Jazz guitar may refer to either a type of electric guitar or a guitar playing style in jazz, using electric amplification to increase the volume of acoustic guitars.
In musical instrument classification, string instruments or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
A twelve-string guitar is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in octaves, with those of the upper two courses tuned in unison. The gap between the strings within each dual-string course is narrow, and the strings of each course are fretted and plucked as a single unit. The neck is wider, to accommodate the extra strings, and is similar to the width of a classical guitar neck. The sound, particularly on acoustic instruments, is fuller and more harmonically resonant than six-string instruments. The 12-string guitar can be played like a 6-string guitar as players still use the same notes, chords and guitar techniques like a standard 6-string guitar, but advanced techniques might be tough as players need to play or pluck two strings simultaneously.
Michael Alden Hedges was an American acoustic guitarist and songwriter.
The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length, changing the pitch. This is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes. On some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique.
The seven-string guitar adds one additional string to the more common six-string guitar, commonly used to extend the bass range or also to extend the treble range.
Michael John Cloete Crawford Rutherford is an English guitarist, bassist, songwriter and singer, best known as co-founder of the rock band Genesis. Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks are the group's two continuous members.
An eight-string guitar is a guitar with eight strings, or one more than the Russian guitar's seven. Eight-string guitars are less common than six- and seven-string guitars, but they are used by a few classical, jazz, and metal guitarists. The eight-string guitar allows a wider tonal range, or non-standard tunings, or both.
The baritone guitar is a guitar with a longer scale length, typically a larger body, and heavier internal bracing, so it can be tuned to a lower pitch. Gretsch, Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, ESP Guitars, PRS Guitars, Music Man, Danelectro, Schecter, Jerry Jones Guitars, Burns London and many other companies have produced electric baritone guitars since the 1960s, although always in small numbers due to low popularity. Tacoma, Santa Cruz, Taylor, Martin, Alvarez Guitars and others have made acoustic baritone guitars.
The tenor guitar or four-string guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string relative of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument was initially developed in its acoustic form by Gibson and C.F. Martin so that players of the four-string tenor banjo could double on guitar.
A contrabass guitar is a low-register bass guitar with four, five or six strings. It is often called, simply, a six string bass guitar. The five string bass guitar is rarely called a contrabass guitar, even though it typically has the same lowest note.
An extended-range bass is an electric bass guitar with a wider frequency range than a standard-tuned four-string bass guitar.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to guitars:
A multi-neck guitar is a guitar that has multiple fingerboard necks. They exist in both electric and acoustic versions. Examples of multi-neck guitars and lutes go back at least to the Renaissance.
A classical guitar with additional strings is a nylon-string or gut-string classical guitar with more than six strings, in which the additional strings pass over a fingerboard so that they may be "stopped" or fretted with the fingers. These are also known as extended-range guitars, and should not be confused with harp guitars.
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a prepared piano. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade mute for brass instruments such as bathtub plugs. Other experimental instruments are created from electronic spare parts, or by mixing acoustic instruments with electric components.
Andy McKee is an American fingerstyle guitar player who has released six studio albums, two extended plays, and one live album to date. A number of YouTube videos featuring McKee's highly-technical guitar performances have achieved viral fame, garnering hundreds of million of views collectively.
Experimental luthiers are luthiers who take part in alternative stringed instrument manufacturing or create original string instruments altogether.
Early recordings for the classical guitar had often have a low or limited audio quality since recording technology was just in its beginning phases, with the earliest known guitar sound recorded in either 1853 or 1854 recorded the phonautograph by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. The phonautogram features a snippet of Adolphe Giacomelli playing a few notes on guitar, though it is unintelligible as a result of the recording’s brevity and low quality. A later guitar sound of a few notes was recorded was done by using the phonograph type invented by Thomas Edison on 18 July 1877, which used phonograph cylinders as a recording medium. Classical guitar recording quality greatly improved along with technological improvements to the phonograph and the development of the gramophone record in the 1900s.
William Eaton is a New Age guitarist and luthier, known for building unique instruments, particularly harp guitars. Eaton is currently the director of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery. In 2015, Eaton was conferred the Governor of Arizona Arts Award. Eaton lives in Sedona, Arizona.
