Guitarra (New Grove)

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(N. del T.: las afi­na­cio­nes están expre­sa­das de acuer­do al sis­te­ma de nota­ción musi­cal de Helmholtz.)

HARVEY TURNBULL/PAUL SPARKS (1, 2, 5, 6, 8(ii)), JAMES TYLER (3, 4), TONY BACON (7), OLEG V. TIMOFEYEV (8(i)), GERHARD KUBIK (8(iii)), THOMAS F. HECK(bibliography)

(Fr. gui­ta­re; Ger. Gita­rre; It. chi­ta­rra; Sp. gui­ta­rra; Port. vio­lo; Bra­zi­lian Port. vio­lão).

Ins­tru­men­to de cuer­da de la fami­lia del laúd, pun­tea­do o ras­guea­do, nor­mal­men­te con tras­tes sobre la tas­tie­ra. Es difí­cil pre­ci­sar qué carac­te­rís­ti­cas dis­tin­guen a las gui­ta­rras de otros ins­tru­men­tos de la fami­lia del laúd, por­que el nom­bre ‘gui­ta­rra’ ha sido apli­ca­do a ins­tru­men­tos exhi­bien­do una gran varia­ción en mor­fo­lo­gía y for­ma de ejecución.
La gui­ta­rra clá­si­ca moder­na tie­ne seis cuer­das, una cáma­ra de reso­nan­cia de made­ra con lados cur­va­dos hacia aden­tro y fon­do plano. Aun­que su his­to­ria inclu­ye perío­dos de aban­dono en lo que se refie­re a la músi­ca artís­ti­ca, siem­pre ha sido un ins­tru­men­to de atrac­ción popu­lar, y se ha trans­for­ma­do en un ins­tru­men­to de con­cier­to esta­ble­ci­do inter­na­cio­nal­men­te dota­do de un reper­to­rio cre­cien­te. En el sis­te­ma de cla­si­fi­ca­ción de Horn­bos­tel y Sachs la gui­ta­rra es un ‘cor­dó­fono com­pues­to’ del tipo laúd.

1. Estructura de la guitarra moderna

La Fig.1 mues­tra las par­tes de una gui­ta­rra clá­si­ca moder­na. En ins­tru­men­tos de la cali­dad más alta tra­di­cio­nal­men­te éstas han sido fabri­ca­das de made­ras cui­da­do­sa­men­te selec­cio­na­das: el fon­do y los lados de jaca­ran­dá de Bra­sil, el más­til de cedro y la tas­tie­ra de ébano; la tapa, acús­ti­ca­men­te la par­te más impor­tan­te del ins­tru­men­to, es de pícea, selec­cio­na­da por su resis­ten­cia, reso­nan­cia y grano (la cer­ca­nía de las vetas se con­si­de­ra impor­tan­te, y una bue­na tapa ten­drá 5 ó 6 vetas por cm). La tapa y el fon­do están com­pues­tas cada una de dos sec­cio­nes simé­tri­cas, así como el total de la cir­cun­fe­ren­cia de los aros. La tapa está sos­te­ni­da por vari­llas de pícea de Sit­ka, que con­tri­bu­yen en gran medi­da a la cali­dad del soni­do. La extrac­ción exce­si­va de muchas de estas made­ras lle­vó a una esca­sez glo­bal a fines del siglo XX y los luthiers, habien­do ago­ta­do las vie­jas exis­ten­cias, se vol­ca­ron a made­ras alter­na­ti­vas. Jaca­ran­dá de la India y arce fue­ron usa­dos en lugar del jaca­ran­dá de Bra­sil (cuyo comer­cio fue prohi­bi­do en el mun­do), la tapa fue rea­li­za­da a veces de cedro rojo occi­den­tal o Cana­dien­se (la llu­via áci­da y la gue­rra en los bal­ca­nes habían afec­ta­do la ofer­ta de pícea euro­pea), cao­ba de Hon­du­ras y Bra­sil se usa­ron oca­sio­nal­men­te para el más­til, y made­ra negra afri­ca­na se con­si­de­ró un sus­ti­tu­to del ébano.

La dis­tri­bu­ción tra­di­cio­nal de las vari­llas es en aba­ni­co des­de de la boca deba­jo de la par­te baja de la tapa. Los fabri­can­tes han expe­ri­men­ta­do con otros dise­ños: algu­nos usan una tapa mucho más del­ga­da y un entra­ma­do de finas vari­llas lon­gi­tu­di­na­les y un núme­ro más redu­ci­do de vari­llas trans­ver­sa­les más gran­des, crean­do una mem­bra­na sos­te­ni­da por un deli­ca­do pero fuer­te entra­ma­do; otros pre­fie­ren un entra­ma­do en dia­go­nal (que pue­de incluir fibras de car­bono para una mayor resis­ten­cia). Dado que una alta cali­dad de soni­do ha sido logra­da por varios de estos luthiers, está cla­ro que no se pue­de hablar de un vari­lla­je tipo; cual­quie­ra sea el dise­ño, a la tapa se le debe per­mi­tir vibrar ade­cua­da­men­te. Las vibra­cio­nes de las cuer­das son trans­mi­ti­das a la tapa por un puen­te de jaca­ran­dá, que a la vez suje­ta las cuer­das. El lími­te infe­rior de la lon­gi­tud vibran­te de la cuer­da está deter­mi­na­do por una selle­ta (de mar­fil, hue­so o plás­ti­co) en el puen­te y por una cejue­la del mis­mo mate­rial como lími­te supe­rior. Los tras­tes (usual­men­te 19) dan un ran­go de tres octa­vas y media y son de níquel pla­tea­do. Las tres cuer­das más agu­das son de nai­lon, las tres más gra­ves de hilos de nai­lon entor­cha­dos con metal fino. La afi­na­ción se rea­li­za a tra­vés de cla­vi­jas que acti­van un meca­nis­mo de engra­na­jes que hacen girar los rodi­llos de hue­so o nai­lon. La afi­na­ción están­dar es E–A–d–g–b–e’. La músi­ca para gui­ta­rra se escri­be una octa­va más agu­do de lo que suena.

Exis­ten dos méto­dos para unir el más­til a la caja  – el ‘tacón espa­ñol’ y el ‘cola de pato’. En el pri­me­ro el más­til se pro­yec­ta den­tro de la caja y los lados se inser­tan en el taco del más­til, mien­tras que en el segun­do el cuer­po es com­ple­ta­do pri­me­ro y el más­til se inser­ta en el blo­que supe­rior. El méto­do espa­ñol es más difí­cil de lograr pero resul­ta en una unión más resis­ten­te entre el más­til y la caja, y por lo tan­to es pre­fe­ri­ble ya que esta es un área de gran ten­sión. La deco­ra­ción moder­na de la gui­ta­rra está limi­ta­da al mosai­co que rodea a la boca; el dise­ño pue­de estar repe­ti­do en el puen­te, pero más común­men­te el puen­te tie­ne incrus­ta­cio­nes de mar­fil, made­ra o sin­té­ti­cas, que tam­bién fun­cio­nan como pro­tec­ción de la made­ra de la pre­sión de las cuer­das. Las medi­das típi­cas para una gui­ta­rra son: lar­go total 98 cm; lar­go de cuer­das 65 or 66 cm; ancho en la cur­va infe­rior 37 cm, en la cin­tu­ra 24 cm, y en la cur­va supe­rior 28 cm; lar­go del cuer­po  48,5 cm; cejue­la a cuer­po 30 cm; pro­fun­di­dad en la cin­tu­ra infe­rior 10 cm, en la supe­rior 9,5 cm.

2. Orígenes

Ha habi­do mucha espe­cu­la­ción con res­pec­to al ori­gen de la gui­ta­rra, y varias teo­rías han sido pro­pues­tas para jus­ti­fi­car su pre­sen­cia en Euro­pa. Algu­nos la han vis­to como un desa­rro­llo remo­to de la kitha­ra de la Gre­cia anti­gua –como sugie­re la rela­ción eti­mo­ló­gi­ca en tre ‘kitha­ra’ y ‘gui­ta­rra’; otros han vis­to a los laú­des de más­til lar­go de la Meso­po­ta­mia y Ana­to­lia tem­pra­nas o a los ‘laú­des cop­tos’ de Egip­to como los ante­pa­sa­dos de la gui­ta­rra. Una mate­ria en la que ha habi­do des­acuer­do es con res­pec­to a si la gui­ta­rra fue un desa­rro­llo autóc­tono euro­peo o si fue intro­du­ci­da a la Euro­pa medie­val por los ára­bes; pero la apli­ca­ción de la pala­bra ‘gui­ta­rra’, con su insi­nua­ción de prác­ti­ca musi­cal euro­pea, a laú­des orien­ta­les y anti­guos dela­ta un cono­ci­mien­to super­fi­cial de los ins­tru­men­tos implicados.

Los laú­des de más­til cor­to, entre los que se cla­si­fi­ca la gui­ta­rra euro­pea, apa­re­cie­ron muchos siglos des­pués que los de cue­llo lar­go. Las repre­sen­ta­cio­nes más tem­pra­nas de la for­ma de la gui­ta­rra en un laúd de más­til cor­to apa­re­cie­ron en Asia cen­tral en los siglos IV y III A.C.. Des­de ese tiem­po has­ta el siglo IV D.C los laú­des de Asia cen­tral fue­ron de diver­sos tipos; la gui­ta­rra se encuen­tra en ejem­plos que datan des­de el siglo I al IV D.C.. Este tipo de ins­tru­men­to no se encuen­tra de nue­vo has­ta su apa­ri­ción en minia­tu­ras bizan­ti­nas del siglo XI como ins­tru­men­to de arco, y des­de allí en ade­lan­te la for­ma de la gui­ta­rra fue des­cri­ta en for­ma simi­lar en la ico­no­gra­fía medie­val. Los ins­tru­men­tos pun­tea­dos apa­re­cie­ron en una varie­dad de for­mas en la Edad Media; algu­nas cíto­las (que eran toca­das con un plec­tro) se apro­xi­man a la for­ma de la gui­ta­rra y son repre­sen­ta­das con trastes.

La his­to­ria de la gui­ta­rra en Euro­pa pue­de ser ras­trea­da has­ta el Rena­ci­mien­to. Las gui­ta­rras de este perío­do fue­ron cons­trui­das tan­to con fon­dos cur­vos como pla­nos y su carac­te­rís­ti­ca salien­te es la silue­ta de su aspec­to fron­tal, una for­ma que com­par­tió con la vihuela.

Los nom­bres de ins­tru­men­tos rela­cio­na­dos a ‘gui­ta­rra’ ocu­rren en la lite­ra­tu­ra medie­val des­de el siglo XIII en ade­lan­te, pero se cree que muchos de ellos se refie­ren a la git­tern, que se dife­ren­cia en varios aspec­tos de la gui­ta­rra rena­cen­tis­ta. Sin embar­go, la git­tern del siglo XV era, según Tin­cto­ris (c. 1487), afi­na­da 4ta–3ra mayor–4ta, una afi­na­ción tam­bién usa­da en el laúd de cua­tro órde­nes con­tem­po­rá­neo y en algu­nas gui­ta­rras de cua­tro órdenes.

La evi­den­cia ico­no­grá­fi­ca sugie­re que la exten­sión del ran­go del laúd euro­peo data de los comien­zos del siglo XV (las cuer­das en pares habían sido intro­du­ci­das en el siglo XIV). Un quin­to orden se aña­dió en el agu­do y pos­te­rior­men­te un sex­to orden se agre­gó en el bajo, resul­tan­do – a juz­gar en par­te por la evi­den­cia del siglo XVI – en la afi­na­ción G/g–c/c’–f/f’–a/a–d’/d’–g’.

Este dise­ño de inter­va­los pero con todos los órde­nes afi­na­dos al uní­sono, fue com­par­ti­do por la vihue­la de mano, que reem­pla­zó al laúd en Espa­ña. ‘Vihue­la’ fue pri­me­ro cali­fi­ca­da de mano en el siglo XV; ante­rior­men­te fue lla­ma­da  vihue­la de peño­la y vihue­la de arco. Pare­ce cla­ro que la ver­sión pun­tea­da con los dedos fue una adap­ta­ción del ins­tru­men­to con for­ma de gui­ta­rra que se toca­ba con arco. La for­ma bási­ca fue rete­ni­da pero adop­tó algu­nas carac­te­rís­ti­cas más pro­pi­cias para un ins­tru­men­to pun­tea­do, prin­ci­pal­men­te el puen­te tipo laúd y una rose­ta central.

Tam­bién fue duran­te el siglo XV  que apa­re­ció la gui­ta­rra rena­cen­tis­ta de cua­tro órde­nes, un ins­tru­men­to que tenía mucho en común con el laúd y la vihue­la. La fuer­te influen­cia de estos dos ins­tru­men­tos es atri­bui­ble a su supe­rio­ri­dad artís­ti­ca sobre la gui­ta­rra: el ran­go más amplio de las cuer­das adi­cio­na­les habría per­mi­ti­do que se com­pu­sie­ra o eje­cu­ta­ra músi­ca más ambi­cio­sa sobre ellos. Las des­crip­cio­nes de la gui­ta­rra de cua­tro órde­nes en dife­ren­tes regio­nes tie­nen sufi­cien­tes ele­men­tos en común como para indi­car que se había esta­ble­ci­do un úni­co ins­tru­men­to para uso gene­ral; la silue­ta de gui­ta­rra, la rose­ta cen­tral, el puen­te tipo laúd y los tras­tes son ele­men­tos comu­nes. En el siglo XVI las des­crip­cio­nes de la mano dere­cha de los gui­ta­rris­tas mues­tran una apro­xi­ma­ción a las cuer­das des­de arri­ba y sin plec­tro (en razón de que esto no hubie­se per­mi­ti­do la eje­cu­ción de músi­ca poli­fó­ni­ca). Una de las afi­na­cio­nes de la gui­ta­rra de cua­tro órde­nes tenía una de los pares con una cuer­da afi­na­da una octa­va más agu­da en el orden más gra­ve. Otas carac­te­rí­si­ti­cas del laúd que apa­re­cen en la gui­ta­rra fue­ron la rose­ta, el puen­te (fija­do a la tapa) y el fon­do redon­dea­do y en cos­ti­llas. El fon­do plano fue com­par­ti­do con la vihue­la, así como la silue­ta fron­tal con cintura.

3. La guitarra de cuatro órdenes

(Fr. gui­te­rre, gui­ter­ne; It. chi­ta­rrino, chi­ta­rra da set­te cor­de, chi­ta­rra Napo­li­ta­na; Sp. gui­ta­rra de qua­tro ordi­nes).

Las gui­ta­rras del siglo XVI eran mucho más peque­ñas que el ins­tru­men­to moderno, y los ins­tru­men­tos de cua­tro órde­nes bue­den des­cri­bir­se como gui­ta­rra soprano. Juan Ber­mu­do (El libro lla­ma­do Decla­ra­ción de ins­tru­men­tos musi­ca­les (Osu­na, 1555/R, chap. lxv) des­cri­bió la gui­ta­rra como más peque­ña («más cor­to») que la vihue­la y esto se corres­pon­de con la ico­no­gra­fía con­tem­po­rá­nea y con los reque­ri­mien­tos téc­ni­cos para la mano izquier­da de mucha de la músi­ca que sobre­vi­ve. En el siglo XVI aún las gui­ta­rras de cin­co órde­nes (en opo­si­ción a las vihue­las de cin­co órde­nes des­crip­tas por Ber­mu­do) pare­cen haber sido ins­tru­men­tos peque­ños. La lon­gi­tud de una gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes rea­li­za­da por Bel­chior Dias en 1581 (Royal Colle­ge of Music, Lon­don) es de sólo 76,5cm. Otras carac­te­rís­ti­cas del ins­tru­men­to del siglo XVI –com­par­ti­das por otros ins­tru­men­tos pun­tea­dos del perío­do– fue­ron una rose­ta, a menu­do de cons­truc­ción intrin­ca­da, en lugar de una boca abier­ta; tras­tes de tri­pa ata­dos alre­de­dor del más­til (ocho a diez tras­tes pare­ce lo más usual); y un puen­te bajo cer­ca de la tapa (esto le per­mi­te a la gui­ta­rra de Dias tener una lon­gi­tud de cuer­da vibran­te de 55,4 cm).

