This article on the story of stringed instruments and guitars prompted me to do some reading on wikipedia regarding the origin of guitars. If you’ve ever wondered whether your six-stringed instrument descended directly as a gift from the gods themselves, back when man was rubbing two sticks together to produce fire, then prepare for some education.
Some interesting tidbits:
- The word guitar probably comes from Spanish guitarra, derived from the Latin wordcithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, which perhaps derives from Persian sihtar
- The guitar traces back thousands of years – the oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard
- The Spanish vihuela or “viola da mano” of the 15th and 16th centuries is usually considered the immediate ancestor of the guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body.
More interesting fun-facts about the electric guitar:
- The electric guitar was patented by George Beauchamp in 1936. Beauchamp co-founded Rickenbacher which used the horseshoe-magnet pickup.
- However, it was Danelectro that first produced electric guitars for the wider public
- The earliest documented use of the electric guitar in performance was during October 1932 in Wichita, Kansas by guitarist and bandleader Gage Brewer
- The largest playable electric guitar was completed by 11 students in the Academy of Science and hoper with their physics teacher Scott Rippetoe in 2000. The Gibson ’67 Flying V replica guitar measures 13 meters (43 feet, 7 1/2 inches) long, 4.88 meters (16 feet, 5 1/2 inches) wide, and weighs 1018 kilograms (2,244 pounds)
I hope you feel a bit more informed now about how that finely crafted instrument that you’re playing came about…
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