History Of The Guitar – Way Before Rock And Roll

It’s hard to imagine rock and roll without the traditional electric guitar. They go hand in hand; You can’t have one without the other. Today, we’re going to peek back before those times, to the roots and history of the guitar in all ways.

We’re talking way before the electric guitar, and way before rock and roll, thousands of years ago. As disheartening as this might sound to my fellow rock music lovers, it is an interesting journey, and may inspire you to broaden your horizons when thinking about music as a whole.

History Of The Guitar – From The Beginning

First, we must define what a guitar actually is, before we delve into the history of the guitar. Dr. Michael Kasha defined the guitar in 1968 as an instrument having a “long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides”. This is pretty appropriate, and it does define a modern guitar, but when looking into the history of where guitars come from, we have to look at past stringed instruments…the ancestors of our modern guitar.

The oldest recognizable guitar-like instrument discovered is from Egypt, and is over 3500 years old. The instrument, called a tanbur, belonged to an Egyptian singer named Har-Mose. Possibly the origin of die-hard rock, he was buried with his freakin’ tanbur. As a nearly pre-historic Dimebag Derrell(who was also buried with a guitar), Har-Moses was employed by an architect to one of Eqypt’s queens, Hatshepsut. This goes to show that axe-slingers have been in high places since the old days.

Guitar has come a long way since Har-Moses 3-stringed tanbur. The next evolution towards the modern rock ‘n roll staple was the Oud, a branch of the tanbur modified by Arabian influence. Keep in mind that these instruments still had no frets. Fortunately, the Europeans solved this issue, and called the new instrument a lute, which many of you have probably heard of before. This instrument is used today, still, and holds quite a bit of musical value in its unique sound.

The Name – Guitar

Now, the name guitar actually has many roots. The suffix –tar comes from Sanskrit, one of the oldest languages in the world, meaning “string”. So, in likely fashion, the Persian language simply used the name to describe an instrument with a certain amount of strings. From the prefix “do”, comes the dotar, a two stringed instrument. In the same fashion, there is the setar, chartar, panchtar. You may have heard of an Indian instrument called a sitar, and yes, it comes from this same word development.

The word guitar actually is from the above chartar, which as stated, is four strings. So, the root of guitars is most definitely from four-stringed instruments. That’s right: the modern guitar is actually a variation of the original guitar, into a six(and now-a-days, more) stringed instrument. The name stuck(although in many different languages), and the music spread throughout Europe. By then, the familiar tuning had already been adopted: A, D, G, B, and E. The first “E” string had not yet been incorporated.

However, in the 17th century, Italians decided to adopt 6 strings, into an instrument that could easily resemble a modern acoustic guitar. The necks on these guitars still had only about 8 frets, and were usually just modified versions of the old 5-string counterparts, but the trend was set, and in the 19th century, the modern classical acoustic guitar took hold, with Antonio Torres’ design, around 1850. The body was larger than past guitars, and showed the obvious curves of an acoustic guitar.

From the beginning in Mesopotamia and Egypt, to modern guitars, the process of innovation is still present. You can now see 7 and even 8-string guitars often in today’s rock music scene, and these instruments continue to expand music in new and interesting ways. Knowing the heritage and history of the guitar you hold in your hands daily is just a fun way to draw inspiration from your instrument, and appreciation for your modern music-maker.

History Of The Guitar by…

Scotty Smith
Guitarist Rock ©2008-2009