The Guitar

The guitar is a stringed instrument. The guitar consists of a body with a neck to the strings, generally six in number. There are two primary families of guitars: acoustic and electric.

Acoustic guitars : Hollow bodies, have been in use for over a 1000 years. There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar:
1. The classical guitar (nylon-string guitar)
2. The steel-string acoustic guitar
3. The archtop guitar -->
The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the vibration of the strings, which is amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber.

Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Electric guitars have had a continuing profound influence on popular culture. Guitars are recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues,jazz etc. and many forms of pop.

History

Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". These instruments are descended from ones that existed in ancient central Asia and India. For this reason guitars are distantly related to modern instruments from these regions, including the tanbur, the setar, and the sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying the essential features of a guitar is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard.

The modern word "guitar" and its predecessors applied to a wide variety of cordophones since ancient times and as such is a cause of confusion. The English word "guitar", the German "gitarre", and the French "guitare", were adopted from the Spanish word guitarra.

The guitar is brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of Iberia in the 8th century. By 1200 AD, the four-string "guitar" had evolved into two types:
1) the guitarra moresca (Moorish guitar), which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, and several soundholes and
2) the guitarra latina (Latin guitar), which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck.
(moorish guitar)

Accessories

Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.

Capotasto

A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret.

Slides

A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'Hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired.
*reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar


Well, I personally do not play the guitar, but my sibling does(its her CCA). I ocssionally learn to play a bit of it from her, but will soon get irritated as it is way too hard for me to play it... However, I actually really want to play a guitar, because it makes such a melodious sound, and it will not, I guess, be difficult to play it after some practice. I hope that I will be able to learn how to play it soon...

If you are interested to learn it, it is not neccessary for you to go to music schools to learn it. Try learning it yourself!
These are some websites i found that might be useful:
- http://www.guitarlessonssingapore.com/
- http://www.guitar.com/