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Classical guitar

The classical guitar, also called modern classical guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern steel-string acoustic and electric guitars, both of which use metal strings. Classical guitars derive from instruments such as the lute, the vihuela, the gittern (the name being a derivative of the Greek "kithara"), which evolved into the Renaissance guitar and into the 17th and 18th-century baroque guitar. By the mid-19th century, early forms of the modern classical guitar appear. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado.

String instrument

321.322–5
(Composite chordophone sounded by the bare fingers or fingernails)

modern classical guitar was developed in the late 19th century in Spain.

For a right-handed player, the traditional classical guitar has 12 frets clear of the body and is properly held up by the left leg, so that the hand that plucks or strums the strings does so near the back of the sound hole (this is called the classical position). However, the right-hand may move closer to the fretboard to achieve different tonal qualities. The player typically holds the left leg higher by the use of a foot rest. The modern steel string guitar, on the other hand, usually has 14 frets clear of the body (see Dreadnought) and is commonly held with a strap around the neck and shoulder.


The phrase "classical guitar" may refer to either of two concepts other than the instrument itself:


The term modern classical guitar sometimes distinguishes the classical guitar from older forms of guitar, which are in their broadest sense also called classical, or more specifically, early guitars. Examples of early guitars include the six-string early romantic guitar (c. 1790 – 1880), and the earlier baroque guitars with five courses.


The materials and the methods of classical guitar construction may vary, but the typical shape is either modern classical guitar or that historic classical guitar similar to the early romantic guitars of France and Italy. Classical guitar strings once made of gut are now made of materials such as nylon or fluoropolymers, typically with silver-plated copper fine wire wound about the acoustically lower (d-A-E in standard tuning) strings.


A guitar family tree may be identified. The flamenco guitar derives from the modern classical, but has differences in material, construction and sound.[1][2]

instruments

(composers and their compositions, arrangements, improvisations)

repertoire

The classical guitar has a long history and one is able to distinguish various:


Both instrument and repertoire can be viewed from a combination of various perspectives:


Historical (chronological period of time)


Geographical


Cultural

Vihuela, renaissance guitars and baroque guitars have a bright sound, rich in overtones, and their courses (double strings) give the sound a very particular texture.

Early guitars of the classical and romantic period (early romantic guitars) have single strings, but their design and voicing are still such that they have their tonal energy more in the overtones (but without starved fundamental), giving a bright intimate tone.

Later in Spain a style of music emerged that favoured a stronger fundamental:
"With the change of music a stronger fundamental was demanded and the fan bracing system was approached. ... the guitar tone has been changed from a transparent tone, rich in higher partials to a more 'broad' tone with a strong fundamental."

[7]

Thus modern guitars with fan bracing (fan strutting) have a design and voicing that gives them a thick, heavy sound, with far more tonal energy found in the fundamental.

Style periods[edit]

Renaissance[edit]

Composers of the Renaissance period who wrote for four-course guitar include Alonso Mudarra, Miguel de Fuenllana, Adrian Le Roy, Grégoire Brayssing, Guillaume de Morlaye, and Simon Gorlier.

i-m-i-m : Basic melody line on the treble strings. Has the appearance of "walking along the strings". This is often used for playing passages.

Scale (music)

p-i-m-a-i-m-a : Arpeggio pattern example. However, there are many arpeggio patterns incorporated into the classical guitar repertoire.

p-a-m-i-p-a-m-i : Classical guitar tremolo pattern.

p-m-p-m : A way of playing a melody line on the lower strings.

It is an instrument. The sound of the plucked string is amplified by the soundboard and resonant cavity of the guitar.[48]

acoustic

It has six , though some classical guitars have seven or more strings.

strings

All six strings are made from , or nylon wrapped with metal, as opposed to the metal strings found on other acoustic guitars. Nylon strings also have a much lower tension than steel strings, as do the predecessors to nylon strings, gut strings (made from ox or sheep gut). The lower three strings ('bass strings') are wound with metal, commonly silver-plated copper.

nylon

Typical modern six-string classical guitars are 48–54 mm wide at the nut, compared to around 42 mm for electric guitars.

