Topic: The Guitar General purpose: To inform Specific purpose: To inform my audience about the history of guitars, the different style of guitars, and the different strings used on guitars. Thesis: The guitar has many I. Introduction A. Attention-getter: Imagine listening to your favorite genre of music. Whether it is either country, rock, or even hip hop, most likely, one of those songs will have a guitar in it. B. Reason to listen: The guitar is an instrument that can be heard in all types of music, it would be nice to know some information about the guitar. C. Thesis statement: The guitar is an important instrument in music and is an instrument that everyone should …show more content…
The standard tuning of the guitar, from the lowest string to the highest string, is: EADGBE. Transition: Now, I will be moving forward from the history of the guitar to the different type of woods and their effect on the sound of the guitar. B. The type of wood used to make the body of the guitar has a large effect on the sound that the guitar gives out. 1. There are many different types of wood that are used to make the body of a guitar, a few different types include basswood, maple, and walnut wood. a. Dave Hunter wrote in his article “All About Tonewoods” (2008) that basswood is a softer type of wood that is found in many lower priced guitars. i. Basswood gives the guitar a nice and overall midrange sound. b. Another wood that Hunter wrote about is maple wood. i. He says that maple wood is a denser wood that gives a guitar a crisp sound. c. Lastly, Hunter also wrote about walnut wood. i. He says walnut wood is also a dense wood that gives the guitar a lower sounding tone. Transition: I just explained how the type of wood can affect the sound of the guitar, I will now talk about how strings effect the sound as well. C. There are two main type of strings people use on an acoustic guitar; those strings are either steel, or
According to Peter E , his original program included transcriptions from Tárrega , as well as his own transcriptions of Bach and others. However, based on Clinton, George , many "serious" musicians believed that Segovia would be laughed off of the stage, because the guitar could not play classical music at that time. In order to refute their argument, Segovia astounded the audience with his perfect techniques and impressive performing skills. After that, Segovia shared the view he had of the guitar being a concert instrument. "First, no string instrument offers such complete harmonic potential; second, it is light and can be transported effortlessly from one place to another; and thirdly, its sound is naturally melancholic and beautiful." From that concert, he also found out the only problem with the concert guitar performance, which is that the guitar could not produce enough sound to fill the hall. So over the coming years, Segovia would supervise luthiers to experiment through thousands of new woods and designs for the body of the guitar, thereby increasing its natural amplification, and do more practice simultaneously, to make his performing technique go further. With the advent of nylon strings during the World War II, the guitar could produce more consistent tones, and also being able to project the sound much farther. The range of the sound transmission problem was solved gradually. In 1928, Andrés Segovia’s first concert in New York had been a huge success, which also led him to more offers for appearances in America and Europe, from then on, the great, meaningful journey of Andrés Segovia and his guitar was
II. Second I will tell you with more detail the numerous events of the 60’s that shaped the way the music industry was ran and the way rock music sounded.
and more amplification. He was the first to use the fan brace design on the inside of the resonating body. This increased the sound quality that was produced by the echo. This design is still in use today (Some Guitar History 2).
Before you can understand the physics of playing the guitar, you must first know the brief history of it. The guitars’ history can be traced back to over 4,000 years ago. This ancient instrument has many theories on how it came to be. The theory with the most evidence states that the guitar was a development from a Greek 4-stringed instrument, and then altered by the Romans to be called the cithara. Soon after, this cithara was then brought to Portugal and Spain where it was changed yet again to an instrument named the Oud. After this, it was combined with the vihuela. Throughout time, insignificant alterations where made to the vihuela. It was not until the end of the 1800’s that a man named Antonio Torres Jurado created what we known as the guitar. To start, he increased the size of the body and neck. He raised the neck and improved the fingerboard with ebony or rosewood. He replaced the tuning pegs with more efficient machine tuners. As a result, he made the guitar louder, more efficient, and he overall improved the sound (History of the Acoustic Guitar) (Guy).
