoustical Development of the Guitar’, Catgut Acoustical Society Journal, 2/5 (1994), 1–10
E. Segerman: ‘Stringing 5-Course Baroque Guitars’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.75 (1994), 43–5
E. Whitford, D.Vinopal and D. Erlewine: Gibson's Fabulous Flat-Top Guitars: an Illustrated History and Guide (San
Francisco,1994)
W. Carter: The Martin Book: a Complete History of Martin Guitars (London, 1995)
H. Moust: The Guild Guitar Book 1952–1977 (Breda, Netherlands, 1995)
S. Chinery and T.Bacon: The Chinery Collection: 150 Years of American Guitars (London, 1996)
J. Fisch and L.B.Fred: Epiphone: the House of Stathopoulo (New York, 1996)
J. Morrish, ed.: The Classical Guitar: a Complete History (London, 1997)
D: Guitar technique
MGG2 (‘Gitarre’, §B: Repertoire und Spieltechnik, I–II; M. Burzik)
F. Guthmann: ‘Über Guitarrenspiel’, AMZ, 8 (1805–6), 362–6
O. Seyffert: ‘Über das Gitarrespiel mit Ring und Nagelanschlag’, Der Gitarrefreund, 8 (1907), 33–5, 41–3
E. Just: ‘Die Flageolettöne und ihre Notierung’, Der Gitarrefreund, 20 (1919), 11–15, 23–6, 35–7
F. Buek: ‘Über den Nagelanschlag’, Der Gitarrefreund, 22 (1921), 5–6
F. Laible: ‘Physiologie des Anschlages’, Die Gitarre, 2 (1920–21), 95–9
Page 46 of 54

F. Laible: ‘Physiologie des Greifens’, Die Gitarre, 4 (1923), 45–7
E. Schwarz-Reiflingen: ‘Kuppen- oder Nagelanschlag?’, Die Gitarre, 6 (1925), 65–8
A. Koczirz: ‘Über die Fingernageltechnik bei Saiteninstrumenten’, Studien zur Musikgeschichte: Festschrift für Guido

Adler (Vienna, 1930/R), 164–7
E. Schwarz-Reiflingen: ‘Die moderne Gitarrentechnik’, Die Gitarre, 11 (1930), 17–23, 34–6, 49–52, 81–6
T. Usher: ‘The Elements of Technical Proficiency’, Guitar Review, no.15 (1953), 6–8
T. Usher: ‘Tone and Tonal Variety’, Guitar Review, no.16 (1954), 23–4
D. Rycroft: ‘The Guitar Improvisations of Mwenda Jean Bosco’, AfM, 2/4 (1958–61), 81–98; iii/1 (1962–5), 86–101
E. Pujol: El dilema del sonido en la guitarra (Buenos Aires, 1960)
J. Huber: Origines et technique de la guitare (Lausanne, 1968)
S. Murphy: ‘Seventeenth-Century Guitar Music: Notes on Rasgueado Performance’, GSJ, 21 (1968), 24–32
V. Bobri: The Segovia Technique (New York, 1972)
M. Sicca: ‘Il vibrato come arricchimento naturale del suono: suo studio sistematico sulla chitarra e sul liuto’, Il
‘Fronimo’, no.5 (1973), 24
P. Danner: ‘Giovanni Paolo Foscarini and his “Nuova inventione”’, JLSA, 7 (1974), 4–18
R. Strizich: ‘A Spanish Guitar Tutor: Ruiz de Ribayaz's Luz y norte musical (1677)’,JLSA, 7 (1974), 51–81
A. Gilardino: ‘Il problema della diteggiatura nelle musiche per chitarra’, Il ‘Fronimo’, 3 (1975), no.10, pp.5–12; no.13, pp.
11–14
C. Duncan: ‘Staccato Articulation in Scales’, Soundboard, 4 (1977), 65–6
P.W. Cox: Classic Guitar Technique and its Evolution as Reflected in the Method Books, c1770–c1850(diss., Indiana U.,
1978)
C. Duncan: ‘About Vibrato’, Soundboard, 5 (1978), 69–72
J. Taylor: Tone Production on the Classical Guitar (London, 1978)
J. Weidlich: ‘Battuto Performance Practice in Early Italian Guitar Music (1606–1637)’,JLSA, 11 (1978), 63–86
C. Duncan: ‘Articulation and Tone: some Principles and Practices’, Guitar Review, no.46 (1979), 7–9
C. Duncan: ‘La tensione funzionale e l'attacco preparato’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.28 (1979), 23–6
M. Sicca: ‘Una concezione dinamica di alcuni problemi chitarristici’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.29 (1979), 18–23
P. Danner: ‘Lute Technique and the Guitar: a Further Look at the Historical Background’,Soundboard, 7 (1980), 60–67
Page 47 of 54