La dis­tri­bu­ción bási­ca de inter­va­los de las cuer­das de tri­pa era 4ta-3ra mayor-4ta; sin embar­go se uti­li­za­ba una varie­dad de afi­na­cio­nes. Ber­mu­do des­cri­bió y dio nom­bró con letras las afi­na­cio­nes, lo que resul­tó en lo siguien­te: g’/g–c’/c’–e’/e’–a’ (tem­ple nue­vo) y f’/f–c’c’–e’/e’–a’ (tem­ple vie­jo). Decía que la vie­ja afi­na­ción era mejor para «vie­jos roman­ces y músi­ca ras­guea­da», y que la nue­va afi­na­ción debía pre­fe­rir­se para ‘músi­ca moder­na’. (El tem­ple vie­jo se encuen­tra en libros con­tem­po­rá­neos de gui­ta­rra como à cor­de ava­lée). Ambas afi­na­cio­nes tie­nen el cuar­to orden en octa­vas. La más gra­ve se lla­ma bor­dón (en fran­cés, bour­don). Este par­ti­cu­lar arre­glo del cuar­to orden (con la cuer­da más gra­ve cer­ca del ter­cer orden) se dedu­ce de la evi­den­cia inter­na del reper­to­rio com­ple­to del ins­tru­men­to, y es corro­bo­ra­da por la evi­den­cia simi­lar de la gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes y la super­vi­ven­cia de esta prác­ti­ca en gui­ta­rras fol­cló­ri­cas de Espa­ña, Por­tu­gal, Bra­sil, etc. No todas las fuen­tes de músi­ca requie­ren esta cuer­da gra­ve. Sci­pio­ne Cerre­to (Della prat­ti­ca musi­ca, Naples 1601/R) pre­sen­tó una afi­na­ción total­men­te recu­rren­te sin octa­va gra­ve en el cuar­to orden: g’/g’–d’/d’–f’/f’–b’, esto es, como los inter­va­los del tem­ple vie­jo de Ber­mu­do pero un tono más agu­do. Esta afi­na­ción es corro­bo­ra­da por una impre­sión anó­ni­ma de 1645, Con­ser­to vago, una sui­te de pie­zas para trío de gui­ta­rra, laúd y tior­ba, en el que la gui­ta­rra debe ser afi­na­da más agu­da para estar de acuer­do con la afi­na­ción nor­mal de los otros dos instrumentos.

[…]

En la eje­cu­ción de músi­ca poli­fó­ni­ca la téc­ni­ca de la gui­ta­rra era simi­lar a la del laúd y la vihue­la; la mano dere­cha se afir­ma­ba a tra­vés de apo­yar el meñi­que sobre el puen­te o la tapa, y la pro­duc­ción de soni­do se logra­ba a tra­vés del pul­gar, el índi­ce y el mayor tocan­do las cuer­das. Esta posi­ción era posi­ble por la baja altu­ra de las cuer­das sobre la tapa, que esta­ba a la mis­ma altu­ra que la tas­tie­ra. La músi­ca se escri­bía en tabla­tu­ra. Los dis­tin­tos sis­te­mas uti­li­za­ban cua­tro líneas para repre­sen­tar los órde­nes; en la músi­ca impre­sa en Espa­ña e Ita­lia la línea de más aba­jo repre­sen­ta el soni­do más agu­do (esta­ble­cien­do una corres­pon­den­cia físi­ca entre el ins­tru­men­to y la músi­ca), mien­tras que esto se rever­tía en las fuen­tes fran­ce­sas (esta­ble­cien­do una rela­ción inte­lec­tual entre la línea más alta y los soni­dos más agu­dos). Los sis­te­mas espa­ñol e ita­liano usan núme­ros para indi­car los tras­tes a ser pisa­dos (0, al aire; 1, pri­mer tras­te, etc); el sis­te­ma fran­cés uti­li­za­ba letras (a, cuer­da al aire; b, pri­mer tras­te, etc.). El rit­mo se indi­ca por valo­res de notas enci­ma del sis­te­ma; estas siguen a la par­te que se mue­ve más rápi­do, por lo que las notas que deben man­te­ner­se por más tiem­po tie­nen que ser infe­ri­das por el ejecutante. […]

La músi­ca más anti­gua para gui­ta­rra de cua­tro cuer­das que sobre­vi­ve apa­re­ce en  Tres libros de musi­ca en cifras para vihue­la de Alon­so de Muda­rra (Sevi­lle, 1546/R): cua­tro fan­ta­sías (una en el tem­ple vie­jo), una ‘pava­na’ y una rea­li­za­ción de O guar­da­me las vacas, que uti­li­za el ground de roma­nes­ca. La músi­ca es de la mis­ma alta cali­dad que la músi­ca para vihue­la de Muda­rra, que abar­ca la mayo­ría de la colec­ción. La fuen­te ita­lia­na más anti­gua es el libro para laúd Ope­ra inti­to­la­ta con­ti­na … Inta­bo­la­tu­ra di lau­to … libro deci­mo (1549³⁹) de Mel­chio­re de Bar­be­riis, en el que se encuen­tran cua­tro ‘fan­ta­sias’ para gui­ta­rra. Éstas en reali­dad son dan­zas livia­nas, una de ellas reim­pre­sa por Gui­llau­me Mor­la­ye (1553³⁴) como un ‘bran­le’.

Fue en Fran­cia don­de la músi­ca para el ins­tru­men­to de cua­tro órde­nes flo­re­ció. Comen­zan­do con el pri­mer libro (per­di­do) de Gui­llau­me Mor­la­ye (1550), se publi­có una serie de libros a tra­vés de los impre­so­res Gran­jon y Fezan­dat con músi­ca de Mor­la­ye (libro 1, RISM 1552³²/R, see fig.4; libro 2, 1553³⁴/R (Fezan­dat solo); libro 4, 1552³³/R (Fezan­dat solo)) y Simon Gor­lier (book 3, 1551²²/R). Una serie con­cu­rren­te fue publi­ca­da por los impre­so­res Le Roy y Ballard con músi­ca de Le Roy (libro 1, 1551²³/R; libro 2, 1555/R; libro 3, 1552/R; libro 5, 1554³³/R) y Gré­goi­re Brays­sing (libro 4, 1553/R). El reper­to­rio en estas publi­ca­cio­nes com­pren­de un amplio ran­go de mate­rial des­de dan­zas sim­ples e inta­bu­la­cio­nes de chan­sons a muy finas fan­ta­sías. Algu­nas de las dan­zas tie­nen divi­sio­nes vir­tuo­sís­ti­cas y las fan­ta­sías inclu­yen cua­tro del famo­so lau­dis­ta Alber­to da Ripa que se com­pa­ran favo­ra­ble­men­te a sus mejo­res fan­ta­sías para laúd. Los libros segun­do y quin­to de Le Roy son dedi­ca­dos ente­ra­men­te a voz solis­ta y laúd. Entre las fuen­tes espa­ño­las, la colec­ción para vihue­la Orphe­ni­ca lyra (Sevi­lle 1554/R) de Miguel de Fuen­lla­na tam­bién con­tie­ne músi­ca para gui­ta­rra, inclu­yen­do Covar­de cava­lle­ro de Juan Vás­quez y un roman­ce, Pas­sa­va­se el rey moro, ambos para voz y gui­ta­rra (la línea vocal está indi­ca­da con cifras rojas en la tabla­tu­ra). Tam­bién hay seis fan­ta­sías y una rea­li­za­ción de ‘Cru­ci­fi­xus est’. En Ingla­te­rra y otros luga­res la gui­ta­rra de cua­tro cuer­das tam­bién dis­fru­tó de algu­na popu­la­ri­dad. Ade­más de An Ins­truc­tion to the Git­tern de Row­botham, hay algu­nos manus­cri­tos de músi­ca para laúd que con­tie­nen algu­nos ejem­plos de tabla­tu­ra para gui­ta­rra de cua­tro órde­nes (GB-Lbl Sto­we 389; GB-Lbl Add.30513; US-NH ‘Bra­ye lute­book’ (ed. in Ward, B1992)). Pha­lè­se, que estu­vo acti­vo en Leu­ven, impri­mió dos colec­cio­nes para el ins­tru­men­to (1570³⁵, 1573, per­di­da). Mucha de la músi­ca en el pri­mer libro fue toma­da de publi­ca­cio­nes fran­ce­sas ante­rio­res. El ins­tru­men­to fue amplia­men­te uti­li­za­do en Ita­lia, y un núme­ro de fuen­tes manus­cri­tas de fines del siglo XVI y prin­ci­pios del XVII sobre­vi­ven en biblio­te­cas euro­peas. (Para una lis­ta com­ple­ta de las fuen­tes para gui­ta­rra, ver Tyler, A1980, pp.123–52).

Aun­que el ins­tru­men­to de cua­tro órde­nes gene­ral­men­te es vis­to como una gui­ta­rra rena­cen­tis­ta, en razón de su reper­to­rio del siglo XVI, con­ti­nuó sien­do amplia­men­te uti­li­za­da, prin­ci­pal­men­te para eje­cu­tar músi­ca popu­lar, a tra­vés de los siglos XVII y XVIII. Agos­tino Agaz­za­ri (Del sona­re sopra ’l bas­so, Sie­na, 1607) reco­men­da­ba su uso en un ensam­bles de con­ti­nuo. La colec­ción de 1645, Con­ser­to vago, ya ha sido men­cio­na­da. Pie­tro Millio­ni (Coro­na del pri­mo, secon­do, e ter­zo libro, Rome, 1631) pro­vée una car­ti­lla de acor­des tan­to para la gui­ta­rra de cua­tro órde­nes como para la mayor, de cin­co, y así da una pis­ta en rela­ción a su uso en el enor­me reper­to­rio de músi­ca ras­guea­da para guitarra. […]

Todas las edi­cio­nes de Gui­ta­rra espa­ño­la de Joan Car­les Amat de 1626 a c.1819 (1ra edi­ción, ?1596, per­di­da) con­tie­nen un capí­tu­lo sobre la gui­ta­rra de cua­tro órde­nes, indi­can­do tal vez que el peque­ño ins­tru­men­to siguió sien­do uti­li­za­do, en for­ma limi­ta­da, has­ta el siglo XIX. En las cul­tu­ras espa­ño­la y por­tu­gue­sa, tan­to en el vie­jo como en el nue­vo mun­do, las gui­ta­rras agu­das peque­ñas siguie­ron y con­ti­núan sien­do uti­li­za­das has­ta el pre­sen­te. La afi­na­ción del uke­le­le moderno g’–c’–e’–a’ es la mis­ma que la afi­na­ción de Ber­mu­do sin el bor­dón, y la afi­na­ción alter­na­ti­va del uke­le­le a’—d’–f–b’ es nota­ble­men­te pare­ci­da a la afi­na­ción recu­rren­te de Cerre­to de 1601.

4. La guitarra de cinco órdenes

(It. chi­ta­rra spag­nuo­la). Las fuen­tes ico­no­grá­fi­cas con­fir­man que ins­tru­men­tos simi­la­res a la gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes se uti­li­za­ron des­de por lo menos fines del siglo XIV, espe­cial­men­te en Ita­lia. El tér­mino ita­liano vio­la fue apli­ca­do a estas así como a ins­tru­men­tos de seis y sie­te óde­nes. Los tér­mi­nos vio­la y vio­la da mano (y su equi­va­len­te espa­ñol vihue­la) fue­ron uti­li­za­dos fre­cuen­te­men­te para indi­car ins­tru­men­tos de este tipo y for­ma gene­ral; a veces el peque­ño ins­tru­men­to de cua­tro órde­nes tam­bién fue incluí­do. Fuen­lla­na (f.IV), por ejem­plo, escri­bió acer­ca de la «vihue­la de Qua­tro Orde­nes, Que Dizen Gui­ta­rra». Tam­bién impri­mió la músi­ca más tem­pra­na que se cono­ce para un ins­tru­men­to de cin­co órde­nes (‘vihue­la de cin­co orde­nes’), que fue­ron fan­ta­sías e inta­bu­la­cio­nes voca­les que requie­ren un ins­tru­men­to afi­na­do a inter­va­los de gui­ta­rra (empe­zan­do des­de el quin­to orden; 4ta-4ta-3ra mayor-4ta), aun­que no men­cio­nó las altu­ras espe­cí­fi­cas o el tipo de cuer­das. Ber­mu­do se refi­rió a una ‘gui­ta­rra de cin­co orde­nes’, dicien­do que podía hacer­se agre­gan­do una cuer­da una 4ta enci­ma del pri­mer orden pre­sen­te (f.xxviiiv). Tam­bién des­cri­bió afi­na­cio­nes nue­vas e inusua­les para ella así como para una ‘gui­ta­rra gran­de’ de seis órde­nes y para el ins­tru­men­to de cua­tro órde­nes. No sobre­vi­ve músi­ca para nin­gu­na de estas afi­na­cio­nes. La gui­ta­rra de Dias des­crip­ta ante­rior­men­te podría ser un ejem­plo de lo que Ber­mu­do lla­ma ‘gui­ta­rra de cin­co orde­nes’ (fuen­tes ita­lia­nas pos­te­rio­res lla­man a este tipo de ins­tru­men­to peque­ño chi­ta­rri­glia).

Una fuen­te fran­ce­sa, los dibu­jos de Jac­ques Cellier (Recher­ches de plu­sieurs sin­gu­la­ri­tés, c1583–7; F‑Pn fonds fr.9152), mues­tra un ins­tru­men­to de cua­tro órde­nes (sie­te cuer­das) con una car­ti­lla de afi­na­ción para un ins­tru­men­to de cin­co órde­nes: g–c/c’–e–a–d’ (el encor­da­do en octa­vas sólo se mues­tra para el cuar­to orden). Esta afi­na­ción recu­rren­te sería, si el ter­cer orden se subie­ra un semi­tono, una afi­na­ción típi­ca (con su bor­dón en el cuar­to orden) para la eje­cu­ción de mucha de la músi­ca ‘artís­ti­ca’ ita­lia­na y fran­ce­sa escri­ta pos­te­rior­men­te. Un pri­mer orden d’ era bas­tan­te común (ver, por ejem­plo, Bene­det­to San­se­ve­rino, Inta­vo­la­tu­ra faci­le (Milán, 1620)), aun­que un pri­mer orden e’ se trans­for­ma­ría en el están­dar. Las fuen­tes espa­ño­las sue­len reco­men­dar bor­dó­nes tan­to en el cuar­to como en el quin­to orden, espe­cial­men­te si la gui­ta­rra sería uti­li­za­da sólo para ras­guear. La edi­ción más anti­guas que se cono­ce del libri­to de Amat (1626) da la siguien­te aina­ción: A/a–d/d’–g/g–b/b–e’; se asu­me que la pri­me­ra edi­ción per­di­da (?1596) pro­veía la mis­ma información.

Des­de el siglo XVII, la infor­ma­ción sobre afi­na­ción fre­cuen­te­men­te indi­ca no usar bor­do­nes en abso­lu­to. Esto pro­du­cía una afi­na­ción total­men­te recu­rren­te: a/a–d’/d’–g/g–b/b–e’ con la altu­ra más gra­ve en el ter­cer orden (ver, por ejem­plo, Luis de Briçe­ño: Méto­do … para apren­der a tañer la gui­ta­ra a lo espa­ñol (París, 1626/R); Marin Mer­sen­ne: Har­mo­nie uni­ver­se­lle, ii (París, 1636–7/R); Fran­ces­co Val­dam­bri­ni: Libro pri­mo d’intavolatura di chi­ta­rra (Roma, 1646), Libro secon­do (Roma, 1647); Antoi­ne Carré: Livre de gui­ta­rre (París, 1671/R); Gas­par Sanz: Ins­truc­cíon de músi­ca sobre la gui­ta­rra espa­ño­la (Zara­go­za, 3/1674)). Dos fuen­tes ita­lia­nas para esta afi­na­ción recu­rren­te ofre­cen otra varian­te: a/a–d’/d–g/g’–b/b–e’ con una octa­va agu­da en el ter­cer orden (I‑MOe Cam­po­ri 612.X.L.10.21 and I‑Bc AA360). La modi­fi­ca­ción más común a esta afi­na­ción recu­rren­te era a/a–d’/d’–g/g–b/b–e’ que, a juz­gar por las exi­gen­cias de sus tabla­tu­ras, fue la más uti­li­za­da por los com­po­si­to­res más impor­tan­tes de solos para gui­ta­rra de la época:

Fran­ces­co Cor­bet­ta, Ange­lo Miche­le Bar­to­lot­ti, Gio­van­ni Bat­tis­ta Gra­na­ta, Robert de Visée (ejem­plo 1), Ludo­vi­co Ron­ca­lli, y otros.

