The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten, and twelve string guitars also exist.

Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.

Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.

History

main: History of the classical guitar

Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Middle East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is therefore very distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the Iranian tanbur and setar and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra, derived from the Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, which perhaps derives from Persian sihtar. Sihtar itself is related to the Indian instrument, the sitar.

The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara 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 the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the lang: guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the lang: guitarra latina (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck.