You can hardly find a musical instrument as widespread in the world as the guitar. It is used almost all over the world. The guitar sounds both in recitals of Spanish masters, and as an accompaniment to other instruments and melodies. Since the last century, the guitar has acquired a new sound, becoming an electric instrument.
From the history of the guitar
The traditional guitar is a stringed plucked instrument. It is used in a wide variety of musical styles and directions, from blues and country, to flamenco, rock music and jazz. For several centuries, the guitar has been considered one of those instruments that have had a particular impact on world musical culture.
The earliest evidence of a stringed instrument with a neck and resonating body dates back to antiquity. The first predecessors of the guitar appeared about four thousand years ago. Stringed instruments, akin to the guitar and arranged according to the same principle, were used in Babylon. There are references to them in the biblical texts. There were instruments similar in structure in Egypt and India.
According to legends, the hero of Greek myths, Hercules, knew how to play the string cithara.
The very word "guitar", according to some historians, goes back to the Sanskrit word "sangita", meaning "music", and the Persian "tar", which means "string". Having spread throughout Central Asia and came to Europe, the word "guitar" was modified several times. In its current linguistic form, the name of the instrument appeared in European literature around the 13th century.
Distant relatives of the guitar had a rounded elongated body and an elongated neck, along which the strings were stretched. The body, as a rule, was made from a single piece of wood, less often from dried pumpkin or tortoiseshell. Subsequently, the body became composite: it was made from the bottom and top decks, connecting them with a side wall - a shell. Such instruments were already created in China in the 3rd century AD. Only two centuries later, a similar composite instrument appeared in Europe, receiving the name of the Latin guitar, the appearance of which has been preserved mainly to the present day.
Guitar and its varieties
In medieval times, Spain became the center of the development of the guitar, where the instrument came from Rome, as well as together with the Arab conquerors. Around the 15th century, the five-string guitar was invented in Spain. It was called Spanish.
Three centuries later, the guitar received another string and a rich repertoire of musical works.
But the guitar came to Russia relatively late - around the end of the 17th century. Over time, virtuosos appeared in the country, mastering this instrument. A little later, a seven-string version of the Spanish guitar, called the "Russian guitar", began to spread in Russia.
In the last century, technologies for amplifying and processing sound using electricity have emerged. This is how the electric guitar appeared, which had only a distant external resemblance to a classical instrument. The musicians got new opportunities, and the listeners began to gradually get used to the original sound, which, however, is unlikely to completely replace the melodic sounds emanating from the traditional string instrument, whose name is classical guitar.