La razón para estas afi­na­cio­nes recu­rren­tes se hace evi­den­te en las tabla­tu­ras ori­gi­na­les: en mucha de la músi­ta ‘artís­ti­ca’ para gui­ta­rra (en opo­si­ción a la músi­ca exclu­si­va­men­te ras­guea­da), el quin­to orden, que es recu­rren­te, se uti­li­za­ba meló­di­ca­men­te para esca­las en con­jun­ción con los otros órde­nes agu­dos; rara vez se uti­li­za­ba el quin­to orden como bajo. El cuar­to orden tam­bién era uti­li­za­do gene­ral­men­te de la mis­ma mane­ra que el quin­to. El típi­co efec­to es lo que Sanz lla­mó cam­pa­ne­las (peque­ñas cam­pa­nas): se uti­li­za­ban tan­tas cuer­das al aire como fue­ra posi­ble para las notas en esca­las, para que con­ti­nua­ran vibran­do, una fun­dién­do­se con la siguien­te a la mane­ra del arpa o de cam­pa­nas (ver ejem­plo 2). Aún cuan­do un bor­dón fue­se uti­li­za­do en el cuar­to orden la mane­ra de encor­dar era téc­ni­ca­men­te impor­tan­te, con la octa­va agu­da del lado del quin­to orden y el bor­dón cer­ca del ter­cer orden; esto per­mi­tía al eje­cu­tan­te la elec­ción de tocar la cuer­da de más arri­ba sola­men­te (lo que era nece­sa­rio más fre­cuen­te­men­te), o incluir el bor­dón cuan­do la músi­ca reque­ría de la octa­va gra­ve. Esta mane­ra de encor­dar fue men­cio­na­da por Lucas Ruiz de Riba­yaz, Anto­nio Stra­di­va­ri y Denis Dide­rot entre otros y apa­re­ce en un núme­ro de fuen­tes iconográficas.

Se deja­ba al cri­te­rio del eje­cu­tan­te cuál de toda la varie­dad de afi­na­cio­nes posi­bles era la más ade­cua­da para cada fuen­te musi­cal; lo que no siem­pre era fácil. En gene­ral, las fuen­tes para músi­ca exclu­si­va­men­te ras­guea­da podían uti­li­zar­se con cual­quier afi­na­ción por­que las cues­tio­nes de inver­sio­nes de acor­des apro­pia­das o suti­le­zas armó­ni­cas rara vez eran teni­das en cuen­ta en este reper­to­rio. Para mucha de la músi­ca de esti­lo mix­to, que uti­li­za­ba téc­ni­ca de pun­tea­do, algu­nos acor­des ras­guea­dos (It. Bat­tu­to, bat­ten­te) y recuen­tes pasa­jes en cam­pa­ne­la (que se encuen­tran en las fuen­tes ita­lia­nas y fran­ce­sas más impor­tan­tes), la afi­na­ción recu­rren­te, usual­men­te con un bor­dón en el cuar­to orden, era apro­pia­da. Oca­sio­nal­men­te las fuen­tes como el Poe­ma har­mó­ni­co de Fran­cis­co Gue­rau (Madrid 1694/R) pare­cen reque­rir de bor­do­nes en los órde­nes cuar­to y quinto.

Con sus par­ti­cu­la­res afi­na­cio­nes y su énfa­sis en músi­ca bri­llan­te y en un ran­go agu­do, un len­gua­je gene­ral­men­te bas­tan­te dife­ren­te al del laúd o de cual­quier otro ins­tu­men­to pun­tea­do de la épo­ca, la gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes era muy dife­ren­te de la gui­ta­rra moder­na. Sólo des­de media­dos del siglo XVIII el carác­ter de la gui­ta­rra comen­zó a apro­xi­mar­se al del ins­tru­men­to que cono­ce­mos hoy a par­tir del desa­rro­llo de el regis­tro de gra­ves y su téc­ni­ca de eje­cu­ción. Las medi­das pro­me­dio de una gui­ta­rra barro­ca de cin­co órde­nes eran: lon­gi­tud gene­ral 92 cm; lon­gi­tud de cuer­das 63 a 70 cm; anchos 20 cm, 17 cm, 24 cm; pro­fun­di­dad varia­da de acuer­do a si el fon­do era plano o cur­vo. La gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes retu­vo las carac­te­rís­ti­cas de los ins­tru­men­tos más peque­ños de cua­tro órde­nes, pero los cla­vi­je­ros cur­vos con cla­vi­jas inser­ta­das late­ral­men­te deja­ron de utilizarse.

[…]

Muchas gui­ta­rras barro­cas han sobre­vi­vi­do, par­ti­cu­lar­men­te las muy deco­ra­das, que fue­ron más sus­cep­ti­bles de ser con­ser­va­das por colec­cio­nis­tas que los mode­los sen­ci­llo. Una rele­va­ción de imág­nes con­tem­po­rá­neas reve­la que los ins­tru­men­tos hechos de made­ras sen­ci­llas y con rela­ti­va­men­te poca deco­ra­ción eran más comu­nes. En colec­cio­nes de museos hay muchos ins­tru­men­tos por fabri­can­tes como Mat­teo y Gior­gio Sellas, Gio­van­ni Tess­ler, René y Ale­xan­der Voboam, Joa­chim Tiel­ke y Anto­nio Stra­di­va­ri (fig.9). Los dos ins­tru­men­tos de Stra­di­va­ri que sobre­vi­ven son her­mo­sa­men­te pro­por­cio­na­dos con poca deco­ra­ción, aun­que su sen­ci­llez ha sido exa­cer­ba­da a tra­vés de los años por la remo­ción de deta­lles deco­ra­ti­vos como los tra­di­cio­na­les ‘bigo­tes’ a los lados del puente.

La nota­ción espe­cí­fi­ca más tem­pra­na para la gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes data de la últi­ma par­te del siglo XVI, cuan­do se inven­tó un nue­vo sis­te­ma para repre­sen­tar acor­des com­ple­tos de cin­co notas. Apa­ren­te­men­te apa­re­ció por pri­me­ra vez en un manus­cri­to (I‑Bu 177 iv), que con­tie­ne las par­tes supe­rio­res de madri­ga­les y can­zo­net­tas de la déca­da de 1580 por com­po­si­to­res como Maren­zio y Vec­chi. Allí se uti­li­za­ron letras en minús­cu­la del abe­ce­da­rio para repre­sen­tar acor­des espe­cí­fi­cos, ubi­ca­das sobre las pala­bras en luga­res don­de cam­bia la armo­nía. Otras fuen­tes ita­lia­nas (todas de manus­cri­tos de can­cio­nes) inclu­yen una supues­ta copia­da por Fran­ces­co Palum­bi c1595 (F‑Pn Espa­ñol 390), y una fecha­da en 1599 (I‑Rvat Chi­gia­ni L.VI.200). Estas con­tie­nen mayor­men­te tex­tos en espa­ñol, pero usan la nota­ción de letras (alfa­be­to) ita­lia­na. Hay algu­nas fuen­tes espa­ño­las para el sis­te­ma de acor­des, por ejem­plo el libri­to (per­di­do) de Amat de 1596 (y sus reim­pre­sio­nes del siglo XVII) y Bri­ce­ño (1626), en que los acor­des están repre­sen­ta­dos por núme­ros en lugar de letras. La nota­ción con núme­ros se encuen­tra rara­men­te, mien­tras que el alfa­be­to ita­liano se trans­for­mó en la nota­ción de acor­des más común. Este sis­te­ma, radi­cal­men­te dife­ren­te de todo tipo de nota­ción pre­vio, impli­ca­ba que el eje­cu­tan­te debía pen­sar en tér­mi­nos de blo­ques armó­ni­cos ver­ti­ca­les (como los gui­ta­rris­tas rít­mi­cos moder­nos), y se desa­rro­lló en con­jun­ción con el auge de la mono­dia ita­lia­na. En efec­to, algu­nos de las fuen­tes manus­cri­tas más anti­guas de mono­dia por com­po­si­to­res como Peri y Cac­ci­ni (por ejem­plo, I‑Fc Codex Bar­be­ra G.F.83) con­tie­nen alfa­be­to. Es, tal vez, tam­bién sig­ni­fi­ca­ti­vo que en los inter­me­di flo­ren­ti­nos de 1589, que fue­ron un hito en el desa­rro­llo del nue­vo esti­lo monó­di­co, se uti­li­za­ron dos gui­ta­rras en el famo­so Ballo del Gran Duca de Cava­llie­ri, una pie­za que con­ti­nuó sien­do popu­lar por lo menos duran­te otro siglo.

La pri­me­ra impre­sión con­te­nien­do alfa­be­to es Nuo­va inven­tio­ne d’intavolatura per sona­re li ballet­ti sopra la chi­ta­rra spag­nuo­la, sen­za nume­ri e note (Flo­ren­ce, 1606), de Giro­la­mo Mon­te­sar­do. Duran­te los comien­zos del siglo XVII apa­re­cie­ron una abun­dan­te can­ti­dad de libros para gui­ta­rra uti­li­zan­do sólo este sis­te­ma para solos sólo ras­guea­dos (muchas de las pie­zas pue­den con­si­de­rar­se tam­bién como acom­pa­ña­mien­to para uso en ensam­bles). Los auto­res impor­tan­tes de libros de alfa­be­to fue­ron: Foriano Pico (1608), G.A. Colon­na (1620, 1623, 1637), San­se­ve­rino (1620), Car­lo Mila­nuz­zi (1622, 1623, 1625), Millio­ni (1624, 1627), Millio­ni y Lodo­vi­co Mon­te (c1627, 1637, 1644, etc.), G.B. Aba­tes­sa (1627, 1635, c1650, 1652), G.P. Fos­ca­ri­ni (1629), Toma­so Mar­chet­ti (1635), Cor­bet­ta (1639), Agos­tino Trom­bet­ti (1639), Anto­nio Car­bon­chi (1643), Car­lo Cal­vi (1646), Gio­van­ni Bot­taz­za­ri (1663), Gio­van­ni Pie­tro Ric­ci (1677) y Anto­nio di Miche­le (1680); para deta­lles de las segun­das y siguien­tes edi­cio­nes de muchas de estas colec­cio­nes, ver Tyler, A1980, pp.123–58. El últi­mo libro de alfa­be­to cono­ci­do es una edi­ción del libro de Millio­ni y Mon­te de 1637 impre­so en 1737.

Ade­más de las fuen­tes de solos para gui­ta­rra en alfa­be­to, tam­bién hay un enor­me cor­pus de publi­ca­cio­nes de arias ita­lia­nas emplean­do a la gui­ta­rra como acom­pa­ña­mien­to para la voz. En este reper­to­rio se encuen­tran publi­ca­cio­nes de muchos de los mayo­res com­po­si­to­res voca­les de la épo­co, como Ste­fano Lan­di (1620, 1627) y Sigis­mon­do d’India (1621, 1623), y varios libros por Andrea Fal­co­nie­ri, G.G. Kaps­per­ger, Mila­nuz­zi, G.B. Vita­li, Bia­gio Mari­ni, Gugliel­mo Minis­cal­chi, Alles­san­dro Gran­di (i), y otros. En las colec­cio­nes con con­tri­bu­cio­nes de varios com­po­si­to­res se encuen­tran cin­co arias de Mon­te­ver­di (Mila­nuz­zi, 1624, RISM 1634⁷) todas exclu­si­vas de esas impre­sio­ne, así como arias de Fres­co­bal­di (VogelB 1621²), Dome­ni­co Maz­zo­chi (RISM 1621¹⁶) y Cava­lli (RISM 1634⁷). El tema del acom­pa­ña­mien­to en gui­ta­rra de este impor­tan­te reper­to­rio de arias del siglo XVII no ha sido estu­dia­do en pro­fun­di­dad aún, y el rol de la gui­ta­rra como un ins­tru­men­to amplia­men­te uti­li­za­do en con­ti­nuo no ha sido resal­ta­do suficientemente.

Ade­más de dedu­cir acom­pa­ña­mien­tos a par­tir de las indi­ca­cio­nes del alfa­be­to, los gui­ta­rris­tas del siglo XVII debían apren­der a leer e impro­vi­sar un acom­pa­ña­mien­to en con­ti­nuo para la línea de bajo (tan­to con como sin núme­ros). Aun­que la gui­ta­rra barro­ca fre­cuen­te­men­te no era capaz de hacer sonar la ver­da­de­ra nota del bajo por su afi­na­ción, se podía rea­li­zar un acom­pa­ña­mien­to idio­má­ti­co de con­ti­nuo para las armo­nías desea­das. La ver­da­de­ra línea de bajo era toca­da por un ins­tru­men­to más apro­pia­do como la tior­ba o el cello. El pre­fa­cio de la mayo­ría de los libros de arias dan una tabla de cómo leer el bajo para el gui­ta­rris­ta, pero muchos de los libros de solos dan ins­truc­cio­nes mucho más deta­lla­das. Los libros de Cor­bet­ta de 1643 y 1648 dan infor­ma­ción de cómo tocar con­ti­nuo, así como el libro de Fos­ca­ri­ni de 1640. Sanz dedi­ca una sec­ción com­ple­ta de su libro a la eje­cu­ción de con­ti­nuo y el libro Resu­men de acom­pa­ñar la par­te con la gui­ta­rra (Madrid, 1717/R) de San­tia­go de Mur­cia esta­ba, como lo sugie­re su títu­lo, dedi­ca­do en gran par­te al con­ti­nuo en gui­ta­rra. Pero las ins­truc­cio­nes más deta­lla­das y exhaus­ti­vas apa­re­cen en Le fal­se con­so­nan­se della musi­ca (Lon­don, c1680) de Nico­la Mat­tei y en la pos­te­rior edi­ción ingle­sa The Fal­se Con­so­nan­ces of Musick (1682/R). Este tutor para la eje­cu­ción de con­ti­nuo en gui­ta­rra es uno de los tra­ta­dos más úti­les y deta­lla­dos de todos los tra­ta­dos de con­ti­nuo del siglo XVII para cual­quier ins­tru­men­to (inclu­yen­do teclado).

Ade­más del esti­lo de músi­ca ras­guea­da encon­tra­da en las fuen­tes de alfa­be­to de prin­ci­pios del siglo XVII, un nue­vo esti­lo de músi­ca para gui­ta­rra comen­zó a apa­re­cer en impre­sio­nes des­de alre­de­dor de 1630 con el segun­do y el ter­cer libro de Fos­ca­ri­ni (publi­ca­dos jun­tos). Aun­que una de los fuer­tes de la gui­ta­rra era su habi­li­dad de tocar acor­des en blo­que en un esti­lo de ras­guea­do rít­mi­co (este era con­si­de­ra­do el ver­da­de­ro idio­ma de la gui­ta­rra), Fos­ca­ri­ni adap­tó la téc­ni­ca y la tabla­tu­ra del laúd en com­bi­na­ción con acor­des ras­guea­dos para arri­var a un esti­lo mix­to de solo para gui­ta­rra. En su pre­fa­cio se dis­cul­pa­ba de los ele­men­tos lau­dís­ti­cos. Fue este nue­vo esti­lo mix­to el que fue usa­do por los más finos gui­ta­rris­tas com­po­si­to­res del siglo XVII y prin­ci­pios del XVIII. Aun­que Cor­bet­ta inclu­yó algu­nos muy finos solos en su libro de 1639, fue A. M. Bar­to­lot­ti quien, en 1640, pro­du­jo los pri­me­ros ejem­plos magis­tra­les com­ple­ta­men­te desa­rro­lla­dos del nue­vo esti­lo, y su segun­do libro (c1655) con­tie­ne algu­na de la más fina músi­ca para gui­ta­rra del siglo XVII. Fue Cor­bet­ta, sin embar­go, quien se trans­for­mó en el gui­ta­rris­ta com­po­si­tor ita­liano más cono­ci­do, con sus publi­ca­cio­nes de 1643 y 1648, que con­te­nían músi­ca del más alto nivel. Otros auto­res des­ta­ca­dos para la gui­ta­rra fue­ron Gra­na­ta (1646, c1650, 1651, 1659, 1674, 1680, 1684), Val­dam­bri­ni (1646, 1647), Dome­ni­co Pelle­gri­ni (1650), Fran­ces­co Asio­li (1674, 1676), Mat­teis (c1680, 1682) y Ron­ca­lli (1692). Es iró­ni­co que, aun­que la gui­ta­rra era cono­ci­da como un ins­tru­men­to espa­ñol, fue en Ita­lia don­de su reper­to­rio se desa­rro­lló primero.

