Editing Guitar (section)

==History==
{{see also|Lute#History and evolution of the lute|History of lute-family instruments|Gittern|Citole#Origins|Classical guitar#History}}
{{multiple image
| caption_align     = center
| align             = right
| image2            = Hittite lute from Alacahöyük 1399–1301 BC cropped.png
| width2            = 200
| alt2              = Hittite lute
| caption2          = Turkey. [[Hittites|Hittite]] lute from [[Alacahöyük]] 1399–1301 BC. This image is sometimes used to indicate the antiquity of the guitar, because of the shape of its body.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gitarrenzentrum.com/news-2/14112012-for-those-who-are.html|title=14.11.2012 for those who are interested in ancient guitars and archaeology |website=Gitarrenzentrum.com|access-date=18 April 2021|quote= [reprint of news article:] ''Guitar rooted in northern Turkey, not Spain''...Today's Zaman. Stand: 13 November 2012 / TODAY'S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL...  http://www.todayszaman.com/news-298052-guitar-rooted-in-northern-turkey-not-spain.html}}</ref>
| image1            = Guitar-like plucked instrument, Carolingian Psalter, 9th century manuscript, 108r part, Stuttgart Psalter.jpg
| width1            = 140
| alt1              = Hittite lute colorized
| caption1          = Instrument labeled "[[cythara]]" in the [[Stuttgart Psalter]], a [[Carolingian]] [[psalter]] from 9th century [[Paris]].
| footer            = Musical instrument historians write that it is an error to consider "oriental lutes" as direct ancestors of the guitar, simply because they have the same body shape, or because they have a perceived etymological relationship (kithara, guitarra). While examples with guitar-like incurved sides such as the instrument in the [[Airtam Frieze]] or the Hittite lute from [[Alacahöyük]] are known, there are no intermediary instruments or traditions between those instruments and the guitar.<ref name=groveguitar>{{cite encyclopedia |author1= Harvey Turnbull |author2= [[James Tyler (musician)|James Tyler]] |editor-last= Sadie |editor-first=Stanley |title= Guitar|encyclopedia= The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments |year=1984 |id= Volume 2 |pages= 87–88|quote= ...the application of the name 'guitar' with its overtones of European musical practice, to oriental lutes betrays a superficial acquaintance with the instruments concerned.}}</ref><br /><br />
Similarly, musicologists have argued over whether instruments indigenous to Europe could have led to the guitar. This idea has not gotten beyond speculation and needs "a thorough study of [[Morphology (archaeology)|morphology]] and performing practice" by ethnomusicologists.<ref name=groveguitar/>
}}

The modern word ''guitar'' and its antecedents have been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times, sometimes causing confusion. The English word ''guitar'', the German ''{{lang|de|Gitarre}}'', and the French ''{{lang|fr|guitare}}'' were all adopted from the Spanish ''{{lang|es|guitarra}}'', which comes from the [[Andalusian Arabic]] {{lang|xaa|قيثارة}} (''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|qīthārah}}''){{sfn|Farmer 1930|p=137}} and the Latin ''{{lang|la|cithara}}'', which in turn came from the [[Ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|κιθάρα}} <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guitar | title=Definition of GUITAR }}</ref> which is of uncertain ultimate origin. ''[[Kithara]]'' appears in the Bible four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2, and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as ''harp''.

The origins of the modern guitar are not known.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/guit/hd_guit.htm|title=The Guitar {{!}} Essay {{!}} Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History {{!}} The Metropolitan Museum of Art|last1=Dobney |first1=Jayson Kerr |first2=Wendy |last2=Powers |website=The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History|access-date=2017-04-08}}</ref> Before the development of the [[electric guitar]] and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden [[sound board (music)|soundboard]], ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides."{{sfn|Kasha 1968|pp=3–12}} The term is used to refer to a number of [[chordophone]]s that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas.{{sfn|Wade 2001|p=10}} A 3,300-year-old stone carving of a [[Hittites|Hittite]] bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone, and clay plaques from [[Babylonia]] show people playing a lute-like instrument which is similar to the guitar.

Several scholars cite varying influences as antecedents to the modern guitar. Although the development of the earliest "guitar" is lost to the history of medieval Spain, two instruments are commonly claimed as influential predecessors: the four-string [[oud]] and its precursor, the European [[lute]]; the former was brought to Iberia by the [[Moors]] in the 8th century. It has often been assumed that the guitar is a development of the lute, or of the ancient Greek kithara. However, many scholars consider the lute an offshoot or separate line of development which did not influence the evolution of the guitar in any significant way.{{sfn|Kasha 1968|pp=3–12}}{{sfn|Summerfield 2003}}<ref>[https://theacousticguitarist.com/who-invented-the-acoustic-guitar/ Who Invented The Acoustic Guitar?]</ref>

At least two instruments called "guitars" were in use in Spain by 1200: the ''{{lang|la|[[guitarra latina]]}}'' (Latin guitar) and the so-called ''{{lang|la|[[guitarra morisca]]}}'' (Moorish guitar). The guitarra morisca had a rounded back, a wide [[fingerboard]], and several sound holes. The guitarra Latina had a single sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers "moresca" or "morisca" and "latina" had been dropped, and these two chordophones were simply referred to as guitars.<ref>Tom and Mary Anne Evans. ''Guitars: From the Renaissance to Rock''. Paddington Press Ltd 1977 p. 16</ref>

