Birth of Acoustic Guitar

“In certain ways I still feel like I’m finding my way. I feel pretty comfortable playing acoustic guitar and singing, but then I feel pretty good sitting on a reggae groove as well” – Colin Hay

Acoustic guitars produce sound themselves; you don’t need an amplifier like an Electric guitar. Acoustic guitar is also known as Dreadnaught guitar, folk guitar, flat-top guitar or steel string guitar. The guitar’s body is made of wood and the sound produced by it is bright, brassy, deep and forceful which gives sheer pleasure to everyone’s ear.Acoustic guitar generates sound acoustically, which is by transferring the string’s vibration to the air through the bridge and saddle to the top plate of the guitar’s body. Today most acoustic guitars come in six or twelve string variation, but there are also custom-made acoustic guitars with higher number of strings or with a modified body.

Guitar is one of the most influential musical instruments in today’s culture, and acoustic guitar has retained its place for a long duration time and it seems that the legacy of acoustic guitar among music lovers will never fade away. People can easily recognize the sound produced by an acoustic guitar but very few would actually know the colorful history behind this wonderful musical instrument.

History of acoustic guitar dates back to over 4000 years. Throughout the years these musical instrument with strings have undergone metamorphosis to become the modern day acoustic guitar.

Guitar’s descendants,mostly with four strings came to Europe from Egypt and Mesopotamia. Duringfourteenth century, Latin and Moorish guitars were discussedas guitars. GuitarraMorescawas the name given to Moorish guitar which had a wide fingerboard, rounded back, and many sound holes. While the Latin guitar which was known as guitarralatina, was different from that of GuitarraMoresca,it had one sound hole and the neck was much narrower.By fifteenth century, guitars with four double stringbecame popular which were similar to lutes. In the sixteenth century five string guitarrabattenteappeared in Italy which replaced the four strings chitarra created during the same period. During seventeenth century, guitar became popular in Europe, and toward the end of the eighteenth century six string guitars started to appear.

By early nineteenth century, in around 1850, Antonio Torres, a Spanish guitar makerincreased the size of the body which made it louder, altered the proportions giving shape to modern acoustic guitar. It came to be known as Spanish guitar, which is still played in recent times.

So, that’s how acoustic guitar came into existence, which is used to play different types of music like folk, country, ragtime, blues, and pop. These guitars are available in two variants, one is the steel-string and the other is the classical. The steel-strings guitars produce a metallic sound that is a constituent of several trendy music styles while the classical guitars have a wide neck and utilize nylon strings. Steel-string guitar produces louder music than the classical guitar.

At the end of twenty-first century, we all know what an acoustic guitar is, legends like Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke, Chet Atkins, Phil Keaggy, John Fahey, and the list goes on, all played and play acoustic guitar.

Whether steel-string or classical, playing acoustic guitars will strengthen your fingers as you press down on the strings to make chord shapes. So, it is one of the best guitars to start your guitar learning process. If you are a beginner or if you have some knowledge about playing guitar and want to continue learning thencontact us, Rex Lee Bell can help you learn guitar at your home. Rex has now been doing mobile guitar lessons for many years and brings the joy of guitar to anyone who wants to learn guitar.We travel to over 30 cities in the East Bay and South Bay areas; including Danville, San Ramon, Dublin & Pleasanton.