Classical fingerboards are normally flat and without inlaid fret markers, or just have dot inlays on the side of the neck—steel string fingerboards usually have a slight radius and inlays.

Classical guitarists use their right hand to pluck the strings. Players may shape their fingernails for a brighter tone and feel against the strings.

Strumming is a less common technique in classical guitar, and is often referred to by the Spanish term "rasgueo", or for strumming patterns "rasgueado", and uses the backs of the fingernails. Rasgueado is integral to guitar.

Flamenco

at the headstock of a classical guitar point backwards—in contrast to most steel-string guitars, which have machine heads that point outward.

Machine heads

The overall design of a Classical Guitar is very similar to the slightly lighter and smaller .

Flamenco guitar

eI – b – g – d – A – E

A variety of different tunings are used. The most common by far, which one could call the "standard tuning" is:


The above order is the tuning from the 1st string (highest-pitched string e'—spatially the bottom string in playing position) to the 6th string – lowest-pitched string E—spatially the upper string in playing position, and hence comfortable to pluck with the thumb.


The explanation for this "asymmetrical" tuning (in the sense that the maj 3rd is not between the two middle strings, as in the tuning of the viola da gamba) is probably that the guitar originated as a 4-string instrument (actually an instrument with 4 double courses of strings, see above) with a maj 3rd between the 2nd and 3rd strings, and it only became a 6-string instrument by gradual addition of a 5th string and then a 6th string tuned a 4th apart:


"The development of the modern tuning can be traced in stages. One of the tunings from the 16th century is C-F-A-D. This is equivalent to the top four strings of the modern guitar tuned a tone lower. However, the absolute pitch for these notes is not equivalent to modern "concert pitch". The tuning of the four-course guitar was moved up by a tone and toward the end of the 16th century, five-course instruments were in use with an added lower string tuned to A. This produced A-D-G-B-E, one of a wide number of variant tunings of the period. The low E string was added during the 18th century."[53]


This tuning is such that neighboring strings are at most 5 semitones apart. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings. The most common is known as Drop D tuning which has the 6th string tuned down from an E to a D.

The Guitar and its Music (From the Renaissance to the Classical Era) (2007) by James Tyler, Paul Sparks.  0-19-921477-8

ISBN

Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice (No. 6): Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela (2005) edited by Victor Anand Coelho.  0-521-45528-6

ISBN

The Guitar: From the Renaissance to the Present Day by Harvey Turnbull; published by Bold Strummer, 1991.  0-933224-57-5

ISBN

The Guitar; by Sinier de Ridder; published by Edizioni Il Salabue;  88-87618-09-7

ISBN

La Chitarra, Quattro secoli di Capolavori (The Guitar: Four centuries of Masterpieces) by Giovanni Accornero, Ivan Epicoco, Eraldo Guerci; published by Edizioni Il Salabue

Rosa sonora – Esposizione di chitarre XVII – XX secolo by Giovanni Accornero; published by Edizioni Il Salabue

Lyre-guitar. Étoile charmante, between the 18th and 19th century by Eleonora Vulpiani

Summerfield, Maurice, The Classical Guitar: Its Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 – 5th Edition, Blaydon : Ashley Mark Publishing Company, 2002.

Various, , Blaydon : Ashley Mark Publishing Company, monthly publication first published in 1982.

Classical Guitar Magazine

Wade, Graham, Traditions of the Classical Guitar, London : Calder, 1980.

Antoni Pizà: Francesc Guerau i el seu temps (Palma de Mallorca: Govern de les Illes Balears, Conselleria d'Educació i Cultura, Direcció General de Cultura, Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics, 2000)  84-89868-50-6

ISBN

Jayson Kerr Dobney, Wendy Powers (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Thematic essay: The guitar

Classical & Fingerstyle Guitar

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Classical Guitar Library