En Fran­cia al prin­ci­pio la gui­ta­rra de cin­co órde­nes no fue teni­da en muy alta esti­ma. Tan­to Mer­sen­ne como Pie­rre Tri­chet se refi­rie­ron a ella en tér­mi­nos des­pec­ti­vos, y la opo­si­ción gene­ral es men­cio­na­da en Méto­do … para apren­der a tañer la gui­ta­ra (1626) de Briçe­ño, que fue una obra que pro­mo­vía el esti­lo acór­di­co de eje­cu­ción. El libro de Briçe­ño tuvo éxi­to en popu­la­ri­zar el ins­tru­men­to, y sólo más tar­de en el siglo apa­re­cie­ron otras publi­ca­cio­nes. Estas refle­jan el inte­rés por la gui­ta­rra engen­dra­do por Cor­bet­ta en círcu­los cor­te­sa­nos, cuyo La gui­ta­rre roya­lle de 1674 fue dedi­ca­do a Luis XIV. Aun­que el esti­lo ras­guea­do es impor­tan­te en las pie­zas del libro, el alfa­be­to ha sido aban­do­na­do y se ha logra­do una mayor liber­tad a par­tir de escri­bir las notas de los acor­des indi­vi­dual­men­te. Cor­bet­ta fue suce­di­do por Robert de Visée (?c1655–1732/3), quien fue­ra nom­bra­do for­mal­men­te como ins­truc­tor de gui­ta­rra del rey en 1719. Su Livre de guit­ta­rre dédié au roy fue publi­ca­do en 1682, y un segun­do libro , Livres de piè­ces pour la guit­ta­rre, apa­re­ció en 1686; ambos con­tie­nen sui­tes de varias lon­gi­tu­des, con un pre­lu­dio intro­duc­to­rio segui­do de dan­zas – alle­man­de, couran­te, saraan­de, gique, pas­sa­cai­lle y otras. Visée tam­bién pro­du­jo una colec­ción de pie­zas para tior­ba y laúd y dejó un núme­ro de obras en manus­cri­to. Rémy Médard, en sus Piè­ces de gui­ta­rre (1676), reco­no­ce su deu­da con Cor­bet­ta, que fue su pro­fe­sor, pero como Visée cul­ti­vó un esti­lo más deli­ca­do. Nou­ve­lles décou­ver­tes sur la gui­ta­re (op.1, 1705), de Fra­nçois Cam­pion (c1685–1747) mues­tra una preo­cu­pa­ción por el movi­mien­to meló­di­co y contrapuntístico.

 

Corbetta’s first La gui­ta­rre roya­lle (1671; fig.11) was dedi­ca­ted to Char­les II of England, who was an enthu­sias­tic per­for­mer. The gui­tar was extre­mely fashio­na­ble in England; Cor­bet­ta, who went to England in the early 1660s and coun­ted many of the nobi­lity among his pupils. Howe­ver, some dis­tas­te for the ins­tru­ment was expres­sed, and Pepys, for one, held the gui­tar in low esteem. (The inclu­sion in Pepys’s library, which sur­vi­ves intact in Cam­brid­ge (GB-Cmc), of a manus­cript by gui­tar tutor Cesa­re More­lli, and the evi­den­ce of his own com­po­si­tions for gui­tar and voi­ce (writ­ten out for him by More­lli), sug­gests, howe­ver, that he was even­tually won over by the ins­tru­ment.) The dis­tin­ction drawn by William Tur­ner (i) in 1697 bet­ween the ‘brushing way’ and the ‘pin­ching way’ indi­ca­tes that, as well as Corbetta’s more com­plex music, the­re was no lack of strum­ming in England. Indeed it is likely that a lost work, Easie Les­sons on the Gui­tar for Young Prac­ti­tio­ners, recor­ded in 1677 as by Seig­nior Fran­cis­co, was by Cor­bet­ta him­self. In 18th-cen­tury England the gui­tar went out of fashion. It was repla­ced by the English gui­tar, which had little in com­mon with the gui­tar pro­per, being simi­lar in sha­pe to the cit­tern and having metal strings tuned c–e–g–c’–e’–g’.

The five-cour­se gui­tar was first known in Ger­many as an ins­tru­ment for strum­ming. Prae­to­rius so des­cri­bed it, but he also rela­ted that ‘it can be used to good effect in other gra­ce­ful can­tiun­cu­lae and delight­ful songs by a good sin­ger’. Later in the cen­tury the gui­tar appea­red in con­sort with the lute, angé­li­que and viol, accom­pan­ying a collec­tion of songs by Jakob Krem­berg, Musi­ca­lis­che Gemüths-Ergötzung (Dres­den, 1689).

Corbetta’s pre­sen­ce in the Nether­lands is attes­ted by his Varii scher­zi di sona­te per la chi­ta­ra spag­no­la, published in Brus­sels in 1648. The inter­est engen­de­red by Cor­bet­ta was main­tai­ned through the 17th cen­tury, although nati­ve sour­ces are lac­king until the follo­wing cen­tury, when Fra­nçois le Cocq’s Recueil des piè­ces de gui­ta­rre appea­red (c1729). As well as Le Cocq’s com­po­si­tions, the collec­tion con­tains works by Cor­bet­ta, Sanz, Visée, Gra­na­ta and other 17th-cen­tury gui­ta­rists (added by Jean-Bap­tis­te Cas­ti­llon, to whom Le Cocq had dedi­ca­ted the book). A mid-18th-cen­tury manus­cript collec­tion from the Nether­lands is the so-called Prin­ces An’s Lute Book, for five-cour­se gui­tar (NL-DHgm 4.E.73).

Des­pi­te its title, a late 17th-cen­tury Spa­nish sour­ce by Anto­nio de San­ta Cruz, Músi­ca de vihue­la (E‑Mn M.2209), is not to be com­pa­red with the 16th-cen­tury vihue­la books, as its con­tents con­sist of 17th-cen­tury Spa­nish dan­ces nota­ted in five-line tabla­tu­re. It inclu­des the chord alpha­bet and was obviously inten­ded for the five-cour­se gui­tar. The most impor­tant sour­ce of gui­tar music in 17th-cen­tury Spain is the Ins­truc­ción by Gas­par Sanz, eight edi­tions of which appea­red bet­ween 1674 and 1697. Sanz, in his pre­fa­ce, sta­tes that he went to Italy to study music and beca­me an orga­nist in Naples. He later went to Rome whe­re he stu­died the gui­tar with an impor­tant com­po­ser of the time, Lelio Colis­ta (some of who­se gui­tar music sur­vi­ves in B‑Bc, lit­te­ra S no.5615). He also sta­tes that he stu­died the works of Fos­ca­ri­ni, Gra­na­ta and Cor­bet­ta. The­re are many Ita­lian as well as Spa­nish dan­ce pie­ces in his publi­ca­tions and he employs a matu­re and fully inte­gra­ted sty­le of mixed wri­ting with an equal balan­ce of strum­med chords and pun­tea­do sty­le, espe­cially in his later pas­sa­ca­lles of 1697.

The Luz y nor­te musi­cal (Madrid, 1677) by Lucas Ruiz de Riba­yaz is a work devo­ted to the gui­tar and the harp; most of the gui­tar music was pla­gia­ri­zed from Sanz. Guerau’s book of 1694 is nota­ble for con­tai­ning music in an almost totally pun­tea­do sty­le, qui­te dif­fe­rent from Sanz and the majo­rity of other gui­tar com­po­sers. Other Spa­nish sour­ces are San­tia­go de Murcia’s Resu­men (1714), his manus­cript Pas­sa­ca­lles y obras (1732, GB-Lbl Add.31640) and his manus­cript collec­tion of dan­ce varia­tions (Archi­ve of Eli­sa Oso­rio Bolio de Sal­dí­var, Mexi­co City, Codi­ce Sal­dí­var, 4), which con­tains music of a very high stan­dard; Murcia’s own pre­li­dios tend to be both ori­gi­nal and mas­ter­ful, though a study of con­cor­dan­ces reveals that the majo­rity of pie­ces in the­se two works are actually arran­ge­ments of French court music, many of pie­ces by Lully as well as Le Cocq and Corbetta.

The music for the five-cour­se gui­tar dis­cus­sed so far can be regar­ded as the ‘clas­si­cal’ reper­tory for the late Renais­san­ce and Baro­que ins­tru­ment. On the who­le, this music calls for the cha­rac­te­ris­tic re-entrant tunings that were so impor­tant to the pla­ying sty­le and idioms emplo­yed during the­se periods and which made the gui­tar uni­que. But the natu­re of the gui­tar chan­ged noti­ceably in the midd­le of the 18th cen­tury, along with musi­cal sty­les in gene­ral. The chan­ge seems to have occu­rred first in Fran­ce, whe­re the gui­tar began to be used pri­ma­rily to accom­pany the voi­ce, using an arpeg­gia­ted sty­le simi­lar to that of key­board ins­tru­ments. The new sty­le requi­red true bass notes and as early as 1764 (Jour­nal de musi­que, April) ins­truc­tions for pro­per accom­pa­ni­ments stres­sed the use of a bour­don on the fifth cour­se. The appea­ran­ce of many gui­tar tutors in Fran­ce bet­ween 1763 and c1800, all for a five-cour­se gui­tar tuned A/a–d/d’–g/g–b/b–e’, as well as the gra­dual aban­don­ment of tabla­tu­re in favour of staff nota­tion, lea­ves little doubt that the gui­tar was beco­ming an ins­tru­ment much clo­ser in cha­rac­ter and pla­ying sty­les to the modern gui­tar than to the Baro­que ins­tru­ment. Soon, even the dou­ble cour­ses in octa­ves were aban­do­ned in favour of sin­gle strings and, as early as 1785, a sixth string was indi­ca­ted (Etren­nes de Poly­mnie, Paris, 1785, p.148).

His­to­ri­cal sta­te­ments refe­rring to the gui­tar as an easy ins­tru­ment should be trea­ted with cau­tion. Such a dis­mis­si­ve atti­tu­de is valid only when it is direc­ted towards the gui­tar at its sim­plest level. The judg­ment is cer­tainly not true in the con­text of art music, whe­re tex­tu­res more com­plex than a series of chord pat­terns demand accu­racy of fin­ge­ring and a high degree of coor­di­na­tion. The­se are of par­ti­cu­lar impor­tan­ce for the Baro­que five-cour­se gui­tar, which, though first used as a popu­lar ins­tru­ment, later gave rise to a lite­ra­tu­re that pre­sents tex­tu­res simi­lar to tho­se of the lute. Five-cour­se gui­tar music has yet to be heard widely on the ins­tru­ment for which it was writ­ten. Per­for­man­ce on the modern gui­tar is only an appro­xi­ma­tion of the ori­gi­nal sound, as modern strin­ging and tuning does not allow the music to be reali­zed faithfully.

5. La guitarra temprana de seis órdenes

The transition from the Baro­que five-cour­se gui­tar to a recog­ni­zably modern ins­tru­ment with six sin­gle strings took pla­ce gra­dually during the second half of the 18th cen­tury and the first deca­des of the 19th cen­tury in Spain, Fran­ce and Italy. A deep-bodied ins­tru­ment in the Gemeen­te­mu­seum (The Hague) labe­lled ‘Fran­cis­co San­guino, me fecit. En Sevi­lla año de 1759’ is the ear­liest known six-cour­se ins­tru­ment, and is also nota­ble for pio­nee­ring the use of fan-strut­ting to strengthen the table. Docu­ments rela­ting to the sale of musi­cal ins­tru­ments in Spain show that the six-cour­se gui­tar beca­me increa­singly com­mon from 1760 onwards, stea­dily super­se­ding the five-cour­se ins­tru­ment, and was the most com­mon form of gui­tar through Ibe­ria by the 1790s. In Paris, the Ita­lian-born gui­ta­rist Gia­co­mo Mer­chi was still recom­men­ding the tra­di­tio­nal five dou­ble-cour­se in Le gui­de des éco­liers de gui­ta­rre (c1761), but by 1777 (in his Trai­té des agré­ments de la musi­que exécu­tés sur le gui­ta­rre) was advo­ca­ting ‘my man­ner of strin­ging the gui­tar with sin­gle strings … sin­gle strings are easier to put in tune, and to pluck cleanly; moreo­ver, they ren­der pure, strong and smooth sounds, approa­ching tho­se of the harp; abo­ve all if one uses slightly thic­ker strings’. Many of Merchi’s Pari­sian con­tem­po­ra­ries still favou­red five dou­ble-cour­ses – for exam­ple Bai­lleux (1773) and Bai­llon (1781) – whi­le six dou­ble-cour­ses remai­ned the stan­dard form of strin­ging in Spain well into the 19th cen­tury, and it seems to have been gui­ta­rists from Italy and southern Fran­ce who were pri­ma­rily res­pon­si­ble for the intro­duc­tion of sin­gle strings, pre­fe­rring the unam­bi­guous bass notes that they pro­du­ced, and initially using them on ins­tru­ments ori­gi­nally inten­ded for dou­ble-cour­ses. By 1785, makers in Mar­sei­lles and Naples were buil­ding gui­tars spe­ci­fi­cally inten­ded for six sin­gle strings (the often-repea­ted claim that Nau­mann, Kapell­meis­ter at Dres­den, was res­pon­si­ble for the addi­tion of the lower E string at some point after 1688 can the­re­fo­re safely be dis­mis­sed), and this new design gra­dually came into gene­ral use throughout much of Europe.

Chan­ges in the basic ins­tru­ment were many, and the gui­tar lost much that it had in com­mon with the lute, esta­blishing during the early deca­des of the 19th cen­tury the form that was to deve­lop into the modern gui­tar. Machi­ne heads were used ins­tead of woo­den pegs, fixed frets (first ivory or ebony, then metal) ins­tead of gut; an open soundho­le repla­ced the rose; the brid­ge was rai­sed to a higher posi­tion (and a sadd­le and pins intro­du­ced to fas­ten the strings); and the neck beca­me narro­wer. The flat back beca­me stan­dard, and pro­por­tions of the ins­tru­ment chan­ged to allow the posi­tio­ning of the 12th fret at the jun­ction of body and neck. Sepa­ra­te fin­ger­boards were intro­du­ced, at first flush with the table, later rai­sed to lie 2 mm or so abo­ve it. The rec­tan­gu­lar peghead gave way to heads of various designs, often a dis­tin­guishing mark of the maker. Gene­rally, lavish deco­ra­tion disap­pea­red, though some orna­te gui­tars were made in the 19th cen­tury and the use of fan-strut­ting was further deve­lo­ped in six-cour­se gui­tars made in Cádiz by José Pagés and Josef Bene­did (figs.5c and 12). As well as fan-strut­ting in the lower half of the table, a cross-strut­ting sys­tem appea­red in the part of the table abo­ve the soundho­le. Other impor­tant makers of this period were René Fra­nçois Lacô­te of Paris and Louis Panor­mo, acti­ve in London.

Ins­truc­tion books reveal that the­re was no stan­dard approach to pla­ying tech­ni­que. Ear­lier tra­di­tions per­sis­ted; the right hand was still sup­por­ted on the table (on some ins­tru­ments a pie­ce of ebony was let into the table to pre­vent wear), although Nica­rio Jau­ral­de (A Com­ple­te Pre­cep­tor for the Spa­nish Gui­tar) war­ned against res­ting the little fin­ger on the table as this pre­vents the hand moving for ‘chan­ges in Piano and For­te’ and inhi­bits ‘the other fin­gers acting with Agi­lity’. Right-hand fin­ger move­ment was still con­fi­ned mainly to the thumb and first two fin­gers. The tech­ni­que for attac­king the strings was nor­mally tiran­do, with the fin­ger­tips rising after pluc­king; apo­yan­do, in which the fin­ger brushes past the string and rests on the string below, was little men­tio­ned and appa­rently not gene­rally applied. Per­for­mers were divi­ded over whether or not to employ the fin­ger­nails in the pro­duc­tion of sound; Fer­nan­do Sor (1778–1839), the lea­ding Spa­nish pla­yer, dis­pen­sed with nails, whi­le his com­pa­triot, Diony­sio Agua­do (1784–1849), emplo­yed them. The left-hand thumb was some­ti­mes used to fret notes on the lowest (E) string, a tech­ni­que made pos­si­ble by the narrow fin­ger­board. The ins­tru­ment was held in a variety of ways, and was often sup­por­ted by a strap round the player’s neck; Agua­do even inven­ted a spe­cial stand – the tri­po­dion – on which to rest the instrument.

Tabla­tu­re was aban­do­ned in the second half of the 18th cen­tury, with staff nota­tion super­se­ding it, at first in ins­truc­tion books and song accom­pa­ni­ments. The ear­liest staff nota­tion for gui­tar evol­ved in Fran­ce and in Italy, the nota­tio­nal con­ven­tions for vio­lin music being evi­dent in early solo pie­ces for 6‑string – or, as it is now known, clas­si­cal – gui­tar. The con­ven­tion of nota­ting gui­tar music on one staff hea­ded by the G clef, the actual sounds being an octa­ve below writ­ten pitch, is still in use.