The Spanish [[vihuela]], called in Italian the {{lang|la|viola da mano}}, a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries, is widely considered to have been the single most important influence in the development of the baroque guitar. It had six [[course (music)|courses]] (usually), lute-like [[guitar tunings|tuning]] in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist. It was also larger than the contemporary four-course guitars. By the 16th century, the vihuela's construction had more in common with the modern guitar, with its curved one-piece ribs, than with the viols, and more like a larger version of the contemporary four-course guitars. The vihuela enjoyed only a relatively short period of popularity in Spain and Italy during an era dominated elsewhere in Europe by the [[lute]]; the last surviving published music for the instrument appeared in 1576.{{sfn|Turnbull et al}}

Meanwhile, the five-course [[baroque guitar]], which was documented in Spain from the middle of the 16th century, enjoyed popularity, especially in Spain, Italy and France from the late 16th century to the mid-18th century.<ref group=upper-alpha>"The first incontrovertible evidence of five-course instruments can be found in Miguel Fuenllana's ''Orphenica Lyre'' of 1554, which contains music for a ''vihuela de cinco ordenes''. In the following year, Juan Bermudo wrote in his ''Declaracion de Instrumentos Musicales'': 'We have seen a guitar in Spain with five courses of strings.' Bermudo later mentions in the same book that 'Guitars usually have four strings,' which implies that the five-course guitar was of comparatively recent origin, and still something of an oddity." Tom and Mary Anne Evans, ''Guitars: From the Renaissance to Rock''. Paddington Press Ltd, 1977, p. 24.</ref><ref group=upper-alpha>"We know from literary sources that the five course guitar was immensely popular in Spain in the early seventeenth century and was also widely played in France and Italy...Yet almost all the surviving guitars were built in Italy...This apparent disparity between the documentary and instrumental evidence can be explained by the fact that, in general, only the more expensively made guitars have been kept as collectors' pieces. During the early seventeenth century the guitar was an instrument of the people of Spain, but was widely played by the Italian aristocracy." Tom and Mary Anne Evans. ''Guitars: From the Renaissance to Rock''. Paddington Press Ltd, 1977, p. 24.</ref> In Portugal, the word ''viola'' referred to the guitar, as ''guitarra'' meant the "[[Portuguese guitar]]", a variety of [[cittern]].

There were many different plucked instruments<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/BriefHistory.html|title=A Brief History of the Guitar|website=Paul Guy Guitars|access-date=2019-02-25}}</ref> that were being invented and used in Europe during the Middle Ages. By the 16th century, most of the forms of guitar had fallen off, to never be seen again. However, midway through the 16th century, the five-course guitar<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/art/guitar|title=guitar {{!}} History & Facts|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-02-25}}</ref> was established. It was not a straightforward process. There were two types of five-course guitars, differing in the location of the major third and in the interval pattern. The fifth course can be inferred because the instrument was known to play more than the sixteen notes possible with four. The guitar's strings were tuned in unison, so, in other words, it was tuned by placing a finger on the second fret of the thinnest string and tuning the guitar<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://acousticmusic.org/research/history/timeline-of-musical-styles-guitar-history/|title=Timeline of Musical Styles & Guitar History {{!}} Acoustic Music|website=acousticmusic.org|access-date=2019-02-25}}</ref> bottom to top. The strings were a whole octave apart from one another, which is the reason for the different method of tuning. Because it was so different, there was major controversy as to who created the five course guitar. A literary source, Lope de Vega's Dorotea, gives the credit to the poet and musician [[Vicente Espinel]]. This claim was also repeated by Nicolas Doizi de Velasco in 1640, however this claim has been contested by others who state that Espinel's birth year (1550) make it impossible for him to be responsible for the tradition.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tp6LO9n1TrIC&q=origins+of+the+guitar&pg=PA1|title=The Guitar from the Renaissance to the Present Day|last=Turnbull|first=Harvey|date=2006|publisher=Bold Strummer|isbn=978-0-933224-57-5|language=en}}</ref> He believed that the tuning was the reason the instrument became known as the Spanish guitar in Italy. Even later, in the same century, [[Gaspar Sanz]] wrote that other nations such as Italy or France added to the Spanish guitar. All of these nations even imitated the five-course guitar by "recreating" their own.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.guitarhistoryfacts.com/|title=History of the Guitar – Evolution of Guitars|website=Guitarhistoryfacts.com|access-date=2019-02-25}}</ref>

[[File:Septiembre 08 275.jpg|thumb|19th-century guitar made by luthier Manuel de Soto held by Spanish guitarist [[Rafael Serrallet]]]]

Finally, {{Circa|1850}}, the form and structure of the modern guitar were developed by different Spanish makers such as [[Manuel de Soto y Solares]] and, perhaps the most important of all guitar makers, [[Antonio Torres Jurado]], who increased the size of the guitar body, altered its proportions, and invented the breakthrough fan-braced pattern. Bracing, the internal pattern of wood reinforcements used to secure the guitar's top and back and prevent the instrument from collapsing under tension, is an important factor in how the guitar sounds. Torres' design greatly improved the volume, tone, and projection of the instrument, and it has remained essentially unchanged since.