Byers 1

Brandon Byers
Guitar Beginnings
I am selecting guitars as my topic; they interest me because I love music, and I am trying
to teach myself how to play them. I am familiar mostly with modern guitars. I know that they
have six-strings and are used to play all different types of music. I hope to gain a better
understanding of the guitar and the impact that it had on the music of that time.
The guitar is a popular instrument and it is widely used in all genres of music. I want to
know when and where they were invented, and if possible, who invented them. Also, what was
the name of first company to mass produce them? I want to know its origins, and the impact that
it had on the cultures that it began in.
There are many different styles of guitars, and different styles of playing. Each country
has its own specific style of music. Guitars have been around for a long time but, I do not know
when and where they originated or its influence on music, and hopefully my research gives me a
better understanding of the guitar.
I found my first source with Google. It is an article titled The Guitar, by Jayson K.
Dobney and Wendy Powers. Their article was very helpful, and explained with great detail some
of the early examples of guitars. The second source I found on JSTOR (journal storage). It is a
review of a book by Thomas F. Beck, in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.
Since it is a review of a book, I found it to be less informative and therefore less useful. I still
found useful information. The third source was also another website focusing on the earliest sixstring guitars. I found this article to be very informative, and I cite it several times throughout my
paper. My fourth source is a book by Harvey Turnbull called The Guitar from the Renaissance to
the Present Day. I found this book on Google Scholar, and it contains the first thirty-five pages

Byers 2
of the book. The book describes early guitar-like instruments such as the vihuela. The fifth
source is a journal review by James Tyler. This source I found to be less helpful because it is a
review of a book. I also found this on JSTOR. Lastly, I found my sixth source, which is an article
from The New York Times titled Roll Over, Stradivarius. It is useful because it talks about the
C.F. Martin guitar company, which specializes in high-quality acoustic guitars.
I wanted to know when and where the guitar originated, and I found that nobody knows
the actual origins of the European guitar, because there are so many examples of early stringed
instruments. For example, the lute; a long necked stringed instrument resembling a thin guitar
(Dobney and Powers: The Guitar). The lute was popular from the third to sixth centuries.
Because this is so long ago this makes it impossible to establish the history of the guitar before
the Renaissance (Dobney and Powers: The Guitar). Another example of an early guitar is the
Spanish vihuela, which also resembles a guitar (Turnbull 5). The Italian word for vihuela is
viola da mano, meaning viola played with hands. This confused me because the viola is not a
guitar it is a large violin that is sometimes played with a plectrum (pick) (Turnbull 6). The
vihuela was a six course instrument having five courses of strings while the first string is an
individual string, thus giving it eleven strings (Turnbull 10-11). I learned that guitars have not
always had six individual strings, and that there is no possible way of knowing who invented it
and when.
In the fifteenth century the guitars were much smaller than the ones that we have today.
These guitars had four courses (sets of two) gut strings, which were made from the intestines of
guts of animals (Dobney and Powers:The Guitar). Other common things such as frets, tuning
pegs, and a bridge were also parts of the early guitars (Dobney and Powers:The Guitar). This
guitar was commonly played in England, Italy, France, and all throughout the Iberian Peninsula

Byers 3
(Dobney and Powers:The Guitar).
The Baroque guitar was also popular during this time, it featured five sets of double
strings, and existed during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries (Dobney and Powers:The
Guitar). It had more strings and was larger than its predecessors, and because it lacked true bass
strings it produced a higher pitch than modern acoustic guitars (Dobney and Powers: The
Guitar). These early guitars also had anywhere from six to ten frets (Heck 312). This particular
five course guitar was well loved by the Spanish, but became popular in all of the other European
countries as well (Dobney and Powers: The Guitar). Some of the more decorative Baroque
guitars have survived, and are now kept in museums (Dobney and Powers: The Guitar). During
these times the guitar was a phenomenon of cultural and historical interest (Heck 310). Having
a guitar would have been seen as a status symbol similar to that of a person wearing a Rolex.
The classic guitar, which is the basis of the modern acoustic guitar, featured six single
strings as opposed to the double strings of the Baroque guitars (Heck: Stalking the Oldest SixString Guitar). Since the classical guitar has less strings it was easier to play, the double string
guitars are difficult to play because they have two strings together (Heck: Stalking the Oldest
Six-String Guitar). One of the earliest six-string guitars was produced by G. B. Fabricatore in
Naples, Italy in 1791. Making it one of the oldest six-string guitars still in existence.
The guitar is also a relatively new instrument, Mozart died before six-string guitars were
made, and therefore he never wrote any music for them (Heck: Stalking the Oldest Six-String
Guitar). By this time, guitars now had fourteen to eighteen frets, nearly twice as many as their
ancestors (Heck: Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar). Also guitars of this time period were
custom-made to suit the owner, while modern guitar companies mass-produce thousands of the
same guitar (Heck: Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar). James Tyler describes the guitar as