The first published music for six-cour­se gui­tar appea­red in Spain in 1780, the date of Obra para gui­ta­rra de seis órde­nes by Anto­nio Balles­te­ros. Further methods appea­red in 1799: Fer­nan­do Ferandiere’s Arte de tocar la gui­ta­rra espa­ño­la and Fede­ri­co Moretti’s Prin­ci­pios para tocar la gui­ta­rra de seis órde­nes. In this lat­ter work, Moret­ti (a Nea­po­li­tan in the ser­vi­ce of the Spa­nish court) pro­vi­des an insight into the dif­fe­ren­ce bet­ween the ins­tru­ments in gene­ral use in Spain and Italy at the end of the 18th century:

although I use the gui­tar of seven sin­gle strings, it see­med more appro­pria­te to accom­mo­da­te the­se Prin­ci­ples to six cour­ses, that being what is gene­rally pla­yed in Spain: this same reason obli­ged me to publish them in Ita­lian, in 1792, adap­ted for the gui­tar with five strings, becau­se at that time the one with six was not known in Italy.

Both Sor and Agua­do were indeb­ted to Moret­ti for making them awa­re of the pos­si­bi­lity of part-wri­ting for the gui­tar, and the two beca­me very acti­ve outsi­de their nati­ve Spain. Agua­do, who­se Escue­la de gui­ta­rra was published in Madrid in 1825, settled for a whi­le in Paris, but Sor pur­sued the career of a tra­ve­lling reci­ta­list, brin­ging the gui­tar to a much wider audien­ce. Befo­re lea­ving Spain, Sor had acqui­red some repu­tation as a com­po­ser; his ope­ra Tele­ma­co nell’isola di Calip­so was suc­cess­fully sta­ged in Bar­ce­lo­na in 1796. In Madrid, Sor’s patron was the Duchess of Alba. Also living in Madrid was Boc­che­ri­ni, who, ins­pi­red by the enthu­siasm of his patron, the Mar­quis of Bena­ven­te, made arran­ge­ments of seve­ral of his quin­tets to inclu­de the guitar.

Sor left Spain in 1813, a move dic­ta­ted by the poli­ti­cal cir­cums­tan­ces, and hea­ded for Paris, whe­re he sta­yed for two years. He visi­ted Lon­don, whe­re he gave seve­ral reci­tals, retur­ning to Paris for a pro­duc­tion of his ballet Cen­dri­llon. The suc­cess of this work enabled him to visit Mos­cow and St Peters­burg, whe­re he pla­yed befo­re the court. He then retur­ned to Paris and, except for a further visit to Lon­don, resi­ded the­re until his death in 1839. Paris was one of the main cen­tres of inter­est in the gui­tar, and seve­ral other vir­tuo­so per­for­mers settled the­re, inclu­ding Mat­teo Car­cas­si (1792–1853) and Fer­di­nan­do Caru­lli (1770–1841). The lat­ter was res­pon­si­ble for L’harmonie appli­quée à la gui­ta­re(1825), the only known theo­re­ti­cal work for the ins­tru­ment of the early 19th cen­tury. It is limi­ted in sco­pe, offe­ring not much more than chor­dal and arpeg­gio accom­pa­ni­ment, typi­cal of much gui­tar music of the period. Paga­ni­ni aban­do­ned the vio­lin for a whi­le in favour of the gui­tar, for which he com­po­sed seve­ral works. A French gui­tar made by Gro­bert bears the sig­na­tu­res of Paga­ni­ni and Ber­lioz. The lat­ter, a com­pe­tent gui­ta­rist, men­tio­ned the ins­tru­ment briefly in his Grand trai­té d’instrumentation et d’orchestration moder­nes op.10 (1843), com­men­ting that ‘it is almost impos­si­ble to wri­te well for the gui­tar without being a pla­yer on the instrument’.

The most impor­tant Ita­lian gui­ta­rist was Mau­ro Giu­lia­ni (1781–1829). He first achie­ved fame in Vien­na, whe­re he was esta­blished from 1806 to 1819. As well as giving solo reci­tals, Giu­lia­ni appea­red with the pia­nists Hum­mel and Mos­che­les and the vio­li­nist May­se­der. In 1819 he retur­ned to Italy, settling in Rome and later Naples, whe­re he con­ti­nued to give reci­tals. His daugh­ter Emi­lia was also a talen­ted gui­ta­rist, and they per­for­med together in public. Vien­na, like Paris, had many enthu­sias­tic gui­ta­rists, and much sim­ple music was published to cater for the demand: Leonhard von Call pro­du­ced many pie­ces of this kind, as did Dia­be­lli. Although Fran­ces­co Cha­bran was tea­ching (and com­po­sing for) the gui­tar in Lon­don during the late 18th and early 19th cen­tu­ries, it was not until 1815, with the arri­val in Lon­don of Sor (and of the Ita­lian vir­tuo­so Gui­sep­pe Ane­lli) that enthu­siasm for the ins­tru­ment beca­me wides­pread. Nume­rous tutors were published during the first third of the 19th cen­tury (fig.14), and the Giu­lia­niad(one of the ear­liest jour­nals devo­ted to the gui­tar) appea­red in 1833. Although inter­est waned in the second half of the cen­tury, the publi­ca­tions – into the 1890s – of Mme Sid­ney Prat­ten (Catha­ri­na Josepha Pel­zer), the lea­ding English per­for­mer, reveal that the­re was still a public for the gui­tar used in a faci­le way. During the final deca­de of the 19th cen­tury and the first deca­de of the 20th, ama­teur pluc­ked ins­tru­ment orches­tras enjo­yed great popu­la­rity throughout Euro­pe and the USA, with dozens of gui­tars and man­do­lins (and some­ti­mes ban­jos) being used to per­form ori­gi­nal works and trans­crip­tions of light clas­si­cal music. Bri­tain, Fran­ce, Ger­many, Italy and the USA had many hun­dreds of such orches­tras, the best of them com­pe­ting in natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal festivals.

The majo­rity of 19th-cen­tury publi­ca­tions were desig­ned to acquaint the public with what was vir­tually a new ins­tru­ment; as such many are didac­tic, and also limi­ted in sco­pe, as it soon beca­me clear that few ama­teurs were suf­fi­ciently dedi­ca­ted to mas­ter the more deman­ding works of the gui­ta­rist-com­po­sers. The popu­la­rity of the gui­tar lay in the ease with which one could mana­ge a sim­ple accom­pa­ni­ment to a song, and many of the prac­ti­cal tutors were limi­ted to expoun­ding the fun­da­men­tal skills nee­ded to achie­ve this. The sim­ple pie­ces that take the per­for­mer a sta­ge beyond this ele­men­tary level con­tain many cli­chés and, as they are the pro­ducts of gui­ta­rists, gene­rally lie easily under the fin­gers. At a higher level are the stu­dies desig­ned to pre­pa­re the per­for­mer for reci­tal works; most suc­cess­ful in this con­text are tho­se by Agua­do, Car­cas­si, Napo­léon Cos­te and Sor, all of which are still of great value to stu­dents. It is to the gui­ta­rists them­sel­ves that one must turn for the best com­po­si­tions from this period. Although com­po­sers of sta­tu­re were acquain­ted with the gui­tar, they wro­te nothing for it, and Berlioz’s cri­ti­cism of non-pla­ying com­po­sers, that they ‘give it things to play … of small effect’, is valid. The achie­ve­ments of Sor and Giu­lia­ni in esta­blishing a reper­tory of lar­ge-sca­le works is the most nota­ble fea­tu­re of this period. Their out­put ran­ges from easy pie­ces – always in demand by the publishers – to exten­ded works for the solo ins­tru­ment and diver­se com­bi­na­tions of ins­tru­ments. Giu­lia­ni com­po­sed many varia­tion sets, three con­cer­tos (opp.30, 36 and 70), a num­ber of duos for gui­tar and vio­lin or flu­te, a work for gui­tar, vio­lin and cello (op.19), and a set of three pie­ces for gui­tar with string quar­tet (op.65). Sor’s tex­tu­res are some­ti­mes more com­plex than Giuliani’s, and richer in har­mo­nic variety. In his sona­tas opp.22 and 25 Sor intro­du­ced a lar­ger num­ber of the­mes than is usual in this form, the­reby com­pen­sa­ting for the res­tric­tions in deve­lop­ment impo­sed by the limi­ta­tions of the ins­tru­ment. His most suc­cess­ful com­po­si­tion was the Varia­tions on a The­me of Mozart op.9, a vir­tuo­so show­pie­ce that neatly sum­ma­ri­zes the pos­si­bi­li­ties of early 19th-cen­tury clas­si­cal gui­tar tech­ni­que and remains the most fre­quently per­for­med pie­ce of gui­tar music of the period. Although they can­not be clas­sed as works of great sta­tu­re, the com­po­si­tions of the early 19th-cen­tury gui­ta­rists are often char­ming, ele­gant and viva­cious enough to be heard with plea­su­re (ex.3).

6. La guitarra clásica moderna

The early 19th-cen­tury gui­tar was further deve­lo­ped in the second half of the cen­tury by the Spa­nish maker Anto­nio de Torres Jura­do (1817–92), who­se expe­ri­ments led to ins­tru­ments that beca­me models for his suc­ces­sors. The gui­tar thus achie­ved a stan­dard size and form for the first time in its his­tory (see fig.5 abo­ve). Torres increa­sed the ove­rall dimen­sions of the ins­tru­ment and esta­blished the vibra­ting length of the strings at 65 cm; he deve­lo­ped the fan-strut­ting sys­tem intro­du­ced by his pre­de­ces­sors in Sevi­lle and Cádiz, using a sys­tem of seven struts radia­ting from below the soundho­le, with two further struts lying tan­gen­tially below the ‘fan’. The modern brid­ge, with the strings pas­sing over the sadd­le to be tied to a rec­tan­gu­lar block (fig.15) is also attri­bu­ta­ble to Torres, and has beco­me stan­dard sin­ce his time. It is in the strut­ting that modern makers have expe­ri­men­ted most, var­ying both the num­ber and the pat­tern of struts, and even exten­ding the sys­tem to inclu­de the part of the table abo­ve the soundho­le. Gut strings beca­me obso­le­te after the intro­duc­tion of nylon strings in 1946, with pla­yers pre­fe­rring the higher ten­sion and grea­ter dura­bi­lity offe­red by the man-made material.

For a time the impro­ve­ments brought about by Torres remai­ned con­fi­ned to Spain, whe­re a num­ber of dis­tin­guished makers suc­cee­ded him: Vicen­te Arias, Manuel Rami­rez, Enri­que Gar­cía, Mar­ce­lo Bar­be­ro and – acti­ve in the mid-20th cen­tury – José Rami­rez, Manuel Con­tre­ras, Mar­ce­lino Lopez Nie­to and others. The revi­val of inter­est in the gui­tar in the 20th cen­tury resul­ted in the appea­ran­ce of outs­tan­ding makers in other coun­tries: Her­mann Hau­ser (Ger­many), Robert Bou­chet (Fran­ce), David Rubio and Paul Fis­cher (England), and others in Japan, whe­re the ins­tru­ment has beco­me extre­mely popu­lar. Although at the end of the cen­tury most makers still built their ins­tru­ments in the tra­di­tio­nal Spa­nish man­ner per­fec­ted by Torres, lea­ding luthiers in the USA, Aus­tra­lia and Bri­tain had begun in the 1970s to rede­sign the inter­nal struc­tu­re of the clas­si­cal gui­tar. They aimed pri­ma­rily to increa­se the volu­me of sound a gui­tar can pro­du­ce, a con­si­de­ra­tion of increa­sing impor­tan­ce as many com­po­sers had begun to use the ins­tru­ment regu­larly in cham­ber and orches­tral works. For exam­ple, the ‘TAUT’ sys­tem deve­lo­ped by Paul Fis­cher used a very light rec­tan­gu­lar lat­ti­ce­work of spru­ce struts, run­ning across the grain of the table as well as along its length. This rein­for­ce­ment per­mit­ted the thick­ness of the table to be greatly redu­ced (about 1·6 mm, as oppo­sed to about 2·4 mm in a tra­di­tio­nal Spa­nish gui­tar), resul­ting in a much grea­ter fle­xi­bi­lity. To further increa­se the effec­ti­ve size of the diaph­ragm, Fis­cher also expe­ri­men­ted with moving the soundho­le to the top of the table, and split­ting it into two semi­cir­cles. The Aus­tra­lian maker Greg Small­man used a somewhat simi­lar sys­tem, although he pre­fe­rred to pla­ce his grid at an angle of 45 degrees to the grain of the table.

Fran­cis­co Tárre­ga (1852–1909), though acti­ve in pro­mo­ting the modern pla­ying tech­ni­que, did not invent the apo­yan­do stro­ke – it is a least as old as Diony­sio Agua­do. When used on a lar­ge ins­tru­ment, such as the Torres gui­tar, this tech­ni­que and the unsup­por­ted tiran­do spu­rred on the deve­lop­ment of a rich reper­tory of ori­gi­nal étu­des and trans­crip­tions for the clas­si­cal gui­tar (as it was now called). The lar­ger ins­tru­ment res­ted more com­for­tably on the left thigh than the early 19th-cen­tury gui­tar, and it beca­me stan­dard prac­ti­ce to hold it in this way. Tárre­ga did not use the fin­ger­nails in his right-hand tech­ni­que, and in this he was follo­wed by his pupil Emi­lio Vila­rru­bí Pujol (1886–1980), but Miguel Llo­bet (1878–1938), also a pupil of his, pre­fe­rred to use them. Sego­via adop­ted a more rela­xed right-hand posi­tion than that of Tárre­ga (fig.16) and a tech­ni­que emplo­ying the fin­ger­nails, in which he was follo­wed by the majo­rity of other 20th-cen­tury reci­ta­lists. It is in the right-hand posi­tion that one sees most varia­tions among modern per­for­mers. The Sego­via posi­tion entails the strings being soun­ded by the left side of the nails, whe­reas the posi­tion favou­red by the French gui­ta­rist Ida Pres­ti (1924–67), adop­ted by the Ame­ri­can reci­ta­list Ali­ce Artzt, brings the right side of the nails into con­tact with the strings.

It is thus only during the last 100 years that the gui­tar has been esta­blished in its modern form and its tech­ni­que deve­lo­ped accor­dingly. At the begin­ning of this period it lac­ked a reper­tory that would have given it a sta­tus com­pa­ra­ble with that of other ins­tru­ments. The pro­blem of a mea­gre lite­ra­tu­re was first approa­ched by trans­cri­bing works from other media, a prac­ti­ce initia­ted by Tárre­ga and con­ti­nued by his suc­ces­sors. Sui­ta­ble mate­rial was obviously to be found in the reper­to­ries for ins­tru­ments clo­sely rela­ted to the gui­tar (i.e. the lute and the vihue­la), but works for bowed ins­tru­ments, and key­board, were also fea­tu­red in reci­tals. Much more impor­tant, howe­ver, is the extent to which the guitar’s reper­tory has been enlar­ged in the 20th cen­tury by com­po­sers who were not gui­ta­rists. Sego­via, the lea­ding ins­ti­ga­tor of this depar­tu­re from the tra­di­tion of gui­ta­rist-com­po­sers, made it his life-work to rai­se the guitar’s sta­tus to that of an inter­na­tio­nally res­pec­ted con­cert ins­tru­ment, and his artistry was a sour­ce of ins­pi­ra­tion both to pla­yers and to composers.

In 1920 Falla wro­te Home­na­je ‘le tom­beau de Clau­de Debussy’ for Llo­bet, proof of his belief that the gui­tar ‘is coming back again, becau­se it is pecu­liarly adap­ted for modern music’. Other Spa­nish com­po­sers have favou­red a more natio­na­list idiom: Joa­quin Turi­na (1882–1949), Fede­ri­co Moreno Torro­ba (b 1891) and Joa­quín Rodri­go (1901–99). All pro­du­ced works for Sego­via, and Rodri­go dedi­ca­ted com­po­si­tions to other Spa­nish reci­ta­lists such as Nar­ci­so Yepes (1927–97), Manuel Lopez Ramos and the Rome­ro family; his Con­cier­to de Aran­juez (1939) was a tri­bu­te to Regino Sainz de la Maza y Ruiz (1896–1981). Many con­cer­tos were writ­ten in the 20th cen­tury, the first of them by Mario Cas­tel­nuo­vo-Tedes­co (1895–1968) in 1939. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s pro­li­fic out­put for gui­tar inclu­des a quin­tet (op.143, 1950) and Pla­te­ro y yo (op.190, 1960) for gui­tar and narra­tor; and his works are dedi­ca­ted to many gui­ta­rists: the Ger­man Sieg­fried Beh­rend (1933–90), the Ame­ri­can Chris­topher Par­ke­ning (b 1947), the Ita­lian Oscar Ghi­glia (b1938), the Vene­zue­lan Ali­rio Diaz (b 1923), the Japa­ne­se Jiro Matsu­da and others. He also com­po­sed seve­ral works for gui­tar duo, inclu­ding the Con­cer­to for two gui­tars and orches­tra (op.201, 1962). The com­bi­na­tion of two gui­tars allows more com­plex wri­ting than is pos­si­ble for the solo ins­tru­ment (ex.4). The duo gen­re was firmly esta­blished in the 20th cen­tury by Ida Pres­ti and Ale­xan­dre Lago­ya, and further con­so­li­da­ted by the Bra­zi­lian brothers Ser­gio and Eduar­do Abreu, the Athe­nian Gui­tar Duo (Liza Zoi and Evan­ge­los Assi­ma­ko­pou­los), and the French-Japa­ne­se com­bi­na­tion of Hen­ri Dorigny and Ako Ito. At the end of the cen­tury gui­tar duos and trios were com­monly encoun­te­red forms of music-making, as were gui­tar quar­tets (com­po­sed either for four stan­dard gui­tars, or for requin­to, two gui­tars and bass gui­tar), a form pio­nee­red by Gil­bert Bibe­rian (b1944).

