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Out of virtually thousands of musical instruments all over the world, guitar is undoubtedly one of the most popular instruments all over the world not only because of its portability, but also because of its potential to be used as a classical, lead, bass and accompanying instrument.

Classical guitar - is capable of producing the complexities of counterpoint (the art of adding counter melodies to the basic melody) within certain limits with clear treble lines in addition to the variety of tone-color
Lead guitar - provides rich and exciting solo lines in addition to inter-linking lead-breaks.
Bass guitar - provides deep and sonorous moving rhythmic functions.
Accompanying guitar - provides percussive and harmonic functions simultaneously by strumming chords that fits well with other melody instruments as well as with human voice.
Fundamentally consisting of vibrating strings over a wooden box what we know now as a guitar took a long way to come to its present form, shape, size and potential.

HITTITE GUITAR: Evidence of stringed instruments has been found in some ancient paintings in Egypt and about 3000 years old Hittite stone-carvings in Turkey, which all contain all of the essential elements of a guitar indicating them to be the ancient ancestors of guitar.

ATHENIAN GUITAR: Archeological evidence shows that the people in the Northern Mediterranean including the Greeks and the Romans also used guitar-like instruments, using hand technique very similar to the modern classical guitar playing. Instruments very similar to the guitar are also depicted in medieval literature, paintings, carvings and stained-glass windows. During the time of Christopher Columbus. it was taken to South America and is now popular in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina.

LUTE: The lute - a plucked instrument which is significantly different from the guitar in shape and size - produces a light, brilliant sound with less resonance than the guitar due to its lighter construction and pear-shaped back. The lute previously had eleven strings in six 'courses' i.e. five pairs in double courses at the octave and a single string with the tuning as G - c - f - a - d'- g'. During the 16th century, the lute occupied a prominent place in music culture and thus formed an important repertory of early instrumental music second in importance after the organ and harpsichord. Around the middle of the 17th century, the French lutenist and composer Denis Gaultier (1600-1672) introduced a new tuning method of A - d - f - a'- d' - f' - which was adopted by all and is still in use.

When lute was still popular in France and Germany during the 17th century, the people in Italy and Spain turned to the more popular guitar. Most of the music originally written for the lute has now been transcribed for the guitar that form a rich repertory for the classical guitarists even today.

VIHUELA: The drawing shows an instrument known as vihuela in the Musee Jacquemart , Andre, Paris, which was made around 1500 A.D. This instrument looked very similar to the guitar in shape and tuning that made people believe that the guitar has been originated from it. However, the vihuela had six pairs of strings - tuned in unison or octaves, and a great deal of music was written for this instrument during that period. No more music was produced for the vihuela after 1578 A.D.

GUITARRA: During the same period, another string instrument like the smaller 'four-string' guitarra was also used - generally accompanied by pan-pipes, harps, drums, fiddles etc. A considerable amount of music was published for this instrument between 1535-1578.

During this time, the vihuela and guitarra became very popular among the Spanish people while the people in other parts of Europe preferred lute. The guitarra was used widely in France under the influence of Henri II, King of France. It was considered easier to play than the vihuela. The Venezuelan "Cuatro" and Columbian "Tiple" are its likely descendants.

ITALIAN GUITAR: Though smaller in size with 5 double courses, the Italian Guitar was another step in guitar evolution. The Italian Francesco Corbetta (1615-1681) was the most noted guitarist of this type of guitar. He performed in English courts, became guitar instructor to the French Royal family. A considerable amount of music written for this type of guitar still survives - among whom Robert de Visee (born:1686), a guitarist in the court of Louis XIV, composed numerous original music for this instrument. The early champions such as Juan Carlos Aamat (1586), Doisi de Velasco (1640), and Gaspar Sanz (1684) discussed and worked out a lot on the possibilities of solo guitar playing.

CARRULI GUITAR: In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Fernando Carulli (1770-1841), famous for his guitar compositions and his virtuosity on the instrument, presented this guitar to his son, which is now displayed in the Musee du Vonservatoire National de Musique, Paris. This type of guitar had the same accordatura used at present, i.e. six single strings tuned as E - A- d - g - b - e' while other type of guitars used during that time had different stringing method (4 double-courses, 5 double-courses, 6 courses consisting 5 double and one single etc.).

