A classical guitar, also called a Spanish guitar, is a musical instrument from the guitar family.
The classical guitar is distinguished by a number of features:
- It is an acoustic instrument. The sound is amplified by a sound box.
- It has six strings. A few classical guitars have eight or more strings to expand the bass scale, even out overtone production, and allow lute music written for lutes with more than six courses of strings to be played.
- The strings are made from catgut (made from sheep intestine, despite the name), or much more commonly these days nylon, as opposed to the metal strings found in some other forms of guitar. These strings have a much lower tension than steel strings. The lower three strings ('bass strings') are wound with metal, commonly silver or nickel. Some less common stringings use a fourth wound string.
- Because of the low tension of the strings the neck can be made entirely of wood, not requiring a steel truss rod.
- The neck tends to be broader than with steel string guitars, making more complex work easier, but requiring a left hand position which ultimately makes the guitar less stable to hold.
- The strings are usually plucked with the fingers. Serious players shape their fingernails so that they contact the string in a certain way to achieve the desired tone. A collection of fine classical and flamenco guitars can be seen at the Classical Guitar Museum
- Traditionally, the tuning pegs (or "keys") at the head the fingerboard of a classical guitar point backwards (towards the player when the guitar is in playing position). This is in contrast to a traditional steel-string guitar design, in which the tuning pegs point outward (up and down from playing position).
Classical guitars are normally played without amplification of any sort but they can be equipped with an electronic pickup, which is sometimes used by performers in noisy environments. Either a piezoelectric pickup is placed under the bridge, or a microphone is suspended within the body.
The first 'Golden Age' of the classical guitar repertoire was the 19th century. Some notable guitar composers from this period are:
Guitarist-composers of the 20th century include:
In the 20th century, many non-guitarist composers wrote for the instrument, which previously only players of the instrument had done. These include:
Guitarists also often play transcriptions of music originally written for other instruments. Lute transcriptions from the Renaissance and Baroque eras are common.
Some players of the classical guitar:
- Sergio Abreu
- Lily Afshar
- Laurindo Almeida
- William Anderson 1962-
- Magnus Andersson
- Odair Assad
- Roberto Aussel
- Denis Azabagic 1972-
- Carlos Barbosa-Lima
- Agustín Barrios Mangoré 1885-1944
- Manuel Barrueco
- Mats Bergström
- Gilbert Biberian 1944-
- Dusan Bogdanovic
- Ben Bolt 1953-
- Carlos Bonell
- Remi Boucher
- Julian Bream 1933-
- Frank Bungarten
- Ricardo Cobo
- Costas Cotsiolis
- Piera Dadomo
- Graham Anthony Devine 1971-
- Alirio Diaz
- Zoran Dukic
- Roland Dyens 1955-
- Margarita Escarpa
- Oren Fader
- Eduardo Fernández
- Eliot Fisk
- Shin-Ichi Fukuda
- Paul Galbraith
- Ricardo Gallen 1972-
- Gerald Garcia 1949-
- Antigoni Goni
- Slava Grigoryan
- Stefano Grondona
- Maria Esther Guzman
- Nicola Hall
- John Holmquist
- Adam Holzman
- Tillman Hoppstock
- Dimitri Illarionov
- Sharon Isbin 1956-
- Jérémy Jouve 1979-
- William Kanengeiser
- Hubert Käppel
- Dale Kavanagh
- Nobert Kraft
- Alexandre Lagoya
- Wolfgang Lendle
- Martha Masters
- Jeffrey McFadden
- Vladimir Mikulka
- Anders Miolin
- Erling Møldrup
- Anabel Montesinos
- Kaori Muraji
- Paul O'Dette
- Craig Ogden
- Elena Papandreou
- Christopher Parkening
- Marco Pereira
- Ida Presti
- Angél Romero 1946-
- Celedonio Romero
- Pepé Romero 1944-
- David Russell
- Richard Savino
- Karin Schaupp
- Todd Seelye
- Andrés Segovia 1893-1987
- Raphaella Smits
- Göran Söllscher
- David Starobin 1951-
- Pavel Steidl
- David Tanenbaum
- Scott Tennant
- Benjamin Verdery
- Ana Vidovic
- Jason Vieaux
- Victor Villadangos
- John Williams 1941-
- Kazuhito Yamashita
- Xuefei Yang 1977-
- Stanley Yates
- Narciso Yepes 1927-1997
- Andrew York
- Fabio Zanon
- Frederic Zigante
See also
External links
Last updated: 08-20-2005 12:37:25