Segovia’s influen­ce spread to Cen­tral and South Ame­ri­ca, whe­re the Mexi­can com­po­ser Manuel Pon­ce (1882–1948) com­po­sed sona­tas, varia­tion sets and the Con­cier­to del sur (1941). Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) also wro­te a con­cer­to, but he is bet­ter known for his Dou­ze étu­des (1929) and Cinq pré­lu­des (1940). The Etu­des evi­den­ce some pro­gress from 19th-cen­tury ste­reoty­pes, but for­mu­lae are still pre­sent, as they are in the pre­lu­des. A more light­weight work is his Chô­ro no.1 (1920), with its evo­ca­tions of folk music. The gui­tar fea­tu­res pro­mi­nently in South Ame­ri­can folk music, which per­mea­tes some of the com­po­si­tions of Anto­nio Lau­ro (1917–86) of Vene­zue­la and Agus­tín Barrios (1885–1944) of Para­guay. The South Ame­ri­can reper­tory was aug­men­ted by the Bra­zi­lian Fran­cis­co Mig­no­ne (1897–1986), the Cuban Leo Brou­wer (b 1939) and Gui­do San­tór­so­la (1904–94) from Uru­guay. Brouwer’s music has been par­ti­cu­larly influen­tial, espe­cially La espi­ral eter­na (1970) and Elo­gio de la dan­za (1972), both for solo gui­tar, and his four con­cer­tos, although the Sona­ta op.47 (1976) by the Argen­ti­ne com­po­ser Alber­to Ginas­te­ra (1913–83) is widely con­si­de­red the sin­gle most subs­tan­tial work by a Latin Ame­ri­can com­po­ser. Sig­ni­fi­cant South Ame­ri­can per­for­mers have inclu­ded Car­los Bar­bo­sa-Lima and Turi­bio San­tos (Bra­zil) and Oscar Cace­res (Uru­guay). The almost-for­got­ten tra­di­tion of the com­po­ser-gui­ta­rist was revi­ved towards the end of the 20th cen­tury: nota­ble figu­res have inclu­ded Brou­wer, the Rus­sian Niki­ta Kosh­kin (b 1956), the Czech Ště­pán Rak (b 1945) and the Ame­ri­can Stephen Funk Pear­son (b 1950).

Although the initial impe­tus came from Spain, the growth of modern gui­tar music was main­tai­ned elsewhe­re in Euro­pe, with works by Frank Mar­tin, Kre­nek, Ale­xan­dre Tans­man, Mali­pie­ro, Petras­si, Milhaud, Daniel-Lesur and Pou­lenc. Des­pi­te its limi­ted volu­me, the gui­tar pla­yed a small but sig­ni­fi­cant role in many 20th-cen­tury ope­ras and sympho­nies, as well as in cham­ber works such as Schoenberg’s Sere­na­de op.24 (1920–23), Boulez’s Le mar­teau sans maî­tre (1952–4, rev. 1957), Gerhard’s Con­cert for Eight (1962) and Libra (1968), and Henze’s Cari­llon, Réci­ta­tif, Mas­que (1974). Hen­ze has made fre­quent use of the gui­tar and has writ­ten seve­ral impor­tant solo works, inclu­ding Drei Ten­tos (from Kam­mer­mu­sik, 1958) and two sona­tas (based on Sha­kes­pea­rean cha­rac­ters) entitled Royal Win­ter Music (1975–7). In England, whe­re the lea­ding per­for­mers at the end of the 20th cen­tury were Julian Bream (b 1933) and John Williams (b 1941), the gui­tar did not beco­me esta­blished in music colle­ges until 1961. Nonethe­less English com­po­sers, or com­po­sers resi­dent in England, made a sig­ni­fi­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the reper­tory. Con­cer­tos appea­red by Mal­colm Arnold, Stephen Dodg­son, Richard Rod­ney Ben­nett and André Pre­vin, and the solo lite­ra­tu­re was enri­ched by works from Brit­ten (Noc­tur­nal after John Dow­land, 1963), Ber­ke­ley (Sona­ti­na op.52/1, 1957, The­me and Varia­tions op.77, 1970), Dodg­son (Par­ti­ta, 1963, Fan­tasy-Divi­sions, 1973), Tip­pett (The Blue Gui­tar, 1985), Wal­ton (Five Baga­te­lles, 1970–71) and others. The gui­tar was also used effec­ti­vely as an accom­pa­ni­ment to the voi­ce; set­tings inclu­de Songs from the Chi­ne­se (Brit­ten, 1957), Can­ta­res (Gerhard, 1956), Five Love Songs (Mus­gra­ve, 1955) and Anon. in Love (Wal­ton, 1959). John W. Duar­te (b 1919) was a sig­ni­fi­cant influen­ce in the deve­lop­ment of the gui­tar reper­tory, notably for his trans­crip­tions of the Bach cello sui­tes but also for some attrac­ti­ve ori­gi­nal com­po­si­tions (such as his English Sui­te op.31 (1967), writ­ten for Segovia).

The 20th-cen­tury reper­tory exhi­bits a wide variety of tex­tu­res and sty­les, ran­ging from the pre­do­mi­nantly tonal, roman­tic works ins­pi­red by Sego­via to avant-gar­de com­po­si­tions. Influen­ces from folk music, fla­men­co and jazz can be found; and expe­ri­men­ters have intro­du­ced unex­pec­ted sono­ri­ties and exten­ded the instrument’s per­cus­si­ve and idiopho­nic resour­ces. In Petrassi’s Suo­ni not­tur­ni (1959), for exam­ple, the per­for­mer is ins­truc­ted to sound notes by pulling the strings so that they slap against the frets; elsewhe­re sounds pro­du­ced by tap­ping on the table are alter­na­ted with nor­mally pla­yed sounds. Koshkin’s half-hour epic The Prince’s Toys was com­po­sed to inclu­de as many unu­sual effects as pos­si­ble, and pro­du­ces a remar­ka­ble ran­ge of sounds. Ato­nal wri­ting and serial tech­ni­ques were given expres­sion on the gui­tar – evi­den­ce of its via­bi­lity in con­tem­po­rary music. One of the most inter­es­ting aspects of the his­tory of the gui­tar in the 20th cen­tury is the extent to which its lite­ra­tu­re was vita­li­zed in the transition from music com­po­sed by gui­ta­rists (or writ­ten to the res­tric­tions of a gui­ta­rist) to com­po­si­tions not deter­mi­ned by a con­ven­tio­nal con­cep­tion of the instrument’s pos­si­bi­li­ties (ex.5). This has led to the appea­ran­ce of works of con­si­de­ra­ble sta­tu­re and the growth of an artis­tic com­po­si­tio­nal tra­di­tion such as elu­ded the gui­tar until the 20th century.

7. Variantes de la guitarra clásica

Ins­tru­ments depar­ting from the basic form of the gui­tar first appear in 1690, when Ale­xan­dre Voboam cons­truc­ted a dou­ble gui­tar, which had a small gui­tar atta­ched to the tre­ble side of a nor­mal ins­tru­ment. Howe­ver, the 19th cen­tury was a more pro­duc­ti­ve period in this res­pect. A dou­ble-nec­ked gui­tar – Dop­pel­gi­ta­rre – was made by Stauf­fer in 1807; and in the 1830s Jean-Fra­nçois Solo­mon cons­truc­ted a gui­tar with three necks – the ‘Har­po-lyre’ – which, like a num­ber of 19th-cen­tury variant gui­tars, was desig­ned to impro­ve what was felt to be an unsa­tis­fac­tory ins­tru­ment. About 1800 the Lyre gui­tar enjo­yed a brief vogue. Methods and music were published for this ins­tru­ment, which had two cur­ved arms (reca­lling the Ancient Greek lyre) in pla­ce of the upper bout. In another group of ins­tru­ments the num­ber of strings was increa­sed, some­ti­mes in the bass, some­ti­mes in the tre­ble, and one ins­tru­ment – the ‘gui­tar­pa’ – had both extra bass and extra tre­ble strings. The 19th cen­tury saw the intro­duc­tion of gui­tars that varied in size and hen­ce in pitch. The­se were the quin­te-bas­se, quar­te, terz and octa­vi­ne gui­tars; only the terz gui­tar, tuned G–c–f–b–d’–g’, has a lite­ra­tu­re. In the 1960s Nar­ci­so Yepes intro­du­ced a ten-string gui­tar, the added strings lying in the bass, with the tuning G–A–B–c–E–A–d–g–b–e’. This tuning per­mits sym­pathe­tic bass-string reso­nan­ces for every note in the upper ran­ge of his gui­tar, accor­ding to Yepes. A new ‘harp gui­tar’ (dif­fe­ring from the early 19th-cen­tury ins­tru­ment com­bi­ning a short, thick gui­tar neck with a vaul­ted-back sound­box and pri­ma­rily tria­dic strin­ging; see Harp-lute (ii)) gai­ned some popu­la­rity around 1900. Such ins­tru­ments, which had an extra body ‘arm’ exten­sion with addi­tio­nal sym­pathe­tic bass strings, were made espe­cially in the USA, by makers such as Gib­son, Lar­son Brothers and Knutsen.

Of 20th-cen­tury variants, the fla­men­co gui­tar is clo­sest to the clas­si­cal ins­tru­ment. As the tra­di­tio­nal posture of the fla­men­co gui­ta­rist neces­si­ta­tes hol­ding the ins­tru­ment almost ver­ti­cally, it is desira­ble to res­trict weight; hen­ce Spa­nish cypress, a ligh­ter wood than rose­wood, is used for the back and sides, and gra­dually from the 1970s machi­ne heads were used ins­tead of woo­den pegs. The string action is often lower than that of the clas­si­cal gui­tar, allo­wing the strings to buzz against the frets. A pla­te is posi­tio­ned on the table to pro­tect the wood from the tap­ping of the right-hand fin­gers. Although the ori­gi­nal fun­ction of the fla­men­co gui­tar was to pro­vi­de an accom­pa­ni­ment to sin­ging and dan­cing (see Fla­men­co), it has been increa­singly fea­tu­red as a solo instrument.

In the 20th cen­tury many chan­ges were made to the basic design of the clas­si­cal gui­tar, mostly for the pur­po­se of pro­du­cing grea­ter volu­me and pene­tra­tion. The­se chan­ges resul­ted in seve­ral dis­tinct types of gui­tar, each ori­gi­nally desig­ned to meet the spe­ci­fic musi­cal requi­re­ments of gui­ta­rists pla­ying in popu­lar music forms, prin­ci­pally folk, jazz, blues, dan­ce music and rock and roll.

Some gui­ta­rists, espe­cially Ame­ri­can country and wes­tern pla­yers and croo­ners, began early in the 20th cen­tury to demand more volu­me from the flat-top acous­tic gui­tar of tra­di­tio­nal sha­pe. The com­pany that initially did most to accom­mo­da­te them was c.f. Mar­tin of Naza­reth, Pennsyl­va­nia, which began during the 1920s to pro­du­ce steel-strung gui­tars, alte­red struc­tu­rally to bear the ten­sion of hea­vier strings, and in some cases lar­ger than the stan­dard ins­tru­ment. Other Ame­ri­can com­pa­nies acti­ve in popu­la­ri­zing the use of steel strings for gui­tars inclu­ded Lar­son Brothers (from the 1880s) and Gib­son (from the 1890s). Mar­tin is pro­bably best known for the inven­tion of the ‘Dread­nought’ flat-top acous­tic gui­tar, appa­rently named after the Bri­tish battleship of the period. It was based on ins­tru­ments made by Mar­tin for the Ditson com­pany of Bos­ton around 1915, though it was not mar­ke­ted by Mar­tin itself until 1931, when what would beco­me the D‑18 and D‑28 models were intro­du­ced. The Dread­nought was lar­ger than a nor­mal gui­tar and had a much broa­der waist and rather narro­wer, squa­rer shoul­ders. Its resul­ting ‘bas­sier’ tone ideally sui­ted folk, country and wes­tern, blues and other popu­lar music forms whe­re the guitar’s role was to accom­pany the voi­ce. The design of the Dread­nought has been widely imi­ta­ted by many gui­tar makers sin­ce its intro­duc­tion, most notably by com­pa­nies such as Gib­son (from 1934, begin­ning with the ‘Jum­bo’ model) and Guild (from the 1950s) in the USA and, later in the cen­tury, by Japa­ne­se gui­tar makers.

The lar­ge Dread­nought or Jum­bo is not, howe­ver, the only type of steel-strung flat-top acous­tic gui­tar; steel-strung ver­sions of the clas­si­cal gui­tar of tra­di­tio­nal size and sha­pe, with some inter­nal strengthe­ning, abound. Mar­tin was, again, an inno­va­tor in this area of so-called ‘folk’ steel-strung acous­tics, and many gui­tar makers in the USA, Euro­pe and East Asia follo­wed them and pro­du­ced simi­lar instruments.

Flat-top, steel-strung acous­tic gui­tars requi­re a stron­ger and more com­plex net­work of inter­nal bra­cing than does either the clas­si­cal or the arched-top gui­tar. The various sty­les of bra­cing that have deve­lo­ped are often refe­rred to by des­crip­ti­ve terms, such as ‘X’-bracing and ‘fan’-bracing. The woods used to cons­truct flat-top gui­tars vary depen­ding on the degree of exce­llen­ce requi­red: the top is usually made of spru­ce (occa­sio­nally of cedar); rose­wood, maho­gany or maple is used for the back, sides and neck; and rose­wood or ebony for the fin­ger­board. Chea­per flat-tops use lami­na­ted rather than solid woods. In 1966 the Ova­tion com­pany in the USA began to pro­du­ce gui­tars with a roun­ded back made of a synthe­tic mate­rial resem­bling fibre­glass, in com­bi­na­tion with a woo­den top, neck and fin­ger­board; the aim, once again, was to impro­ve the pro­jec­tio­nal qua­li­ties of an other­wi­se stan­dard acous­tic instrument.

Most flat-top gui­tars have a fixed brid­ge, like the clas­si­cal gui­tar, to which the lower ends of the strings are secu­red by pins. The most popu­lar flat-tops are tho­se with six strings, tuned to the stan­dard E–A–d–g–b’–e’ gui­tar pit­ches. But a variant, the 12-string flat-top, is also made; it was ori­gi­nally used in blues and folk-based music, and has strings tuned in six cour­ses, some in uni­son and others an octa­ve apart.

Flat-top, steel-strung acous­tic gui­tars have been widely used in all kinds of popu­lar music sin­ce the 1920s, most notably country, blue­grass, folk and sin­ger-songw­ri­ter sty­les, and blues, less so in jazz. In rock, such gui­tars still find a pla­ce in the recor­ding stu­dio as a lar­gely per­cus­si­ve ele­ment, as a songwriter’s tool, and ons­ta­ge as a visual and musi­cal prop for some voca­lists. Pla­ying sty­les and tech­ni­ques asso­cia­ted with the ins­tru­ment vary widely, depen­ding on musi­cal idiom. Most often, par­ti­cu­larly in folk music and other sty­les whe­re a chor­dal accom­pa­ni­ment is requi­red, a plec­trum is used to stri­ke the strings. In ensem­bles the ins­tru­ment is occa­sio­nally used to play melody lines, melo­dic sup­port, or jazz-like solos, though in the late 20th-cen­tury this role was more usually taken by elec­tric ins­tru­ments. Some­ti­mes the fin­ger­nails, or fal­se nails, are used to play fin­ger-sty­le (or fin­ger-pic­king) pat­terns, a sty­le also used on the nylon-strung clas­si­cal guitar.

