John Lennon's
Rickenbacker
Most Used for Rhythm Guitar contributions
The modern guitar derived, in part, from the European Lute. This instrument, which apparently developed from the Arabic Oud (which entered Europe through the Crusades and the Moorish conquest of Spain), has between six and ten "courses" (paired strings played as one) of between twelve and twenty strings. These strings were made of catgut (sheep intestine), and the "frets" (raised finger-stops for the notes along the fretboard) were made of catgut tied around the fingerboard/neck, with a few wooden or ivory frets glued to the top of the soundboard. The fretboard is on the same level with the soundboard, not raised higher as in the modern guitar, and may be heavily ornamented with inlay. The body was pear-shaped, and rounded in the back, rather like half a watermelon. The bridge had no "saddle" (the bone, plastic or ivory piece that the strings rest on), and the peghead tended to be cranked back from the neck almost at a right angle with wooden transverse tuning pegs in a hollow pegbox, similar to a modern violin.
A guitarist can easily shift to lute, using New Tuning. The exact pitches of the tunings appears to have depended on the whim of the player. Pitch was not standardized until the mid-1700s.
The Lute was not the direct ancestor of the guitar, however. It may have been one of the major predecessors, but in Spain, where the guitar was finally truly developed, the Lute was associated with the Moors, and thus was NOT very popular for ethnic/political reasons.
The other instrument that must be considered of equal importance with the Lute is the CITTERN. This is an instrument that usually had a pear shaped body with a flat back, four to five courses of strings made of wire, and permanent fretting.
It was always played with a plectrum, usually a goose quill.
These instruments were also very loud, and thus suitable for tavern brawls, dance music, and just about anything where the music needed to be heard over a crowd. Citterns were found almost everywhere in the Renaissance, as witness the quotation from Thomas Dekker:
"Is she a whore?
A Barber's cittern for every man to play on?"
-The Honest Whore
Additionally the term "slattern," or "slut," may have evolved from the word
"cittern."
The Lute/Cittern family tree leads, with many offshoots and false starts, directly into the guitar.
The modern "classical" guitar was not developed until circa 1840, in Spain, by Torres.
American guitars use steel strings, have a body shape of classical bracing under the bridge in the shape of a "X." This last was, apparently, developed between 1915 and 1930 in America, either by the Larson Bros., or C.F.Martin & Co.
The first move toward purely electrically amplified instruments was the electric "Hawaiian guitar", a solo instrument played with a metal slide. The first production of these guitars with magnetic pickups was in 1931 by the Electro Sinng Company.
Soon after, the Gibson company began manufacturing electro-acoustic guitars. These instruments had hollow bodies with a magnetic pick-up. Les Paul, world famous guitarist, used Epiphone's workshop to make the first solid body electric guitar in 1941. These instruments were relegated to the rhythm section of jazz bands and never associated with so-called "solo" instruments.
In 1955, Bill Haley and His Comets released "Rock Around The Clock" and brought the guitar to the forefront. With the advent of Elvis Presley, scores of aspiring musicians took up the guitar as their instrument of choice.
The art of playing rhythm guitar is self explanatory; Chords are played by stroking the strings in either an upward or downward motion (or both) to achieve a rhythmic effect. Loosening the grip on the fretboard allows for a more percussive sound.
Playing intervals of fifths is also quite common on the rhythm guitar.
