Instruments like the guitar have a history dating back several thousand years. This is because the idea of stretching a string across some type of empty container to amplify the string's sound when plucked is a very old idea.

This is what a guitar consists of, 6 strings stretched across a "container" or body made of wood which naturally amplifies the vibration of the string - the guitar's body is generally known as the soundbox.

All musical instruments that use stretched strings for their sound are called chordophones, from the Greek words 'chordos' = cord or string, and 'phonos' = sound.

What other instruments can you think of that are also chordophones?

The ancient civilisations of Egypt and Babylonia had instruments, which like the guitar, were strummed or plucked with the fingers to accompany the human voice when singing.

These guitar-like instruments were used 3,500 years ago, and were later passed on into the Greek civilisation that then developed more variations of the plucked string instrument, including the lyre.

The Roman civilisation also had a guitar-like instrument about 1,800 years ago, and as the Romans conquered much of Europe the chordophone idea for a musical instrument spread to many countries.

This occurred via the southern Mediterranean coast of France (Provence) into the remainder of that country and then to Spain, and up to England.

In the year 711 the Moors who were a race of people from Northern Africa, invaded Spain and brought another guitar-like instrument to the south of Europe, a type of lute called "al-ud" with a pear shaped body (the guitar however has not descended from the lute). Up until this time the word 'guitar' did not really exist for any of these instruments.

The first true guitars and the word 'guitar' appeared in Europe 600 years ago, in the years from about 1400 and most particularly in Spain. These instruments, which were to still undergo many changes in the years to follow, all had a curved, waisted-body shape with a flat top and back - the basic guitar shape as we know it today.

For the next 350 years guitar makers in Spain, Italy, France and other regions experimented with the number of strings on a guitar, its basic shape, and internal construction.

During the 1780's the guitar's 6 strings and their tuning were established as we use them today. By the 1850's the guitar's construction inside and out was established in Spain by the guitar maker Torres, and has remained the model for how we make them today - it became what we now know as the classic or classical guitar.

Music shops and guitarists also refer to it as the nylon string guitar; it's the same thing really. The early classical guitars used strings made of animal gut before the invention of nylon strings in the 1950's and to this day some players still prefer the sound of strings made of gut.

This type of guitar is used today in the performance of classical music, folk music, pop music, some Blues, Latin music, Flamenco music, and is the choice for most beginners learning guitar - the style of music played on it is not necessarily 'classical' as the name might imply, it's simply one of many types of guitar that exist today.

The most radical change in the classical guitar has been the development of the soprano guitar, the tenor guitar, and the acoustic classical bass guitar in Australia (Guitar Trek) during the 1980's. These are all guitars smaller (the soprano) and larger (tenor & bass) than the normal guitar. In combination they enable a guitar quartet to perform on four differently pitched instruments with increased dynamics and range, much in the style of a classical string quartet (the SATB concept).

The steel string guitar is another type that became the folk music guitar of America and was invented there in the late 1800's, about 1870.

The classical guitar was earlier brought to America by the large migration of people from Europe who wanted to settle in a new land, but then found it too fragile as an instrument in its new environment. So they created a larger, stronger body for the guitar and added steel strings to it rather than the gut strings, which often broke. With the heavier steel strings it had to be played with the 'pick' or plectrum and this has become a standard technique for both acoustic (unplugged) and electric guitar styles, hence the term plectrum guitar. Many players do use finger-style picking on steel string guitars but a strong right hand technique is required to do this well. It became the instrument of choice for cowboy and rural folk music, Bluegrass music, Blues, early jazz (Django Reinhardt, Eddie Lang), and is now used widely in pop, some areas of rock music, Fusion music, and almost any musical genre where guitar has a key role to play.

The electric guitar was also invented in America and became a common type of instrument from about 1935. At this time it was featured in the sounds of jazz (Charlie Christian) and was preferred to the steel string guitar because it could now compete with the volume of a whole group and be a soloing instrument in its own right. In the 1950's it became the instrument of Rock 'n Roll (Bill Haley & The Comets) and has been the main sound of popular music ever since. In the late 1940's the relatively 'new' electric guitar saw the creation too of the electric bass guitar that came to form the basic beat and pulse of all modern popular music - it gradually replaced the double bass which could not compete with the clarity and volume being thrust forward by the new electric guitar groups of the 50's and 60's.

There have been several other types of guitar developed during these times, most of which are only used for specific types of music. The 12 String guitar (mostly played with a pick) is an offshoot of the steel string guitar, being a large bodied instrument with double courses of steel strings - that is, two E strings, two B strings, and so on across the guitar which means the player is always fretting down two strings at once. First made during the 1920's, they became popular with Blues artists like Leadbelly. They appear in acoustic and electric guitar versions, have a greater resonance than the 6-string guitar, a very distinctive sound, and can be heard for this special effect in both folk and rock groups from time to time (Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, Led Zeppelin etc). Dobro or resonator guitars invented in America in the late 1920's, are an unusual guitar type having a steel 'inverted dish' in the place of the sound hole in a normal acoustic guitar.

This concept, with its steel strings, gives the instrument considerable volume and has been used extensively in country music, blues and Hawaiian music, and for bottleneck (slide) playing. It comes in versions with a wooden body and an all-steel body (top, back and sides). Latin American countries (Mexico, South America, Cuba, etc) were originally regions invaded and settled by the Spanish and the Portuguese. Both nations brought the European version of the guitar (early classical) to these colonies and many types of guitar have developed there since - mainly because to own a guitar for the local natives in these countries meant making one out of any available materials. Thus strange types of guitars were made out of tortoise or turtle shells like the Mexican vihuelita guitar, the small 4-string Bolivian charango guitar made from an armadillo shell, and the Venezuelan 4-string cuatro guitar made from wooden packing crates.

The Mexican guitarron is an enormous bass acoustic guitar (hung around the player's neck) with a body twice the size and depth of a normal sized guitar. All of these instruments are still used today in the performance of national folk music and dance. Westside Music 2003.