The classical guitar, also known as a Spanish guitar,"The term Spanish guitar has been used differently across the centuries in different countries. Today it is often used interchangeably with the term classical guitar and is certainly not limited to instruments made in Spain". - Daniel Wheeldon. Department of Musical Instruments, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. As 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. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of a 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio de Torres Jurado.
For a right-handed player, the traditional classical guitar has 12 frets that are 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, or sul ponticello, position. However, the right hand may move to the sul tasto position, closer to the fretboard, to achieve a different tonal quality (warmer), or closer to the saddle (more metallic). To position the classical guitar correctly, the player's left leg is typically raised on a foot rest or a support is used. The modern steel string guitar, on the other hand, usually has at least 14 frets clear of the body (see Dreadnought) and is commonly held with a strap around the neck and shoulder.
Classical guitars are distinguished from electric and acoustic guitars, which are often considered easier to play, largely due to the less sophisticated right hand technique.
The phrase "classical guitar" may refer to either of two concepts other than the instrument itself: The instrumental finger technique common to classical guitar—individual strings plucked with the fingernails or, less frequently, fingertips The instrument's classical music repertoire
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 ( – 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 Spain, France and Italy. Classical guitar strings once made of gut are now made of materials such as nylon or fluoropolymers (especially PVDF), typically with silver-plated copper fine wire wound about the 3 lower-pitched strings, which are (descending) D, A and low E in standard tuning.
A guitar family tree may be identified. The flamenco guitar derives from the modern classical, but has differences in material, construction and sound.Classical vs. Flamenco Guitar Construction (Fernandez Music)
Contexts The classical guitar has a long history and one is able to distinguish various: instruments repertoire (composers and their compositions, arrangements, improvisations)
Both instrument and repertoire can be viewed from a combination of various perspectives:
Historical (chronological period of time) Baroque guitar – 1600 to 1750 Early romantic guitars – 1750 to 1850 (for music from the Classical and Romantic periods) Modern classical guitars Geographical Spanish guitars (Torres), French guitars (René Lacôte, ...), German guitars (Hermann Hauser), etc. Cultural Baroque court music, nineteenth-century opera and its influences, nineteenth-century folk songs, Latin American music
Historical perspective
Early guitars
While "classical guitar" is today mainly associated with the modern classical guitar design, there is an increasing interest in early guitars; and understanding the link between historical repertoire and the particular period guitar that was originally used to perform this repertoire. The musicologist and author Graham Wade writes:
Nowadays it is customary to play this repertoire on reproductions of instruments authentically modelled on concepts of musicological research with appropriate adjustments to techniques and overall interpretation. Thus over recent decades we have become accustomed to specialist artists with expertise in the art of vihuela (a 16th-century type of guitar popular in Spain), lute, Baroque guitar, 19th-century guitar, etc.
Different types of guitars have different sound aesthetics, e.g. different colour-spectrum characteristics (the way the sound energy is spread in the fundamental frequency and the overtones), different response, etc. These differences are due to differences in construction; for example, modern classical guitars usually use a different bracing (fan-bracing) from that used in earlier guitars (they had ladder-bracing); and a different voicing was used by the luthier. Equally, playability varies: baroque guitars, for example, may have as few as nine frets clear of the body, hampering performance of certain repertoire.
There is a historical parallel between musical styles (baroque, classical, romantic, flamenco, jazz) and the style of "sound aesthetic" of the musical instruments used, for example: Robert de Visée played a baroque guitar with a very different sound aesthetic from the guitars used by Mauro Giuliani and Luigi Legnani: they used 19th-century guitars. These guitars in turn sound different from the Torres models used by Segovia that are suited for interpretations of romantic-modern works such as Moreno Torroba.
When considering the guitar from a historical perspective, the musical instrument used is as important as the musical language and style of the particular period. As an example: It is impossible to play a historically informed de Visee or Corbetta (baroque guitarist-composers) on a modern classical guitar. The reason is that the baroque guitar used courses, which are two strings close together (in unison), that are plucked together. This gives baroque guitars an unmistakable sound characteristic and tonal texture that is an integral part of an interpretation. Additionally, the sound aesthetic of the baroque guitar (with its strong overtone presence) is very different from modern classical type guitars, as is shown below.
