Part -1
Introduction
to the history of guitar:
The guitar is
an ancient and noble instrument, whose history can be traced back over 4000
years. Many theories have been advanced about the instrument's ancestry. It has
often been claimed that the guitar is a development of the lute, or even of the
ancient Greek kithara. Research done by Dr. Michael Kasha in the 1960's showed
these claims to be without merit. He showed that the lute is a result of a
separate line of development, sharing common ancestors with the guitar, but
having had no influence on its evolution. The influence in the opposite
direction is undeniable, however - the guitar's immediate forefathers were a
major influence on the development of the fretted lute from the fretless oud
which the Moors brought with them to to Spain.
The sole
"evidence" for the kithara theory is the similarity between the greek
word "kithara" and the Spanish word "quitarra". It is hard
to imagine how the guitar could have evolved from the kithara, which was a
completely different type of instrument - namely a square-framed lap harp, or
"lyre".
It would also be passing strange if a square-framed seven-string lap harp had given its name to the early Spanish 4-string "quitarra". Dr. Kasha turns the question around and asks where the Greeks got the name "kithara", and points out that the earliest Greek kitharas had only 4 strings when they were introduced from abroad. He surmises that the Greeks hellenified the old Persian name for a 4-stringed instrument, "chartar".
It would also be passing strange if a square-framed seven-string lap harp had given its name to the early Spanish 4-string "quitarra". Dr. Kasha turns the question around and asks where the Greeks got the name "kithara", and points out that the earliest Greek kitharas had only 4 strings when they were introduced from abroad. He surmises that the Greeks hellenified the old Persian name for a 4-stringed instrument, "chartar".
Ancestors:
The
earliest stringed instruments
known to archaeologists are bowl harps and tanburs. Since
prehistory people have made bowl harps using tortoise shells and calabashes as
resonators, with a bent stick for a neck and one or more gut or silk strings.
The world's museums contain many such "harps" from the ancient
Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilisations. Around 2500 - 2000 CE more
advanced harps, such as the opulently carved 11-stringed instrument with gold
decoration found in Queen Shub-Ad's tomb, started to appear.
A tanbur
is defined as "a long-necked stringed instrument with a small egg- or
pear-shaped body, with an arched or round back, usually with a soundboard of
wood or hide, and a long, straight neck". The tanbur probably developed
from the bowl harp as the neck was straightened out to allow the string/s to be
pressed down to create more notes. Tomb paintings and stone carvings in Egypt testify
to the fact that harps and tanburs (together with flutes and percussion
instruments) were being played in ensemble 3500 - 4000 years ago.
Tomb
paintings and stone carvings in Egypt testify to the fact that harps and
tanburs (together with flutes and percussion instruments) were being played in
ensemble 3500 - 4000 years ago.
The oldest preserved guitar-like instrument
At 3500 years
old, this is the ultimate vintage guitar! It belonged to the Egyptian singer
Har-Mose. He was buried with his tanbur close to the tomb of his employer,
Sen-Mut, architect to Queen Hatshepsut, who was crowned in 1503 BCE. Sen-Mut
(who, it is suspected, was far more than just chief minister and architect to
the queen) built Hatshepsuts beautiful mortuary temple, which stands on the
banks of the Nile to this day.
Har-Moses
instrument had three strings and a plectrum suspended from the neck by a cord.
The soundbox was made of beautifully polished cedarwood and had a rawhide
"soundboard". It can be seen today at the Archaeological Museum in
Cairo.
Queen
Hatshepsut
What is a guitar, anyway?
To
distinguish guitars from other members of the tanbur family, we need to define
what a guitar is. Dr. Kasha defines a guitar as having "a long, fretted
neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved
sides" .
The oldest known iconographical representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar is a stone carving at Alaca Huyuk in Turkey, of a 3300 year old Hittite "guitar" with "a long fretted neck, flat top, probably flat back, and with strikingly incurved sides".
The oldest known iconographical representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar is a stone carving at Alaca Huyuk in Turkey, of a 3300 year old Hittite "guitar" with "a long fretted neck, flat top, probably flat back, and with strikingly incurved sides".
Alaca Huyuk carving of guitar
The Guitar
The name
"guitar" comes from the ancient Sanskrit word for "string"
- "tar". (This is the language from which the languages of
central Asia and northern India developed.) Many stringed folk instruments
exist in Central Asia to this day which have been used in almost unchanged form
for several thousand years, as shown by archeological finds in the area. Many
have names that end in "tar", with a prefix indicating the number of
strings:
two = Sanskrit "dvi" - modern Persian "do" -
dotar, two-string instrument found in Turkestan
three = Sanskrit "tri" - modern Persian "se" -
setar, 3-string instrument, found in Persia (Iran),
(cf. sitar, India, elaborately developed, many-stringed)
four = Sanskrit "chatur" - modern Persian "char" -
chartar, 4-string instrument, Persia (most commonly known as "tar" in modern usage)
(cf. quitarra, early Spanish 4-string guitar,
modern Arabic qithara, Italian chitarra, etc)
five = Sanskrit "pancha" - modern Persian "panj" -
panchtar, 5 strings, Afghanistan
Indian
Sitar
The Indian sitar almost certainly took its name from the Persian setar, but over the centuries the Indians developed it into a completely new instrument, following their own aesthetic and cultural ideals.
