Different Types of Guitars Classical Guitar/Spanish Guitar/Nylon Acoustic. The classical guitar is an acoustical wooden guitar with six classical guitar strings as opposed to the metal strings used in acoustic and electric guitars designed for popular music. The shape, construction, and material of classical guitars vary, but typically they have the round figure of 8 shape resembling early romantic guitars from France and Italy. Classical guitar strings were once made of catgut but nowadays are made of polymers such as nylon, with a fine wire wrap on the bass strings. This light, stretchy material gives the instrument its characteristic sound, which is much mellower than a steal string acoustic. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado and the guitars sound can be heard throughout Spanish flamenco music. _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ Steel String Guitar The steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar that descends from the classical guitar, but is strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. It first came about at the turn of the 20 th century and was widespread by 1920 in America. It is often referred to simply as an acoustic guitar however, confusingly the nylon-strung classical guitar is also sometimes called an acoustic guitar. The standard tuning for an acoustic guitar is E-A-D-G-B-E (low to high), although many players, particularly fingerpickers, use alternate tunings such as "open G" (D-G-D-G-B-D), "open D" (DA-D-F♯-A-D), or "drop D" (D-A-D-G-B-E). Steal string guitars are commonly played in pop, rock and folk styles and therefore often need amplification to be heard above the other instruments. To do this, they can be mic’d up but for practicality, most have a built in or detachable transducer pickup similar to an electric guitar. This enables them to be able to send their signal to an amplifier or P.A. system. _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ Ukulele
The ukulele, sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a member of the guitar family and uses four nylon or gut strings to create its sound. The ukulele originated in the 19th century as a Hawaiian interpretation of the machete, a small guitar-like instrument that was taken to Hawaii by Portuguese Imigrants from the Macronesian Islands. It gained great popularity in the United States during the early 20th century, and from there it has spread internationally. The tone and volume of the instrument varies with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. In recent years the ukulele has come to prominence for its ease of playability, cheap price, portability and many famous artist employing it into music. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ Electric Bass Guitar The bass guitar or electric bass is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, tapping or picking with a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and four to six strings. The four-string bass— by far the most common—is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest pitched strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G). Like the electric guitar, the bass guitar is plugged into an amplifier and speaker for live performances. Since the 1960s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double
bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of bass lines vary widely from one style of music to another, the bassist usually fulfils a similar role: anchoring the harmonic framework and establishing the beat. Many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, and jazz.
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Electric Guitar Invented in 1931, the electric guitar became a necessity as jazz musicians sought to amplify their sound in the big band format. During the 1950s and 1960s, the electric guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into a stringed musical instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles. It served as a major component in the development of rock and roll and many other genres of music. An electric guitar uses a pickup to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical impulses and therefore does not need a hollow body or sound hole to amplify its sound. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker. Since the output of an electric guitar is an electric signal, the signal may easily be altered using electronic circuits to add "colour" to the sound. Often the signal is modified using effects such as reverb and distortion.
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Different Types of Guitars pg2