Byers 4
one of the most popular instruments in musical history (387). I found this to be interesting
because the guitar has not been around as long as many other instruments, such as the harp and
flute.
Located in Nazareth, Pennsylvania is the C.F. Martin & Company guitar factory. The
company was founded by Christian Friedrich Martin in 1833 (Rohter C1). This is interesting to
me because I've heard of the company, and I knew it was in Pennsylvania, but I had no idea that
it has been around since the mid-1800's. The reasons why the company has stayed in business for
so long are because they responded to market demands and took advantage of opportunities that
other manufacturers did not (Rohter C1). They manufacture a number of acoustic instruments,
but primarily guitars. Their guitars are hand built to the highest quality and the basic design has
remained unchanged for 150 years. Because of this, Martin's standard line of instruments ranges
from $1,500 to $11,000 (Rohter C1). Martin produces around 48,000 guitars per year, and
compared to other companies such as Gibson or Fender, this is a relatively small number (Rohter
C1). These guitars feature an x-brace design, this means that the hollow inside is braced with
crossing pieces of wood. This design was advanced for the time, as most guitars were just
laterally braced (Rohter C1).
The article's point of view is that Martin guitars should be admired for their beauty and
craftsmanship, to the same degree as the Stradivarius violin (Rohter C1). The Martin guitars are
based off of the Spanish design rather than the Austro-German designs (Rohter C1). The
company also didn't just want the guitars to sound good they also wanted them to look beautiful,
and to be works of art (Rohter C1). However, in the early 1980's the company was nearly forced
out of business, because of the demand for electronic guitars and other electronic instruments
(Rohter C1). They did not go out of business in the late 1980's, thanks to MTV's Unplugged

Byers 5
series which encouraged a migration back to acoustic instruments (Rohter C1). Because of
this, the company returned to its former glory and produces more guitars than ever before
(Rohter C1).
Because of my research, I discovered many things about early guitars, and many of my
questions were answered. However, some of my primary questions was not answered such as,
when were they invented, and who invented them. Based on my research, guitar like instruments
have been around so long and there are so many examples of early guitars it is impossible to
pinpoint an exact time or inventor. I learned that guitars have not always had six-strings, many of
the early models had four or five courses of strings. They also ranged in shape, and size, with
some being very large and others being very long. Also guitars have not always had steel strings,
they used gut strings for quite a while until they switched steel because they were more durable
and produced a better sound.
The Murray Library databases and search engines were very helpful, particularly with
finding the academic journals. It also made it easier to find credible sources, because when
searching on Google many of the websites and articles have questionable credibility. I was not
entirely pleased with my findings because I'd hoped that I would find specifics on when it
originated and possibly who invented it, but I didn't and that's fine. I realize now that there is no
possible way to know who invented it or where the guitar originated, but I did discover that it has
gone through many changes over the years to become the instrument that it is today.

Byers 6

Works Cited

Dobney, Jayson K, and Wendy Powers. "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." The Guitar. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Heck, Thomas F. "Stalking The Oldest Six-String Guitar." Uakron.edu. N.p., Dec. 1974. Web. 19
Oct. 2014.
Heck, Thomas F. "The Art and Times of the Guitar. An Illustrated History of Guitars and
Guitarists . Frederic V. Grunfeld . The Illustrated History of the Guitar . Alexander
Bellow ." Journal of the American Musicological Society 24.2 (1971): 310-13. Print.

Byers 7
Rohter, Larry. "Roll Over, Stradivarius." The New York Times 15 Oct. 2013, New York ed., C1
sec.: n. pag. Print.
Turnbull, Harvey. The Guitar, from the Renaissance to the Present Day. New York: C. Scribner's
Sons, 1974. 1-35. Print.
Tyler, James. "The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook." Rev. Ephraim Segerman. Early
Music: Instruments and Instrumental Music 8.3 (1980): 387-88. Print.