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." The term is used
to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across
Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. A
3,300-year-old stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is
the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone and clay plaques from
Babylonia show people playing an instrument that has a strong resemblance to
the guitar, indicating a possible Babylonian origin for the guitar.
The modern word guitar, and its
antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical
times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German
Gitarre, and the French guitare were all adopted from the Spanish guitarra,
which comes from the Andalusian Arabic قيثارة
qitara, cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek κιθάρα kithara.
The term guitar is descended from
the Latin word cithara, but the modern guitar itself is generally not believed
to have descended from the Roman instrument. Many influences are cited as
antecedents to the modern guitar. Although the development of the earliest
"guitars" is lost in the history of medieval Spain, two instruments
are commonly cited as their most influential predecessors, the European lute and
its cousin, the four-string oud; the latter was brought to Iberia by the Moors
in the 8th century.
A guitarra latina (left) and a
guitarra morisca (right), Spain, 13th century
At least two instruments called
"guitars" were in use in Spain by 1200: the guitarra latina (Latin
guitar) and the so-called guitarra moresca (Moorish guitar). The guitarra
moresca had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, and several sound holes. The
guitarra Latina had a single sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th
century the qualifiers "moresca" or "morisca" and
"latina" had been dropped, and these two cordophones were simply
referred to as guitars.
The Spanish vihuela, called in
Italian the "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and
16th centuries, is widely considered to have been the single most important
influence in the development of the baroque guitar. It had six courses
(usually), lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early
representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist. It was also
larger than the contemporary four-course guitars. By the 16th century, the
vihuela's construction had more in common with the modern guitar, with its
curved one-piece ribs, than with the viols, and more like a larger version of
the contemporary four-course guitars. The vihuela enjoyed only a relatively
short period of popularity in Spain and Italy during an era dominated elsewhere
in Europe by the lute; the last surviving published music for the instrument
appeared in 1576.
Meanwhile, the five-course
baroque guitar, which was documented in Spain from the middle of the 16th
century, enjoyed popularity, especially in Spain, Italy and France from the
late 16th century to the mid-18th century. In Portugal, the word viola referred
to the guitar, as guitarra meant the "Portuguese guitar", a variety
of cittern.