The first-half of nineteenth century is often referred to as the Golden Age of the Guitar. The Spaniards Dionisio Aguado (1784-1849), Fernando Sor (1778-1839) and the Italians Matteo Carcassi (1792-1853), Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) and Carruli were among the most outstanding names who contributed greatly to the evolution of guitar technique. They brought the guitar to concert performance level for the first time by composing a series of beautiful music for it - some of them are still a part of the standard guitar repertoire. Methods of study for learners were published during that period still build a solid foundation for classic guitar beginners.

Sor took the guitar to England in 1809 and made it even more popular. The guitar was extremely popular in France too at the time of Napolean. The greatest violinist Niccolo Paganini ((1782-1840) wrote several pieces for the guitar; Franz Schubert (1797-1828) accompanied himself on it before getting out of bed in the mornings and wrote songs accompanied by guitar. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) admired it and used tricks of scoring from it.

Unfortunately, during the second half of the nineteenth century, the popularity of guitar was rapidly overshadowed by the piano in concert halls. Amateur musicians and salon singers appeared in the musical scenario. The guitar became merely an object of display on the wall of houses.

MODERN GUITAR: The modern guitar was made in 1863 by one of the great modern luthiers, (guitar maker) Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817-1892). His contribution to the development of guitar is considered to be the major step in the development of the classic guitar. His main contribution was that he increased the string length to 650 mm - which eventually became the standard length of all modern classic guitars - as the vibrating string length of the previous guitars i.e. the distance from the bridge to the nut, was not considered to be satisfactory. This naturally set the size and proportions of the body of the guitar that provided better tone production and ease of playing. He also changed the body of the guitar, making it deeper, altering its shape and curves and stressed upon the quality of the "tapa" (front part of the guitar) for tonal excellence. The softness of touch and ease of action thus provided the performers increase more expressive qualities. This type of guitar had six single strings - three made of gut, three of silk over-spun with silver wire.

With the advent of the modern guitar at around the end of the nineteenth century, a small but devoted group of guitarists in different parts of Europe worked diligently to revive the glory of the Golden Age - among whom the Spanish master Francisco Tarrega (1852-1909) was the most prominent. He continued with the works of Aguado and Sor. He was the first to use a footstool to enable the comfortable playing of fretted notes at higher positions. He also began playing the combination of fretted notes and open strings to enhance the variety of expression. In addition, he developed the style of playing with the 'right-hand free' as he found that 'the resting' of the little finger on the front of the guitar would affect the fluency of right-hand fingering. He emphasized on the use of rest-stroke (apoyanda) and stressed the importance of the third finger of the right hand. He developed and rationalized the Spanish technique of tone-production. Since then, his improved method has been accepted as the standard way of playing classical guitar. He wrote a series of highly important and essential studies (etudes) for the development of modern technique. The art of transcription for the guitar was brought by him to a new level of perfection - thereby exploring a great deal of resources on the instrument. In this way, he has been credited to have laid the foundation of the modern school of guitar playing. Then another Spanish Miguel Llobet (1878-1937) extended the works of Tarrega, and came up with a series of superb transcriptions fully utilizing the expressive delicacy of the guitar.

Now, the time was ripe for Andres Segovia (1890-1986) - again a Spanish - to bring the guitar successfully before the general public through his temperament and brilliance of technique on the instrument. In his hands, the guitar achieved an undreamed height of technical excellence. The advent of nylon strings at this time further allowed him to produce much more consistent tones in addition to project the sound much farther. His perfect musical taste and musicianship drove him to produce a formidable series of transcription that created a fresh guitar repertory of classic and modern music. Inspired by his mastery on the instrument, many eminent composers such as Manual Ponce, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Alexandre Tansman, Joaquin Rodrigo, Federico Moreno-Torroba and Joaquin Turina, Heitor Villa-Lobos, wrote superb and exciting works solely for guitar. In addition, he explored successfully on the possibilities of a guitarist as a soloist as well as playing with chamber and symphony orchestras with fresh and especially written works. He transcribed several of Bach's works for guitar as well as developed a set of lessons including those of systematic exercises for right and left-hand finger techniques.

The impact of Segovia's countless live concerts virtually in every part of the globe and countless recordings revived the popularity of guitar - that resulted the introduction of guitar faculties in music academies, formation of Classical Guitar Societies almost in all parts of the world in addition to publishing magazines of high musical and artistic standard like Guitar Review in 1946. Varieties of guitars, guitar method and instruction books as well as sheet music for guitar have been sold to millions of people all over the world. A new generation of guitarists, either inspired or directly taught by him have been able to make name and fame by merely studying and playing guitar. This has altogether led Segovia to be regarded as 'the father of modern classical guitar'.

[Compiled from numerous printed and internet sources]
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