The Indian sitar almost certainly took its name from the Persian setar, but over the centuries the Indians developed it into a completely new instrument, following their own aesthetic and cultural ideals.
Tanburs
and harps spread around the ancient world with travellers, merchants and
seamen. The four-stringed Persian chartar (note the narrow waist!)
arrived in Spain, where it changed somewhat in form and construction, acquired
pairs of unison-tuned strings instead of single strings and became known as the
quitarra or chitarra.
From four-, to five-, to six-string guitar
As we have seen, the
guitar's ancestors came to Europe from Egypt and Mesopotamia. These early
instruments had, most often, four strings - as we have seen above, the word
"guitar" is derived from the Old Persian "chartar", which,
in direct translation, means "four strings". Many such instruments,
and variations with from three to five strings, can be seen in mediaeval
illustrated manuscripts, and carved in stone in churches and cathedrals, from Roman
times through till the Middle Ages. Right: Roman "guitar", c:a 200
CE.
By the beginning of the Renaissance, the
four-course (4 unison-tuned pairs of strings) guitar had become dominant, at
least in most of Europe. (Sometimes a single first string was used.) The
earliest known music for the four-course "chitarra" was written in
16th century Spain. The five-course guitarra battente (left) first appeared in
Italy at around the same time, and gradually replaced the four-course
instrument. The standard tuning had already settled at A, D, G, B, E, like the
top five strings of the modern guitar.
In
common with lutes, early guitars seldom had necks with more than 8 frets free
of the body, but as the guitar evolved, this increased first to 10 and then to
12 frets to the body.
5-course guitar by Antonio Stradivarius, 1680
A
sixth course of strings was added to the Italian "guitarra battente"
in the 17th century, and guitar makers all over Europe followed the trend. The
six-course arrangement gradually gave way to six single strings, and again it
seems that the Italians were the driving force. (The six-string guitar can thus
be said to be a development of the twelve-string, rather than vice versa, as is
usually assumed.)
In
the transition from five courses to six single strings, it seems that at least
some existing five-course instruments were modified to the new stringing
pattern. This was a fairly simple task, as it only entailed replacing (or
re-working) the nut and bridge, and plugging four of the tuning peg holes. An
incredibly ornate guitar by the German master from Hamburg, Joakim Thielke
(1641 - 1719), was altered in this way. (Note that this instrument has only 8
frets free of the body.)
At
the beginning of the 19th century one can see the modern guitar beginning to
take shape. Bodies were still fairly small and narrow-waisted.
6-string
guitar by George Louis Panormo, 1832
The
modern "classical" guitar took its present form when the Spanish
maker Antonio Torres increased the size of the body, altered its proportions,
and introduced the revolutionary "fan" top bracing pattern, in around
1850. His design radically improved the volume, tone and projection of the
instrument, and very soon became the accepted construction standard. It has
remained essentially unchanged, and unchallenged, to this day.
Guitar
by Antonio Torres Jurado, 1859
Steel-string and electric guitars
At
around the same time that Torres started making his breakthrough fan-braced
guitars in Spain, German immigrants to the USA - among them Christian Fredrich
Martin - had begun making guitars with X-braced tops. Steel strings first
became widely available in around 1900. Steel strings offered the promise of
much louder guitars, but the increased tension was too much for the
Torres-style fan-braced top. A beefed-up X-brace proved equal to the job, and
quickly became the industry standard for the flat-top steel string guitar.
At
the end of the 19th century Orville Gibson was building archtop guitars with
oval sound holes. He married the steel-string guitar with a body constructed
more like a cello, where the bridge exerts no torque on the top, only pressure
straight down. This allows the top to vibrate more freely, and thus produce
more volume. In the early 1920's designer Lloyd Loar joined Gibson, and refined
the archtop "jazz" guitar into its now familiar form with f-holes,
floating bridge and cello-type tailpiece.
The
electric guitar was born when pickups were added to Hawaiian and
"jazz" guitars in the late 1920's, but met with little success before
1936, when Gibson introduced the ES150 model, which Charlie Christian made
famous.
With
the advent of amplification it became possible to do away with the soundbox
altogether. In the late 1930's and early 1940's several actors were
experimenting along these lines, and controversy still exists as to whether Les
Paul, Leo Fender, Paul Bigsby or O.W. Appleton constructed the very first
solid-body guitar. Be that as it may, the solid-body electric guitar was here
to stay.