A lot of the furniture was made out of native black walnut, yellow pine, white oak,
His stage presence was far superior to any other performer of rock and roll during that time era. One of the things that Hendrix was know for was being a left-handed guitar player, however, played a right-handed guitar that was strung for a lefty. This made the guitar react and sound completely different than a normal guitar would sound. He favored high volume and gain through overdriven amplifiers and was instrumental in utilizing guitar amplifier feedback. According to Holly George-Warren of the Rolling Stones, "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began." His advanced use and creativity of the guitar led to a wah-wah effect which would eventually chang the way rock and roll would be played forever. When he was performing on stage he would set his amplifiers on max, later known as the Hendrix setting. Another trademark of Hendrix was his unique ability to be one of a kind on stage and truly express himself. While playing he would perform stunts such as playing the guitar behind his back, under his legs, and even with his teeth. His performances were nonetheless unforgettable especially when he set his guitar on fire and afterward smashed it during the Monterey Pop Festival. An iconic picture of Jimmi Hendrix on his knees with his hands raised high and his guitar burning on the floor in front of him would symbolize rock and roll in the years to come. His magnificent and odd way of playing would be something the people loved and envied. Hendrix would set the bar for future rock and rollers with his outstanding and innovative performances on
Innovations are put forth everyday but few leave a lasting effect on their field. Whether it is the combustion engine in transportation, television in entertainment or the electric guitar in music. It is difficult to turn on the radio or any music player and avoid the ubiquity of the guitar. It has had a continuous reign on the music industry for the past century and is becoming even more popular with the addition of endless overdrive effects. The origin of this amazing instrument can be traced back hundreds of years and countless miles.
Before the use of synthetic materials in the development of guitars, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having “a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and flat back, most often with curved sides” (citation). The oldest known guitar-like instrument that displayed these features was the string instrument a Hittite bard was holding in a stone carving, showing how much guitar-like instruments had already gained popularity within societies of the past.
As the increasing popularity of the guitar, guitar performance has been developed into a discipline, and is still being carried forward. At the beginning of the 1920s, a musician, a composer and the most important a guitarist, Andrés Segovia, was getting to be known as one of the greatest guitarists and the grandfather of the classical guitar. He spent his whole life learning, exploring and improving the classical guitar. Many people believe that, without his efforts, the charm of the guitar would still be covered, and the instrument would never appear in a concert stage.
mahogeny wood, which gives the guitar a more Classical look and feel and also a
The type of wood used to create a wand is one of the most important aspects of the wand’s potential affinities for its future owner. There are over 30 types of woods that can be used to make wands
When guitar was first invented, it looked nothing like the guitars that we know. The first guitars were lutes. Lutes evolved into vihuelas, and later became the guitar in the fifteenth century. The first guitar was called the four-coarse guitar. It was called the four-course guitar because it only had four strings. It also had a strange tuning rather than the usual D-G-B-E tuning it was tuned to C-F-A-D which is a tone lower. Later, in the sixteenth century the five course guitar. Although the five-course is basically a four-course with an extra string, that string (low E) becomes very important in today’s style of playing. Also it had frets, frets are the lines on the guitar that make the different notes. It was believed to be invented in Spain. Early music sheets were written in tablature, similar to today.
Widely recognized as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 20th century, Jimi Hendrix pioneered the explosive possibilities of the electric guitar. Hendrix's innovative style of combining fuzz, feedback and controlled distortion created a new musical form. Because he was unable to read or write music, it is nothing short of remarkable that Jimi Hendrix's meteoric rise in the music took place in just four short years. His musical language continues to influence a host of modern musicians, from George Clinton to Miles Davis, and Steve Vai to Jonny Lang.
I previously thought that Les Paul was a brand of guitar, not an actual person. Les Paul had a knack for inventing when he built his first crystal radio at age nine; which was about the time he started playing guitar. By age 13 he was performing as a country music guitarist and working diligently on sound-related inventions. It is safe to say that rock and roll as we all know and love it today would not be the same if not so for the invention of the electric guitar. In 1941, Paul built his first solid body electric guitar, and he continued to make improvements to the guitar throughout the decade. Les Paul would go on to redefine the technology of sound recording. The guitar that bears his name the “Gibson Les Paul” was his crowning achievement. He experimented with different designs until he had his non-vibrating guitar body, which he called “The Log.” Gibson Guitars initially turned him down, calling his invention “a broomstick with pickups”. He was beaten to the marketplace by Leo Fender, whose Fender Broadcaster was introduced in 1948. Over the ensuing decades Les Paul has remained active on all fronts. He recorded a Grammy-winning album of instrumental duets with Chet Atkins, Chester and Lester, in 1976. Les Paul was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
Wood plays an essential role in our daily lives as they form the base of many types of furniture we use. Whether considering indoor or outdoor furniture, the choice of wood typically leads the pack in preference due to its variety in look, feel, and lifespan. Simply put, they can provide a memorable, unique, and elegant ambiance to any place you choose for the rest of your life.