C. Duncan: The Art of Classical Guitar Playing (Princeton, NJ, 1980)
H. Jeffery: ‘La technica di unghia e polpastrello secondo Dionisio Aguado’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.33 (1980), 14–20
E. Lind: ‘Haltungsproblematik an der Konzertgitarre’, Gitarre und Laute, 2/6 (1980), 18–27
F. Cook: ‘The “Batteries” on the Spanish Baroque Guitar According to Marin Mersenne’, Guitar & Lute, no.19 (1981), 35–

7
P. Cox: ‘Considerazioni sui primi metodi per chitarra’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.34 (1981), 5–15
D. Ribouillault: La technique de guitare en France dans la première moitié du 19ème siècle (1981)
M. Ophee: ‘The History of apoyando: Another View’, Guitar Review, no.51 (1982), 6–13
D. Ribouillault: ‘Technique de la guitare: la position de l'instrument à l'époque romantique’, Cahiers de la guitare, no.2

(1982), 28–35
M. Ophee: ‘Il tocco appoggiato: precisazioni e argomenti storici’, Il ‘Fronimo’, no.43 (1983), 8–20
S. Jordan: ‘The Touch Technique: Two-Handed Tapping’, Guitar Player, 18/7 (1984), 29–30
R. Kienzle: ‘The Evolution of Country Fingerpicking’, Guitar Player, 18/5 (1984), 38–41
S. Lynch: ‘My Technique: Expanding the Boundaries of Finger-Tapped Guitar’, Guitar Player, 19/2 (1985), 14–15
J. Schneider: The Contemporary Guitar (Berkeley, 1985) [explains new playing techniques and notations]
A. Lehner-Wieternik: Neue Notationsformen, Klangmöglichkeiten und Spieltechniken der klassischen Gitarre (Vienna,
1991)
N. Amos: ‘The Suppression, Liberation, and Triumph of the Annular Finger: a Brief Historical View of Right-Hand Guitar
Technique’, Soundboard, 21/4 (1995), 11–15
D. Back: ‘William Foden and the Paradigms of his Technique’, Guitar Review, no.102 (1995), 13–17
J. Holecek: För musikens skull: studier i interpretativ gitarrspelteknik från tidsperioden c1800–c1930 (Göteborg, 1996)
V.A. Coelho, ed.: Performance on Lute, Guitar and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation(Cambridge,
1997)
E: Guitarists
P.J. Bone: The Guitar and Mandolin: Biographies of Celebrated Players and Composers(London, 1914, 2/1954/R)
J. Zuth: Handbuch der Laute und Gitarre (Vienna, 1926–8/R)
S.N. Contreras: La guitarra, sus antecedentes históricos y biografias de ejecutantes célebres(Buenos Aires, 1927)
W.P. Maschkewitsch: ‘Russische Gitarristen’, Die Gitarre, 11 (1930), 68–72
Page 48 of 54

D. Prat: Diccionario biográfico, bibliográfico, histórico, crítico de guitarras … guitarristas … guitarreros (Buenos Aires,
1934/R)
B. Terzi: Dizionario dei chitarristi e liutai italiani (Bologna, 1937)
N. Makarov: ‘The Memoires of Makaroff’, Guitar Review, no.1 (1946), 8–10; no.2 (1947), 4–6; no.3 (1947), 6–9; no.5
(1948), 1–5
Guitar Review, no.11 (1950) [portrait issue on contemporary guitarists]
C. Simpson: ‘Some Early American Guitarists’, Guitar Review, no.23 (1959), 16 only
Guitar News, no.60 (1961) [portraits]
C. Carfagna and M.Gangi: Dizionario chitarristico italiano(Ancona,1968)
C. Viglietti: Origien e historia de la guitarra (Buenos Aires, 1973) [esp. guitarists in Argentina and Uruguay]
Jazz Guitarists: Collected Interviews from Guitar Player Magazine (Saratoga, CA, 1975) [with an introduction by L.
Feather]
Rock Guitarists: from the Pages of Guitar Player Magazine (Saratoga, CA, 1977)
J. Ferguson, ed.: The Guitar Player Book (Saratoga, CA, 1978) [popular contemporary guitarists]
M.J. Summerfield: The Jazz Guitar: its Evolution and its Players (Gateshead, 1978)
W. Moser: ‘Spanische Gitarristen zwischen Aguado und Tarrega’, Gitarre und Laute, 1/4 (1979), 26–30
J. Powroźniak: Leksykon gitary (Kraków, 1979; enlarged Ger. trans., 1979)
J. Schneider: ‘Twentieth-Century Guitar: the Second Golden Age’, Guitar & Lute, no.12 (1980), 22–6 [discusses 12

