Guitar history Part 2
The Renaissance guitarThe gittern, English for Renaissance guitar, is a musical instrument resembling a small lute or guitar. It is related to but is not a citole, another medieval instrument. The gittern was carved from a single piece of wood with a curved ("sickle-shaped") pegbox. An example has survived from around 1450.
The Vihuela
The written history of the classical guitar can be traced back to the early sixteenth century with the development of the vihuela in Spain. While the lute was then becoming popular in other parts of Europe, the Spaniards did not take to it well because of its association with the Moors . They turned instead to the four string guitarra, adding two more strings to give it more range and complexity. In its most developed form, the vihuela was a guitar-like instrument with six double strings made of gut, tuned like a modern classical guitar with the exception of the third string, which was tuned half a step lower. It has a high sound and is rather large to hold. There are few still around.
Baroque guitar
The Baroque guitar is a guitar from the baroque era (c1600-1750), an ancestor of the modern classical guitar. The term is also used for modern instruments made in the same style.
The instrument was smaller than a modern guitar, of lighter construction, and had gut strings. The frets were also usually made of gut, and tied to the neck. A typical instrument had five courses, of which either four or five were double-strung making a total of nine or ten strings.
The conversion of all courses to single strings and the addition of a bass E-string occurred during the era of the early romantic guitar.
Contemporary classical guitar
Contemporary concert guitars occasionally follow the Smallman design which replaces the fan braces with a much lighter balsa brace attached to the back of the sound board with carbon fiber. The balsa brace has a honeycomb pattern and allows the (now much thinner) sound board to support more vibrational modes. This leads to greater volume and longer sustain.
