Acoustic Guitar

An acoustic guitar is a guitar that produces sound acoustically—by transmitting the vibration of the strings to the air—as opposed to relying on electronic amplification (see electric guitar). The sound waves from the strings of an acoustic guitar resonate through the guitar's body, creating sound. This typically involves the use of a sound board and a sound box to strengthen the vibrations of the strings.

The main source of sound in an acoustic guitar is the string, which is plucked or strummed with the finger or with a pick. The string vibrates at a necessary frequency and also creates many harmonics at various different frequencies. The frequencies produced can depend on string length, mass, and tension. The string causes the soundboard and sound box to vibrate, and as these have their own resonances at certain frequencies, they amplify some string harmonics more strongly than others, hence affecting the timbre produced by the instrument.

Gitterns, a small plucked guitar were the first small guitar-like instruments created during the Middle Ages with a round back like that of a lute. Modern guitar shaped instruments were not seen until the Renaissance era where the body and size began to take a guitar-like shape.

The earliest string instruments that related to the guitar and its structure where broadly known as the vihuelas within Spanish musical culture. Vihuelas where string instruments that were commonly seen in the 16th century during the Renaissance. Later, Spanish writers distinguished these instruments into 2 categories of vihuelas. The vihuela de arco was an instrument that mimicked the violin, and the vihuela de penola was played with a plectrum or by hand. When it was played by hand it was known as the vihuela de mano. Vihuela de mano shared extreme similarities with the Renaissance guitar as it used hand movement at the sound hole or sound chamber of the instrument to create music.

The real production of guitars kicked off in France where the popularity and production first began increasing with large quantities. Spain became the homeland of the guitar but there's very little information on the early makers there, unlike France, where many inventors and artists first began overproducing these instruments and their music. The production became so large that early famous creators such as Gaspard Duyffooprucgar's (a string instrument maker) instruments were being sold as copies by other guitar makers in Lyon. Benoist Lejeune, a guitar maker, offered and sold guitar copies of Duyffoprucgar's instruments and was later imprisoned for using his mark and work. During this time, the production was increasing tremendously but it was not until Robert and Claude Denis appeared overproducing the early Renaissance guitar in Paris, France. As father and son, Robert and Claude produced hundreds of guitars that increased the popularity of the instrument greatly. Because of them and the great many guitar inventors of this time, the word guiterne gradually shifted to guitarre during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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