The guitar, or at least its ancestors, has been around for pretty much as long as human history. 5,000 years ago when culture was rising in Egypt and Mesopotamia early guitars were in existence in Asia. The earliest pictographic evidence of a guitar-like musical instrument dates from around 1300 BCE. in the near east. Early guitars didn’t necessarily look like they do today, but they did share the basic features – long neck, flat soundboard made of wood, flat back, and commonly curved sides.
The word ‘guitar’ originates from ‘guitarra’ in Spanish which in turn came from the Latin ‘cithara’, borrowed from the Greek ‘kithara’, which some people believe came from the Persian ‘sihtar’, which would have been related to the well known Indian stringed instrument the Sitar.
The modern guitar is remindful of the Roman guitar which in opposition to the Moors’ “oud” had just one sound-hole and a relatively narrow neck; though the Scandinavians have had, since at least the eight century, their six stringed lute which is also of the guitar family.
The guitar has experienced several incarnations over the centuries but the people credited with the founding of the first 6-string modern type guitar was the Vinaccia family and we actually have a six string model with no signs of having been modified from another type with the date of 1779 on it. However, it was around 100 years later that the dimensions of modern guitars were set and the man responsible for this Antonio Torres Jurado of Seville. It was around this time also that fan strutting became set as preferable to transverse table bracing due to the work of both Antonio Torres Jurado and the Englishman Louis Panormo.
The electric guitar is the latest addition to the guitar family, having being patented in 1936 by George Beauchamp and mass produced by Danelectro.
