OK, this is just a brief summary, but if you want to know more, go to your local library you lazy ****! Ahem, sorry…
The guitar which we know and love today (some of us anyway...) has its roots back in the European Renaissance period when an instrument known as guittara latina, or Latin guitar, was played. Guitar music was published from the 16th century onwards – these were usually compositions for the vihuela, a closely related instrument. The earliest guitars had four or five courses (pairs of strings), and, by the end of the 16th century, one used tuning was A-D-G-B-E (which, with the sixth low E string added during the 18th century, gives us the E-A-D-G-B-E tuning generally used today).
The use of chords became fashionable during the 17th century, which helped the guitar become more popular than both the vihuela and lute.
During the 18th century, keyboard instruments, such as the piano, became more popular, but new virtuoso guitarists, such as Dionisio Aguado, Mauro Giuliani, and Fernando Sor, and the use of single strings rather than courses, allowed the guitar to retain some of its popularity.
In the 19th century, a new style of classical guitar was created by Antonio de Torres, and the guitarist and teacher, FranciscoTarrega, was highly influential in the development of classical guitar music. Also in the 19th century, guitar-based blues began to develop in the southern states of the USA, laying the foundations for popular music of the 20th century.
Steel strung, flat-top and archtop guitars were developed in the USA in the 19th century, and by the 1930s, electric guitars appeared following successful experiments with amplification. In the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became fashionable in most fields of music throughout the world.
Some 20th century models...
