The archive contains posts about teaching and alternate tuning the guitar.
Where did it come from?
Guitar is a fretted, six stringed lute-like instrument of Spanish origin. It can be made louder either acoustically or electrically, and its roots go back thousands of years.
Lute-like instruments go back to about 2000 BC in Mesopotamia. While Europe’s lute appeared around the 10th century AD.
The lute had gut strings tied across the neck as frets. This means that lute players had to tune the frets and the strings.
An ancestor of the guitar, the lute came from the Middle Eastern oud. At first called the al oud, the lute’s name gradually morphed into its current form.
The term Luthier survives as the name for modern guitar makers, even though luthiers rarely make lutes anymore.
Many antique instruments existed, such as the cittern, that had names similar to the guitar, but did not directly influence it.
However, the vihuela is widely thought to be an important predecessor. The vihuela had six strings, a similar body build, and very similar tuning.
From Spain, the instrument has traveled all over the world. Often, when instruments cross into a different cultural region, the tuning and musical style do not travel with it.
Thus, the styles most linked with the instrument (rock, blues, and folk) do not sound like the original Spanish style. Rather, Spanish styles sound somewhat similar to classical guitar music.
I once met a guitarist from Spain. And it surprised me when she commented that people in the US often said her playing did not sound like real guitar music. This shows that, while it remains a Spanish instrument, the Spanish style does not strongly influence the instrument’s current styles.
As it traveled, it has picked up many alternate ways of tuning. Blues, Rock, folk, and African world music styles all use alternate tunings. Particularly known for its alternate tunings, Hawaiian slack-key guitar has hundreds of open and alternate tunings.
Many of the posts in The Successful Music Student blog focus on better ways to tune alternate tunings.
© 2021 Geoffrey Keith
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What’s the difference between just intonation and equal temperament? They differ in terms of how they sound, the number of notes, and their user friendliness. Click to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
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Do you struggle with reading music notes? Have you always wanted to learn to read music, but found it too hard? Try rainbow colored music notes. This post has stories about musicians who’ve achieved music literacy through color coded music notation. Click to learn about accurately reading musical notes and the colors of a rainbow. Estimated reading time 2 minutes.
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What common mistakes do people make when tuning their guitars? We’ll discuss the three most important tuning tips plus three bonus tips. Click to learn how to fix the three most common mistakes that people make when tuning their guitars. Estimated reading time 4 minutes.
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After they can sight-read what’s left for musicians to learn? Lots of thing spring to mind, such as: repertoire, memorized repertoire, interpretation, performance practice, improvisation, composition, music theory, and music history. Click to find out about what’s left for musicians to learn after they can sight-read. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
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Have you ever asked, “What are the small “>” signs above or below the notes?” We call them and other signs like them articulations of force. Read on to learn what they tell us to do when we see them in sheet music. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
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Have you ever wondered, “Why do minor keys sound sad and major keys sound happy?” Has this phenomenon been hardwired into us, or does culture impact how we perceive scales? In fact, it’s a little bit of both. Read more to learn how this works. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
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So, you play an open string, and it gives you one note. You play the harmonic over the 12th fret, and you get another note. You do the same thing over the 5th and 7th frets, and you get still more notes. However, they don’t relate to the frets at all. You scratch your head, wondering, “How do guitar harmonics work?” Don’t worry, you just need to understand how strings vibrate. Read more to answer the question, how do guitar harmonics work? Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
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