‘specialist’ composers for the guitar, from Villa-Lobos to Brouwer]
C. Charlesworth: A–Z of Rock Guitarists (London, 1982)
J. Sallis: The Guitar Players: One Instrument and its Masters in American Music (New York,1982/R)
J. Stropes and P.Lang: 20th-Century Masters of Finger-Style Guitar(Milwaukee, 1982)
M.J. Summerfield: The Classical Guitar: its Evolution and its Players since 1800 (Gateshead, 1982, 3/1992)
H. Picart: Guitar héros (Paris, 1983)
J. Tobler and S.Grundy: The Guitar Greats (London, 1983)
S. Britt: The Jazz Guitarists (Poole, Dorset, 1984)
R. Kienzle: Great Guitarists (New York, 1985)
L. Christensen: ‘Tage mit Sarenko’, Gitarre & Laute, 8/1 (1986), 13–16
Page 49 of 54

M. Colonna: Chitarristi-compositori del XX secolo: le idee e le loro conseguenze (Padua, 1990)
H. Guerrero: Los guitarristas clásicos de México (Torreón, 1990)
J. Obrecht, ed.: Blues Guitar: the Men who Made the Music: from the Pages of Guitar Player Magazine(San Francisco,
1990, 2/1993)
M. Yablokov: Klassicheskaya gitara v Rossii i SSSR: biograficheskiy muzïkal′no-literaturniy slovar′-spravochnik russkikh i

sovetskikh deyateley gitary (Tyumen, 1992)
H. Gregory: 1000 Great Guitarists (London, 1994)
N. Marten: Star Guitars: Guitars and Players that have Helped Shape Modern Music(Fullerton, CA, 1994) [emphasizes
rock guitarists]
C. Gill: Guitar Legends: the Definitive Guide to the World's Greatest Guitar Players(London, 1995)
P. Pieters: ‘Die Wunderkinder der Gitarre während der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, Gitarre & Laute, 17 (1995),

no.5, pp.13–21; no.6, pp.55–61
See also
Tablature, §4(ii): Guitar: ‘Alphabets’ (alfabeto), 1606–1752
Charango
Angola, §2(iii): Music of Bantu-language speakers (north-western zone)
Argentina, §II, 6: Traditional music: The Pampa
Aksyonov, Semyon Nikolayevich
Barré
Campanelas
Chordophone
Continuo, §5(ii): Playing techniques: Plucked-string instruments
Puerto Rico, §II, 4: Traditional music: Instruments
Electric guitar
Flamenco
Geminiani, Francesco, §9: Treatises
Guinea, §6: Era of government patronage, 1958–84
Abatessa, Giovanni Battista
Calvi, Carlo
Page 50 of 54

Corbetta, Francesco
Abreu, Antonio
Aguado, Dionisio
Aleksandrov, Nikolay Ivanovich
Bobrowicz, Jan Nepomucen
Sychra, Andrey Osipovich
Vïsotsky, Mikhail Timofeyevich
Tsimmermann, Fyodor Mikhailovich
Almeida, Laurindo
Anido, María Luisa
Barbosa-Lima, Carlos
Barrios, Angel
Barrios Mangoré, Agustín
Barrueco, Manuel
Behrend, Siegfried
Benson, George
Bitetti, Ernesto
Bonell, Carlos
Borges, Raúl
Bream, Julian
Christian, Charlie
Clarke, Stanley
Cordero, Ernesto
Diaz, Alirio
Fernández, Eduardo
Fisk, Eliot
Franco
Ghiglia, Oscar
Isbin, Sharon
Ivanov-Kramskoy, Aleksandr
Iznaola, Ricardo
Page 51 of 54