Today's use of Torres and post-Torres type guitars for repertoire of all periods is sometimes critically viewed: Torres and post-Torres style modern guitars (with their fan-bracing and design) have a thick and strong tone, very suitable for modern-era repertoire. However, they are considered to emphasize the fundamental too heavily (at the expense of overtone partials) for earlier repertoire (Classical/Romantic: Carulli, Sor, Giuliani, Mertz, ...; Baroque: de Visee, ...; etc.). "Andrés Segovia presented the Spanish guitar as a versatile model for all playing styles" to the extent, that still today, "many guitarists have tunnel-vision of the world of the guitar, coming from the modern Segovia tradition".Early Romantic Guitar Period Technique by earlyromanticguitar.com
While fan-braced modern classical Torres and post-Torres style instruments coexisted with traditional ladder-braced guitars at the beginning of the 20th century, the older forms eventually fell away. Some attribute this to the popularity of Segovia, considering him "the catalyst for change toward the Spanish design and the so-called 'modern' school in the 1920s and beyond."Early Classical Guitar and Early Romantic Guitar Time Period by earlyromanticguitar.com The styles of music performed on ladder-braced guitars were becoming unfashionable—and, e.g., in Germany, more musicians were turning towards folk music (Schrammel-music and the Contraguitar). This was localized in Germany and Austria and became unfashionable again. On the other hand, Segovia was playing concerts around the world, popularizing modern classical guitar—and, in the 1920s, Spanish romantic-modern style with guitar works by Moreno Torroba, de Falla, etc.
The 19th-century classical guitarist Francisco Tárrega first popularized the Torres design as a classical solo instrument. However, some maintain that Segovia's influence led to its domination over other designs. Factories around the world began producing them in large numbers.
Characteristics 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."Function, Construction and Quality of the Guitar; 1983 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
Renaissance Composers of the Renaissance period who wrote for four-course guitar include Alonso Mudarra, Miguel de Fuenllana, Adrian Le Roy, , Guillaume de Morlaye, and . Instrument Four-course guitar
Baroque Some well known composers of the Baroque guitar were Gaspar Sanz, Robert de Visée, Francesco Corbetta and Santiago de Murcia. Examples of instruments Baroque guitar by Nicolas Alexandre Voboam II: This French instrument has the typical design of the period with five courses of double-strings and a flat back. Baroque guitar attributed to Matteo Sellas : This Italian instrument has five courses and a rounded back.
Classical and romantic From approximately 1780 to 1850, the guitar had numerous composers and performers including: Filippo Gragnani (1767–1820) Antoine de Lhoyer (1768–1852) Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841) Wenzel Thomas Matiegka (1773–1830) Francesco Molino (1774–1847) Fernando Sor (1778–1839) ( – 1850) Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829) Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) Dionisio Aguado (1784–1849) Luigi Legnani (1790–1877) Matteo Carcassi (1792–1853) Napoléon Coste (1805–1883) Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806–1856) Giulio Regondi (1822–1872) Hector Berlioz studied the guitar as a teenager; Franz Schubert owned at least two and wrote for the instrument; and Ludwig van Beethoven, after hearing Giuliani play, commented the instrument was "a miniature orchestra in itself".A. Segovia, The Romance of the Guitar, ETUDE May 1930, volume XLVIII number 5, page 317–318, 367, reproduced here as of June 2011 (dubious and highly unlikely: whoever studied Beethoven musicologically knows that he generally had disdain for most musicians and publishers, see letters addressed to Artaria, who published Giuliani's music. Beethoven also said that he deeply disliked pianists who played the piano like an harp, see the book "Beethoven: impressions by his contemporaries" published by Dover. Niccolò Paganini was also a guitar virtuoso and composer. He once wrote: "I love the guitar for its harmony; it is my constant companion in all my travels". He also said, on another occasion: "I do not like this instrument, but regard it simply as a way of helping me to think."
Francisco Tárrega