Some pla­yers adapt the stan­dard six-string tunings to suit their own sty­les and musi­cal requi­re­ments, and a num­ber of pat­terns have evol­ved, mainly from blues and folk music. The most com­mon adap­ta­tions are ‘open’ tunings, so named becau­se the open strings are tuned to form a sin­gle chord (e.g. D–G–d–g–b–d’; D–A–d–f–a–d’), which can be pla­yed at any pitch by stop­ping all the strings across the rele­vant fret. The­se open tunings pro­bably deve­lo­ped in Hawaiian-sty­le (‘slack key’) pla­ying and country music, in which a sli­de, a bottle­neck worn on one of the fin­gers of the left hand, or other sui­ta­ble solid object, is pres­sed down on the strings, stop­ping them all at the same point; the strings are not sepa­ra­tely fin­ge­red, the sli­de or bottle­neck being moved up and down so that para­llel chords and sin­gle-note runs can be pro­du­ced. More con­ven­tio­nal pla­yers stop the strings in the same way but with the fin­ger, using the ‘barré’ tech­ni­que. The other com­mon type of adap­ted tuning is the ‘drop­ped’, tuning, in which the pitch of one or more strings is lowe­red to allow non-stan­dard fingerings.

The arched-top (‘car­ved-top’, or, occa­sio­nally, ‘cello-bodied’) gui­tar was deve­lo­ped in the USA. Expe­ri­ments by Orvi­lle H. Gib­son in the 1890s pro­du­ced a small num­ber of avant-gar­de car­ved-top gui­tars and man­do­lins, but it was not until the 1920s that the arched-top gui­tar was com­mer­cially deve­lo­ped, as a result of the rela­ti­vely high volu­me at which dan­ce bands were pla­ying. Ordi­nary acous­tic gui­tars could not pro­du­ce the sound levels nee­ded; the arched-top gui­tar satis­fied this requi­re­ment and beca­me increa­singly popu­lar in the jazz sty­les which emer­ged in the 1930s.

Among the ear­liest such ins­tru­ments was the Gib­son L‑5 (desig­ned by Lloyd Loar), which was first issued in 1922, and which defi­ned the arched-top gui­tar. Its cons­truc­tion owed more to vio­lin making than tra­di­tio­nal methods of gui­tar buil­ding and was influen­ced by Orvi­lle H. Gibson’s man­do­lins and gui­tars of the 1890s. The quest for increa­sed volu­me was at the root of all the alte­ra­tions to con­ven­tio­nal design intro­du­ced in the L‑5: it had steel strings ins­tead of gut, the extra ten­sion and weight of which neces­si­ta­ted struc­tu­ral strengthe­ning of the body; the top was strong and thick and car­ved into a cha­rac­te­ris­tic arched sha­pe; in pla­ce of a sin­gle soundho­le the­re were two f‑holes, for grea­ter pro­jec­tion of the sound and enhan­ce­ment of the sym­pathe­tic vibra­tions of the top; the brid­ge was not fixed but ‘floa­ting’ (or adjus­ta­ble) and the strings pas­sed over it and were secu­red to a sepa­ra­te metal tail­pie­ce atta­ched to the end of the body.

The first ver­sion of the Gib­son L‑5 had an ebony fin­ger­board on a maple neck, a birch or maple back, a car­ved spru­ce top and spru­ce sides. It was not only the ear­liest arched-top to fea­tu­re f‑holes, but it was also one of the first gui­tars to be fit­ted with a ‘truss rod’, an adjus­ta­ble inter­nal metal rod that coun­te­racts war­ping and minor move­ments of the neck. The most famous early user of the L‑5 was Eddie Lang. From 1939 the L‑5 and simi­lar models were often cons­truc­ted with a body cuta­way, desig­ned to give the pla­yer easier access to the upper frets.

The L‑5 heral­ded the arri­val on the mar­ket of many other arched-top acous­tic gui­tars. The makers of the­se have been prin­ci­pally Ame­ri­can, and inclu­de the Guild com­pany, which was foun­ded in New York in 1952 by Alfred Dron­ge and Geor­ge Mann, moved to New Jer­sey in 1956 and was later pur­cha­sed by Avnet Inc.; D’Angelico, set up by John D’Angelico, who had trai­ned as a vio­lin maker, in New York in 1932, and carried on by his pro­té­gé Jimmy D’Aquisto after D’Angelico’s death in 1964; Epipho­ne, esta­blished in New York by Anas­ta­sios Statho­pou­lo in the early 1900s, and pur­cha­sed by Gib­son in 1957 after Stathopoulo’s death; and Strom­berg, set up in Bos­ton by Char­les A. Strom­berg in the 1880s and carried on by his son Elmer from the 1930s.

The arched-top acous­tic gui­tar ful­fi­lled a spe­ci­fic role in the hey­day of the Ame­ri­can jazz and dan­ce band; although it was desig­ned for plec­trum pla­ying and pro­du­ced the grea­test pos­si­ble volu­me when a plec­trum was used, some gui­ta­rists pla­yed it with the right-hand fin­gers. The popu­la­rity of the arched-top acous­tic waned with the wides­pread use of the Elec­tric gui­tar, which easily out­clas­sed it in terms of res­pon­se and increa­sed volu­me. Tho­se arched-top gui­tars that sur­vi­ve, do so pri­ma­rily as collec­tors’ items, although spe­cia­list makers such as Bob Bene­det­to and John Mon­te­le­one emer­ged in the USA at the end of the 20th century.

Other attem­pts were made in the 1930s to increa­se the volu­me pro­jec­ted by the acous­tic gui­tar. Early in the deca­de Mario Mac­ca­fe­rri (1900–1993) desig­ned for the French com­pany Sel­mer a series of gui­tars that had dis­tin­cti­ve D‑shaped soundho­les (later oval) and a uni­que extra sound cham­ber insi­de the body (later remo­ved); the resul­ting clear, pier­cing tone qua­lity beca­me the hall­mark of Djan­go Reinhardt’s pla­ying at that period. A simi­lar idea was exploi­ted from 1927 in the ‘amplipho­nic’ or ‘resopho­nic’ gui­tar (com­monly known by one of its tra­de names, Dobro), which had one or more metal reso­na­tor discs moun­ted insi­de the body under the brid­ge (fig.17). The Dobro was often pla­yed across the lap and with a sli­de, like the Hawaiian gui­tar, and both types were used at an early sta­ge in expe­ri­ments with ampli­fi­ca­tion, which led to the deve­lop­ment of the elec­tric gui­tar (see also Reso­na­tor gui­tar).

8. Variaciones regionales

(i) Rusia: la guitarra de siete cuerdas

In the late 18th cen­tury, schools asso­cia­ted with the seven-string gui­tar tuned D–G–B–d–g–b–d’ deve­lo­ped in Rus­sia. Early tutors for the ins­tru­ment were published the­re by Ignatz von Held (Metho­de facil pour appren­dre à pin­cer la gui­ta­re à sept cor­des sans maî­tre, 1798) and Dmitry Kushe­nov-Dmi­tri­yevsky (Nova­ya i pol­na­ya gitar­na­ya shko­la, 1808). Music for the seven-string gui­tar was deve­lo­ped to a high degree of tech­ni­cal com­ple­xity by Andrey Sychra (1773–1850), who taught in St Peters­burg from 1813; of his stu­dents, Sem­yon Aks­yo­nov (1784–1853), Vla­di­mir Mor­kov (1801–64), Niko­laj Alek­san­drov (1818–84) and Vasily Saren­ko (1814–81) wro­te first-rate gui­tar music. In Mos­cow, gui­tar pla­ying acti­vity was cen­tred on the pla­yer-impro­vi­ser Mikhail Vïsotsky (1793–1837), who empha­si­zed left-hand effects (lega­to up to seven notes, por­ta­men­to, vibra­to). The vir­tuo­so Fyo­dor Zim­mer­mann (1813–82) was also a com­po­ser and impro­vi­ser. Des­pi­te their popu­la­rity in Rus­sia, none of the­se gui­ta­rists gai­ned inter­na­tio­nal acclaim. Two gui­ta­rists, Niko­lay Maka­rov (1810–90) and the Polish-born M.K. Soko­lows­ki (1818–83) did beco­me known; both, howe­ver, pla­yed two-nec­ked ‘Spa­nish’ gui­tars with extra bass strings.

In the early 19th cen­tury, music for the seven-string gui­tar con­sis­ted mostly of varia­tion sets on Rus­sian folk­songs and ope­ra­tic arias, ori­gi­nal dan­ce pie­ces, trans­crip­tions and pot­pou­rris; by mid-cen­tury ‘cos­mo­po­li­tan’ forms such as pre­lu­des, étu­des, noc­tur­nes and balla­des were favou­red. A few lar­ge-sca­le inde­pen­dent works also sur­vi­ve, for exam­ple Sychra’s Diver­tis­se­ment sur des aires rus­ses (1813) and Prac­ti­cal Rules in Four Exer­ci­ses(1817), and the Sona­ta by Vïsotsky’s pupil Alek­sandr Vetrov. Although the gui­tar decli­ned in popu­la­rity in Rus­sia in the second half of the cen­tury, it expe­rien­ced a revi­val around 1900 in asso­cia­tion with the wri­tings of Vale­rian Rusa­nov (1866–1918) and the maga­zi­nes Gita­rist, Akkord and Muzï­ka Gita­ris­ta. Throughout the 20th cen­tury six- and seven-string gui­tars co-exis­ted in con­ser­va­to­ries and music schools.

(ii) Iberia, Latin America and the Pacific.

The small gui­tars of Renais­san­ce Euro­pe were the pro­toty­pes of ins­tru­ments that have per­sis­ted in Spain and Por­tu­gal, and which were carried through tra­de con­tacts to Cen­tral and South Ame­ri­ca and East Asia. The growth in size of the clas­si­cal ins­tru­ment also finds its coun­ter­part in the ran­ge in size of folk ins­tru­ments. Spain has the bajo de uña, a very lar­ge, short-nec­ked gui­tar with eight strings, but the gui­ta­rra tuned E–A–d–g–b–e’ is the stan­dard ins­tru­ment. The gui­ta­rra tenor has the tuning G–c–f–b–d’–g’; the gui­ta­rra requin­to is tuned B–e–a–d’–f–b’; and the sma­llest is the gui­ta­ri­llo with five strings tuned a’–d»–g’–c»–e» (the term gui­ta­rro also refers to a small ins­tru­ment, with four or 12 strings, pla­yed by strum­ming). Por­tu­gal has the nor­mal gui­tar, which is called vio­lão; the Por­tu­gue­se gui­ta­rra is simi­lar to the Spa­nish Ban­du­rria, and, in spi­te of its name, it does not have the wais­ted outli­ne of the gui­tar; the Por­tu­gue­se mache­te (cava­co, dimi­nu­ti­ve cava­quinho), has either six or, more com­monly, four strings; and the rajão, which some­ti­mes has the body in the form of a fish, has five strings (fig.18).

The gui­ta­ri­llo is also known as the tiple (tre­ble), and in the Canary Islands, whe­re the name has been trans­for­med to tim­ple, it has a vaul­ted back and either four or five strings; the­se may be tuned to the upper inter­vals of the stan­dard gui­tar tuning, but more tra­di­tio­nal tunings are c»–f’–a’–d» and f’–c»–e’–a’–d», which can be rai­sed a tone for an E tuning. The name tiple is also applied to a small ban­du­rria in Cuba, which has five pairs of strings. Cuba also has the small gui­tar tres, with three pairs of metal strings. The term gui­ta­rri­lla is found in Boli­via, Gua­te­ma­la and Peru. In the two last it deno­tes a small four-string ins­tru­ment, used to accom­pany song and dan­ce. In Boli­via, whe­re it is the only known string ins­tru­ment of the Chi­pa­ya peo­ple of the Depart­ment of Oru­ro, it has five dou­ble cour­ses (tuned d’–a’–f’–c’–g’) and six frets; it has a gui­tar-like body with ribs, a flat front and a slightly cur­ved back. Gui­ta­rri­llas are pla­yed in pairs for textless way­ñus de cor­de­ro (songs in prai­se of sheep) or tor­na­das del gana­do (songs for cattle) at the k’illpa (ani­mal bran­ding) fes­ti­val. The Chi­pa­ya of the villa­ge of Aypa­ra­vi have three dif­fe­rent sizes of gui­ta­rri­lla: paj, tai­pi and qol­ta, all with gut strings. The two lar­gest are tuned as abo­ve, the sma­llest a 4th higher (see Bau­mann B1981 and B1982).

The jara­na (dimi­nu­ti­ve jara­ni­ta) is a small Mexi­can gui­tar used in ins­tru­men­tal ensem­bles and to accom­pany dan­ces; it is the equi­va­lent of the cha­ran­go, which is widely dis­tri­bu­ted in South Ame­ri­ca (north-west Argen­ti­na, Boli­via, Peru and Chi­le). The cha­ran­go has five sin­gle or five pai­red strings, tuned g’(g’)–c»(c»)–e»(e’)–a’(a’)–e»(e»); the body con­sists of an arma­di­llo shell that has been dried in a mould to pro­du­ce the wais­ted gui­tar sha­pe. The name vio­lão has been retai­ned in Bra­zil for the clas­si­cal gui­tar; the Bra­zi­lian folk gui­tar is called vio­la and has a variety of tunings accor­ding to pla­ce and fun­ction; most exam­ples have five dou­ble cour­ses (occa­sio­nally four or six). In Mexi­co the term gui­ta­rra de gol­pe is used as an alter­na­ti­ve to vihue­la for a small five-cour­se gui­tar used in folk ensem­bles. The modern Mexi­can gui­ta­rrón is a lar­ge six-string bass gui­tar (fig.19), tuned A’–D–G–c–e–a (19th-cen­tury ver­sions usually had four or five strings), whi­le the Chi­lean type has up to 25 strings arran­ged in cour­ses. Puer­to Rico also has a five-cour­se ins­tru­ment, with four dou­ble cour­ses and the fifth either sin­gle or dou­ble. It is pla­yed with a plec­trum. The Puer­to Rican ins­tru­ment is known as a cua­tro, a name more logi­cally iden­ti­fied with the small Vene­zue­lan gui­tar with four strings; the five-string gui­tar is called quin­to in Vene­zue­la. In the hands of a vir­tuo­so per­for­mer, the Vene­zue­lan cua­tro, in spi­te of its see­ming limi­ta­tions, is capa­ble of more com­plex tex­tu­res than tho­se it is obli­ged to pro­vi­de in its folk set­ting, and two cua­tros can accom­mo­da­te trans­crip­tions of art music. The mache­te was intro­du­ced by Por­tu­gue­se sai­lors to the Hawaiian islands, whe­re it was deve­lo­ped into the uku­le­le with its re-entrant tuning g’–c’–e’–a’ (for illus­tra­tions see Uku­le­le). Also of Por­tu­gue­se ori­gin is the small, narrow kron­cong of West Java, which has five strings. The Mon­te­se of Min­da­nao in the Phi­lip­pi­ne Islands have a three-string gui­tar called tia­pe. (For dis­cus­sion of the use of the gui­tar in Indo­ne­sia, see Indo­ne­sia, §I, 3(iv).)

In the last few deca­des of the 20th cen­tury the tre­men­do­us increa­se in glo­bal tra­vel blu­rred the tra­di­tio­nal regio­nal dis­tin­ctions among the many hun­dreds of dif­fe­rent gui­tar-like ins­tru­ments. Once-obs­cu­re South Ame­ri­can variants were encoun­te­red on street cor­ners in Euro­pean cities, whi­le Japa­ne­se-made clas­si­cal gui­tars could be found taking part in music-making in remo­te Andean villages.

(iii) Africa.

In the 20th cen­tury the fac­tory-made Wes­tern gui­tar, first acous­tic, then elec­tric, rose to pro­mi­nen­ce throughout sub-Saha­ran Afri­ca. It assu­med a cen­tral posi­tion not only in urban cul­tu­res but also in some rural areas, whe­re seve­ral home-made models were locally deve­lo­ped. It repla­ced many long-esta­blished ins­tru­ments pre­viously used for per­so­nal music, such as lame­llopho­nes and a variety of string ins­tru­ments, absor­bing some of their pla­ying tech­ni­ques, melo­dic and har­mo­nic pat­terns and musi­cal con­cepts. Seve­ral dis­tin­cti­ve sty­les and inno­va­ti­ve musi­cal forms were deve­lo­ped by now legen­dary com­po­ser-per­for­mers such as ‘Sam’ Kwa­me Asa­re (Gha­na), Ebe­ne­zer Calen­der (Sie­rra Leo­ne), Antoi­ne Kolo­soy Wen­do, Mwen­da Jean Bos­co, Los­ta Abe­lo, Edouard Masen­go (Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic of the Con­go), Liceu Viei­ra Dias (Ango­la), Faus­tino Oke­llo (Ugan­da) and Daniel Kacham­ba (Mala­wi).