Johnson, Blind Willie
Kachamba, Daniel
Korner, Alexis
Lagoya, Alexandre
Lang, Eddie
Lauro, Antonio
Leisner, David
Lindberg, Jakob
Llobet Soles, Miguel
Lucía, Paco de
McLaughlin, John
Metheny, Pat
Mikulka, Vladimír
Mills, John
Montgomery, Wes
Montoya, Ramón
Morel, Jorge
North, Nigel
Parkening, Christopher
Peña, Paco
Presti, Ida
Pujol Vilarrubí, Emíli
Ragossnig, Konrad
Rak, Štěpán
Reinhardt, Django
Rey de la Torre, José
Ricardo, Niño
Romero (i)
Russell, David
Rypdal, Terje
Sabicas
Page 52 of 54

Sainz de la Maza, Regino
Santos, Turibio
Segovia, Andrés
Söllscher, Göran
Spencer, Robert
Starobin, David
Tanenbaum, David
Walker, Luise
Williams, John
Wynberg, Simon
Yamashita, Kazuhito
Yepes, Narciso
Hawaiian guitar
Instrument modifications & extended performing techniques, §3(i): Strings: The guitar
Katanga guitar style
Candi, Cesare
D'Angelico, John
Gibson
Hohner
Larson brothers
Martin, C.F
Panormo
Rauche, Michael
Rickenbacker
Rubio, David
Torres Jurado, Antonio de
Voboam
Washburn, George
Yamaha
Mali, §5: Music and society
Malta, §II: Traditional music
Page 53 of 54

Moscow, §3: 1703–1918
Mozambique, §5: Popular music and other modern developments
Congo, Democratic Republic of the, §III, 4: Modern urban developments, Popular music.
Namibia, §2: Recent developments
Nicaragua, §III, 1(iii): Traditional and popular musics, Caribbean Coast., ii) Miskitu.
Notation, §III, 5(ii): Alphabetical, numerical and solmization notations
Paganini, Nicolò, §3: First Italian tour, 1810–24
Portugal, §III, 3: Traditional music: Instruments
Rasgueado
Scordatura, §3: Lute and guitar
South Africa, §II, 2(iii): European traditions: Traditional music: Music of the Cape Malays
Tiple
Spain, §II, 5: Traditional and popular music: Organology
Steel
Uruguay, §II, 3: Traditional and popular music: Mestizo music and instruments
Guerrero, Joseph
Bosco, Mwenda Jean
Zambia, §2(iv): Silozi-speaking people and their neighbours.
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Guitar (Fr. guitare; Ger. Gitarre; It. chitarra; Sp. guitarra; Port. viola; Brazilian Port.

1. Structure of the modern guitar.

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3. The four-course guitar

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St. Gallen, Kantonsbibl. (Verdiana), Vad. Slg. P3050

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St. Gallen, Kantonsbibl. (Verdiana), Vad. Slg. P3050

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4. The five-course guitar

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In addition to devising accompaniments from the harmonic indications of thealfabeto, 17th-century

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5. The early six-string guitar.

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6. The modern classical guitar.

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Spanish Guitar Centre, Bristol

Spanish Guitar Centre, Bristol

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Andrés Segovia, 1963

photo Erich Auerbach, London

photo Erich Auerbach, London

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Ex.4 Guido Santórsola: Sonata a duo (1967), 2nd movt

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Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

Ex.5 Stephen Dodgson: Partita for guitar (1965), 3rd movt

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

7. Variants of the classical guitar.

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Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

(i) Russia: the seven-string guitar.

(ii) Iberia, Latin America and the Pacific.

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Portuguese rajão, 19th century (Horniman Museum, London)

B. T. Batsford Ltd, London / photo L. G. Aubin; Horniman Museum, London

B. T. Batsford Ltd, London / photo L. G. Aubin; Horniman Museum, London

Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

Subscriber: Universidad Internacional de Valencia; date: 04 April 2023

A Bibliographies. B General. C The instrument. D Guitar technique. E Guitarists.

W. Moser: Gitarre-Musik: ein internationaler Katalog (Hamburg, 1973/R, 2/1977)