Blog #1 - History of the Guitar
History of the Classical Guitar
The history of the guitar is pretty mysterious. We all think the instrument originated in Spain ("classical guitar" = "Spanish guitar", right?).
But it's more complicated than that. It came to Spain from Africa, or maybe Greece. And it came to those places from the Middle East or maybe even Eastern Asia. After all, plucked string instruments are all over the world and they date back to antiquity. I like to think they all come from the same ancient instrument, possibly invented in Mesopotamia, and evolved in each region to look different from the others. But who knows?
Here are three different histories of the classical guitar. Which do you like best? Why? Do you think any one of them is dead wrong? Do you agree with your classmates? Why or why not?
https://blog.guitarfromspain.com/2020/10/28/the-history-of-the-classical-guitar/
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/spgu/hd_spgu.htm
Leave one detailed comment below and at least 2 responses to other comments.
SAMPLE COMMENT: I like the Met Museum link the best (the third one) because of the great photos of instruments. I love the Edouard Manet painting of the guitarist, too, because his face looks like "now whaaaaat?" I like it so much I made it the profile pic for my Blogspot profile!
ReplyDeletePS. Don't respond to this comment. Well...you can respond to this comment, but won't count. :) You have to respond to 2 serious comments. :)
Kayden Matney
ReplyDeleteI like the second article because it had a lot of visual representations, not just of guitars but of locations they talked about as we. I cringed when they said the string names used the be different. Like the 6 string was a G not an E. I didn’t realize that the first guitar was from Greece in 1300BC. I didn’t think the instrument was that old honestly! The fact that the guitar went through phases of losing and gaining strings. I didn’t expect there to be as much history to the guitar as there is.
You’d think there wouldn’t be so much history to the guitar or other instruments but they all go through sooooo many transformations and edits to the figure.
DeleteI also was a little surprised to hear that the string names used to be different! Not exactly what I was expecting.
DeleteIt's crazy to think that. But I wonder how we got to a "universal" standard?
DeleteI enjoyed the first article because of the history and possible origins of the guitar and how the instrument impacted the culture and the people.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that they traced it back to Spain. It makes sense when you think about different styles of music.
DeleteKayden Matney
DeleteI honestly didn’t even consider how the instrument would impact the cultures around it! That’s a very good point.
Yeah, like just think: there are some stringed instruments that I typically only associate with certain countries. Like the mandolin with Italy or the classical guitar with Spain. These instruments are deeply ingrained within cultures all around the world.
DeleteI agree with faith just because of my experience with the music of the instruments
DeleteReally interesting to think about. I know in my personal life I'd gotten most of my exposure to guitar in the form of western music. I hadn't even heard of the flamenco until 2nd semester of my freshman year. Really interesting to see how the style of classical guitar is different.
DeleteI really liked the second article and how they explained the origins of the guitar. I thought it was interesting that they mentioned guitars had three or four strings in the middle ages.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that there were less strings makes me wonder what kind of music they were playing.
DeleteThat begs the question, exactly how many strings can you put on an instrument?
DeleteI thought the same thing! It was interesting to be able to relate it almost to my personal instrument. Stringed instruments are simply endless.
Deleteone ones with less strings reminded me about those chinses instruments with only one string but how much people could do with it.
DeleteI enjoyed the last article, it was nice to have lots of photos at the top and the visuals in the text. I also enjoyed the name dropping of those who would have contributed to the evolution of the guitar. It's interesting how much it has changed. The article also summarized the history nicely and it was easy to follow.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed learning about some of the specific peoples, and their cultures, that inspired the guitar. It's super interesting to see the different influences that come about because of those cultures.
DeleteWhile this isn't particular about the guitar itself, I would like to say that I very much agree with you about the readability of the final article. Not only was I doing homework I wasn't confused while reading - readability its a large difference for something so small.
DeleteI enjoyed the third article the most. I'm a guy who like pictures, so seeing all the visuals kept me very intrigued. I also find it really crazy that they're are so many variations of the guitar. I mean, it makes sense due to the instrument being so old, but dang, so much innovation.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, I particularly found the story of the guitar strings to be interesting. The material, names, and how many there were kept on changing.
DeleteAgreed! I like all those images.
DeleteI liked the 1st article and think that it is the most accurate, I enjoyed the photos and the history behind the "evolution" of the guitar to the modern day classical guitar, but also the 2nd one makes sense to be just because when i think about guitar I'm mostly think of different Hispanic song which would have originated from Spain.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the deep dive into guitar history provided by the first article. I find it interesting that both the first and second articles, along with a few others I browsed, all mention that most musical historians believe the guitar to have originated on the Iberian peninsula. I would have to agree with them due to the overwhelming amount of evidence. However, I think it's silly to believe that the guitar only evolved from one instrument. For example, the English language has multitudes of words that were stolen from other languages. I.e. Cookie (Dutch), Ketchup (Chinese), Cartoon (Italian). Like English, I have confidence that the guitar could easily be an amalgamation of the best parts of many instruments.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the second article because it had a lot of pictures of the instruments they were talking about. It helped me really visualize what the blog was talking about (ex. adding and subtracting strings). I was also surprised it took as long as it did to get the strings on guitar set to a standard. With that being the way the instrument is played I thought that would've been worked out. After reading these articles, I've come to the belief that the modern Guitar was most likely born out of the combination of several instruments throughout history. I think the "original" guitar like instrument likely came from an ancient civilization such as Mesopotamia, or been first developed as late as ancient Greece. However, the Spanish peoples (I feel) are responsible for a huge bit of what is truly the classical guitar as we know it.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised as well to read that! I would think that once you get a certain standard set, people would be more apt to stick with something that already works. If ain't broke, don't fix it. On the flip side, I can also see how different cultures might prefer different notes or things of the like.
DeleteHonestly the amount of change instruments go through always surprises me, but to me the guitar was definitely the most surprising in terms of reach the now standard strings. Like Kira said you would think that they would have developed them sooner? TO ME guitar seems relatively old, (especially compared to my instrument), so you think they would have figured it out much sooner, and they just worked so well we kept them all this time.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the last article the most. Mainly do to the amount of photos (i am very much a visual person) and how deep it went into discussing the histories of the guitar in the sense of who did what. I also enjoyed the pace of the reading the most out of the other three!
ReplyDelete