From the early 19th cen­tury onwards, sai­lors from Por­tu­gal and other nations are likely to have pla­yed gui­tars or gui­tar-like ins­tru­ments on ships that called at Afri­can ports. Not sur­pri­singly, the­re­fo­re, the first Afri­cans to adopt this ins­tru­ment were crew men – Kru sai­lors from Libe­ria. During the second half of the 19th cen­tury they seem to have intro­du­ced the gui­tar to ports along the Gui­nea coast, and at the begin­ning of the 1920s also to the port of Mata­di, in the Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic of the Con­go (accor­ding to oral tes­ti­mony by Wen­do). But only with the rise of a gra­mopho­ne industry in the late 1920s and of radio broad­cas­ting from Afri­can capi­tals during the 1930s and 40s did gui­tar music gain popu­la­rity. At first, local gui­tar music was impreg­na­ted with Euro­pean, Carib­bean and North and Latin Ame­ri­can sty­les. In the 1930s and 40s major sour­ces of ins­pi­ra­tion were caly­pso (along the west coast), country music by Jim­mie Rod­gers and others (for exam­ple in some parts of Ken­ya), and Hawaiian-sty­le gui­tar music (in Zim­bab­we and neigh­bou­ring areas); the­se were soon follo­wed by Cuban orches­tral forms and Latin Ame­ri­can dan­ce music (Cen­tral Afri­ca). Each period of imi­ta­tion soon gave way to crea­ti­ve rein­ter­pre­ta­tion, lea­ding to the rise of cha­rac­te­ris­tic Afri­can gui­tar sty­les based on local musi­cal concepts.

Begin­ning in the late 1920s record com­pa­nies reali­zed the poten­tial mar­ket for this new music: the legen­dary Gha­naian gui­ta­rist ‘Sam’ Kwa­me Asa­re recor­ded with his Kuma­si Trio in Lon­don in June 1928. After World War II record com­pa­nies devo­ted pri­ma­rily to the new gui­tar-based dan­ce music were for­med in Kinsha­sa, Braz­za­vi­lle and West Afri­can cities, and the newly esta­blished radio sta­tions spread gui­tar music to remo­te villa­ges. One of the first musi­co­lo­gists to record the new tra­di­tions was Hugh Tra­cey, who docu­men­ted many exam­ples of the Katan­ga gui­tar sty­le of the 1950s. In February 1952 he dis­co­ve­red Mwen­da Jean Bos­co (1930–97) in the streets of Jadot­vi­lle (Lika­si) in what was then the Bel­gian Con­go, and laun­ched him on a full-time career. Bosco’s time­less com­po­si­tions, Masan­ga, Bom­ba­la­ka etc., sti­mu­la­ted David Rycroft (1958–61, 1962–5) to carry out the first scho­larly study of an Afri­can gui­tar style.

Most gui­tars used in Afri­ca during the first half of the 20th cen­tury came from Euro­pe or South Afri­ca. The most popu­lar ins­tru­ments, such as tho­se pro­du­ced by Gallo­to­ne of Johan­nes­burg, had a narrow fin­ger­board, sin­ce Afri­can gui­ta­rists used the thumb to stop the lowest string. Fin­ger-sty­le gui­ta­rists of the period used a pen­cil, a pie­ce of wood, or a nail, etc. as a capo tas­to to rai­se the ove­rall pitch level to match the singer’s (Afri­can Gui­tar, B1995). Many dif­fe­rent tunings were used; often the top five strings were given a stan­dard tuning whi­le the sixth was rai­sed by a semi­to­ne to F. The strings were soun­ded almost exclu­si­vely by the thumb and index fin­ger of the right hand. Spe­cial tech­ni­ques such as the ‘pull-off’ and the ‘ham­mer-on’ were used in the left hand (Low, B1982, pp.23, 58, 115 and Afri­can Gui­tar, B1995). In sli­de gui­tar pla­ying, called hau­ya­ni (‘Hawaiian’) in Zim­bab­we, Zam­bia and Mala­wi, the strings were tuned to a triad; Moya Ali­ya Mala­mu­si plays in this sty­le in Afri­can Gui­tar, B1995. Nor­mally a small bottle ser­ves as a sli­der. In both fin­ger-sty­le and plec­trum pla­ying the melo­dic pat­terns heard by the lis­te­ners are ‘inhe­rent pat­terns’, only indi­rectly rela­ted to tho­se of the fin­gers; in the ‘I.P. [inhe­rent pat­tern] effect’ a com­plex suc­ces­sion of notes is split by the ear into seve­ral dis­tinct layers (see Afri­ca, §3(v)).

The intro­duc­tion of the elec­tric gui­tar at the begin­ning of the 1960s gene­ra­ted a res­truc­tu­ring of gui­tar music in Afri­ca. A grou­ping of lead, rhythm and bass gui­tar repla­ced the solo gui­ta­rist, divi­ding the mate­rial among them. Con­go­le­se groups, such as Fran­co Luam­bo Makia­di and his OK Jazz, Tabu Ley Roche­reau and his Orches­tre Afri­can Fies­ta, Kia­man­gua­na Verckys and the Orches­tre Vèvè, and Jean Boke­lo and his Orches­tre Con­ga Suc­cès, took the lead in Afri­can elec­tric-gui­tar based music in the 1960s and 70s. In Nige­ria, follo­wing the popu­la­rity of Gha­naian High­li­fe music during the 1950s, which led to Yoru­ba and Igbo ver­sions, Jùjú came to domi­na­te southern urban music. In Zim­bab­we, gui­tar-based chi­mu­ren­ga music by Tho­mas Map­fu­mo and others began to domi­na­te the sce­ne in the early 1980s. The music incor­po­ra­tes traits from the mbi­ra dza vad­zi­mu lame­llopho­ne, with its har­mo­nic pat­terns of 4th and 5ths. In South Afri­ca, Isi­zu­lu solo gui­tar sty­les were trans­fe­rred to the elec­tric gui­tar. In 1995 elec­tric gui­tars were being used in mba­qan­ga, and Zulu mas­kan­di solo music was expe­rien­cing a revi­val on both acous­tic and elec­tric gui­tars (N. Davies, in Sch­midt, B1994; see also South afri­ca, §III).

At the end of the 20th cen­tury, in the era of digi­tally-crea­ted sound, the gap had wide­ned bet­ween tho­se few Afri­can musi­cians with access to expen­si­ve equip­ment and tho­se without. By the 1990s acous­tic gui­tar music, with the excep­tion of the Zulu mas­kan­di and some forms pla­yed on home-made ins­tru­ments, had almost com­ple­tely disap­pea­red in Afri­ca. Howe­ver, elec­tric gui­tars were often too expen­si­ve for musi­cians in eco­no­mi­cally depri­ved areas. In West Afri­ca, ‘drum-mat­ching’ and other sounds crea­ted by a synthe­si­zer had repla­ced almost all ins­tru­ments except the gui­tar in recor­ding stu­dios. All across Afri­ca, live music was being repla­ced in pla­ces of enter­tain­ment by often pira­ted cas­set­te recor­dings trans­mit­ted through power­ful louds­pea­kers (Sch­midt, B1994).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

y otros recursos

a: bibliographies

C.F. Whistling: Hand­buch der musi­ka­lis­chen Lite­ra­tur (Leip­zig, 1817–27/R, 2/1828–39/R) [19th-cen­tury prin­ted gui­tar music]

1. Dan­ner: ‘Biblio­graphy of Gui­tar Tabla­tu­res, 1546–1764’, JLSA, v (1972), 40–51; vi (1973), 33–6
2. Moser: Gita­rre-Musik: ein inter­na­tio­na­ler Kata­log (Ham­burg, 1973/R, 2/1977)
3. Gil­mo­re: Gui­tar Music Index: a Cross-Inde­xed and Gra­ded Lis­ting of Music in Print for Clas­si­cal Gui­tar and Lute (Hono­lu­lu, 1976–81)
4. Boet­ti­cher, ed.: Hands­chriftlich über­lie­fer­te Lau­ten- und Gita­rren­ta­bu­la­tu­ren des 15. bis 18. Jahrhun­derts, RISM, B/VII (1978)
5. Lyons: Lute, Vihue­la, Gui­tar to 1800: a Biblio­graphy (Detroit, 1978)
6. Dan­ner: ‘Biblio­gra­fia delle prin­ci­pa­li inta­vo­la­tu­re per chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, vii/29 (1979), 7–18
7. Tyler: The Early Gui­tar: a His­tory and Hand­book (Lon­don, 1980)
8. Fabris: ‘Pri­me aggiun­te ita­lia­ne al volu­me RISM B/VII: inta­vo­la­tu­ra mss per liu­to e chi­ta­rra’, FAM, xxix (1982), 103–21
9. Rezits: The Gui­ta­ris­t’s Resour­ce Gui­de: Gui­tar Music in Print and Books on the Art of the Gui­tar (San Die­go, 1983)
10. Macaus­lan: A Cata­log of Com­po­si­tions for Gui­tar by Women Com­po­sers (Portland, OR, 1984)
11. Hane­kuyk and F. Plies­ter: Luit en gitaar: muziek en lite­ra­tuur in de muziek­bi­bliotheek von het Haags Gemeen­te­mu­sem (The Hague, 1984)
12. Sch­warz: Gui­tar Biblio­graph­y/­Gi­ta­rre-Biblio­graphie: an Inter­na­tio­nal Lis­ting of the Theo­re­ti­cal Lite­ra­tu­re on Clas­sic Gui­tar from the Begin­ning to the Pre­sent(Munich and New York, 1984)

M.A. McCut­cheon: Gui­tar and Vihue­la: an Anno­ta­ted Biblio­graphy (Stuy­ve­sant, NY, 1985)

1. Negri: ‘La pre­sen­za della chi­ta­rra nel Fon­do Malas­pi­na di Vero­na’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.65 (1988), 32–4
2. Jape: Clas­si­cal Gui­tar Music in Print (Phi­la­delphia, 1989)
3. Sparr: ‘Musik för gitarr utgi­ven i Sve­ri­ge 1800–1860’, Bulle­tin: Svenskt Musikhis­to­risk Arkiv, xxiv (1989), 20–40
4. Tape­lla: ‘Una sco­nos­ciu­ta rac­col­ta per chi­ta­rra del fon­do Nose­da’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.69 (1989), 32–8
5. Torpp Lars­son: Cata­lo­gue of the Ris­chel and Bir­ket-Smith Collec­tion of Gui­tar Music in the Royal Library of Copenha­gen (Colum­bus, OH, 1989)
6. Beche­ruc­ci: ‘Chi­ta­rra e pia­no­for­te: bre­ve sto­ria della lit­te­ra­tu­ra del duo dall’ otto­cen­to ai gior­ni nos­tri’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.70 (1990), 14–39; no.72 (1990), 17–28

D.H. Smith and L. Eagle­son: Gui­tar and Lute Music in Perio­di­cals: an Index (Ber­ke­ley, 1990)

1. Maro­ney: Music for Voi­ce and Clas­si­cal Gui­tar, 1945–1996: an Anno­ta­ted Cata­log (West­port, CT, 1997)

b: general

MGG2 (‘Gita­rre’, §A/II: Ter­mi­no­lo­gie und Früh­ges­chich­te; M. Burzik)

1. Schroen: Die Gita­rre und ihre Ges­chich­te (Leip­zig, 1879)
2. Bier­nath: Die Gui­ta­rre seit dem 111. Jahrs­tau­send vor Chris­tus (Ber­lin, 1907)
3. Koc­zirz: ‘Zur Ges­chich­te der Gita­rre in Wien’, Musik­buch aus Öste­rreich, iv (1907), 11–18
4. Wolf: Hand­buch der Nota­tions­kun­de, ii (Leip­zig, 1919/R), 157–218
5. Hen­ze: Die Gita­rre und ihre Meis­ter des 18. und 19. Jahrhun­derts (Ber­lin, 1920)
6. Zuth: Simon Moli­tor und die Wie­ner Gita­rris­tik um 1800 (Vien­na, 1920)
7. Koc­zirz: ‘Die Wie­ner Gita­rris­tik vor Giu­lia­ni’, Die Gita­rre, ii (1920–21), 71–3, 81–2, 93–5
8. Chi­le­sot­ti: ‘Notes sur les tabla­tu­res de luth et de gui­ta­re’, EMDC, I/ii (1921), 636–84
9. Sch­warz-Reiflin­gen: ‘Bei­trä­ge zur Ges­chich­te der Gita­rris­tik nach 1840’, Die Gita­rre, iv (1923), 65–8, 74–8, 90–93; v (1924), 103–5, 135–9
10. Haas: ‘Die Ver­wen­dung der Lau­te­nins­tru­men­te in der Oper’, Zeits­chrift für die Gita­rre, iv (1925), no.8, pp.8–10; no.9, pp.1–4

M.-R. Bron­di: Il liu­to e la chi­ta­rra: ricer­che sto­ri­che sulla loro ori­gi­ne e sul loro svi­lup­po (Turin, 1926)

1. Buek: Die Gita­rre und ihre Meis­ter (Ber­lin, 1926, 3/1952)
2. Zuth: Hand­buch der Lau­te und Gita­rre (Vien­na, 1926–8/R)

S.N. Con­tre­ras: La gui­ta­rra, sus ante­ce­den­tes his­tó­ri­cos y bio­gra­fias de eje­cu­tan­tes céle­bres (Bue­nos Aires, 1927)

1. Mar­tin­sen: Nes­ko­l’­ko slov o gita­re: nebo­l’shoy isto­ri­ko-iss­le­do­va­te­l’s­kiy ocherk (Mos­cow, 1927)
2. Orel: ‘Gita­rren­mu­sik in Wien zur Zeit Beetho­vens’, Öste­rrei­chis­che Gita­rre-Zeits­chrift, i/3 (1927), 46–50
3. Pujol: ‘La gui­ta­re’, EMDC, II/iii (1927), 1997–2035

W.P. Masch­ke­witsch: ‘Zur Ges­chich­te der Gita­rre in Russ­land’, Die Gita­rre, x (1929), 25–7, 38–40, 54–5; xi (1930) 52–6, 93–4

1. Gom­bo­si: ‘Mis­ce­lla­nea: ad vocem citha­ra, citha­ris­ta’, AcM, ix (1937), 55–7
2. Lesu­re: ‘La gui­ta­re en Fran­ce au XVIe siè­cle’, MD, iv (1950), 187–95
3. Daven­port: ‘Gui­tars in Cham­ber Ensem­bles’, Gui­tar Review, no.16 (1954), 108 only

A.P. Shar­pe: The Story of the Spa­nish Gui­tar (Lon­don, 1954, 2/1959)

1. Simoes: ‘The Gui­tar in Bra­zil’, Gui­tar Review, no.22 (1958), 6–7
2. de Azpia­zu: La gui­ta­re et les gui­ta­ris­tes des ori­gi­nes aux temps moder­nes (Bas­le, 1959; Eng. trans., 1960)
3. Heartz: ‘Pari­sian Music Publishing under Henry II: a pro­pos of Four Recently-Dis­co­ve­red Gui­tar Books’, MQ, xlvi (1960), 448–67

B.L. Vol’­man: Gita­ra v Ros­sii (Lenin­grad, 1961)

1. Keith: ‘The Gui­tar Cult in the Courts of Louis XIV and Char­les II’, Gui­tar Review, no.26 (1962), 3–9
2. Heartz: ‘An Eli­za­bethan Tutor for the Gui­tar’, GSJ, xvi (1963), 3–21
3. Bow­les: ‘The Gui­tar in Medie­val Lite­ra­tu­re’, Gui­tar Review, no.29 (1966), 3–7
4. Car­fag­na and A. Capra­ni: Pro­fi­lo sto­ri­co della chi­ta­rra (Ancona,1966)
5. Garn­sey: ‘The Use of Hand-Pluc­ked Ins­tru­ments in the Con­ti­nuo Body: Nico­la Mat­teis’, ML, xlvii (1966), 135–40
6. Char­nas­sé: ‘Sur l’ac­cord de la gui­ta­re’, RMFC, vii (1967), 25–38
7. Kasha: ‘A New Look at the His­tory of the Clas­sic Gui­tar’, Gui­tar Review, no.30 (1968), 3–12

B.L. Vol’­man: Gita­ra i gita­ris­tï (Lenin­grad, 1968)

1. Geor­ge: The Fla­men­co Gui­tar (Madrid, 1969)

F.V. Grun­feld: The Art and Times of the Gui­tar (New York, 1969/R)

1. Bellow: The Illus­tra­ted His­tory of the Gui­tar (New York, 1970)
2. Char­nas­sé and F. Ver­ni­llat: Les ins­tru­ments à cor­des pin­cées (Paris, 1970)

T.F. Heck: The Birth of the Clas­sic Gui­tar and its Cul­ti­va­tion in Vien­na, Reflec­ted in the Career and Com­po­si­tions of Mau­ro Giu­lia­ni (d. 1829) (diss., Yale U., 1970)

1. Murphy: ‘The Tuning of the Five-Cour­se Gui­tar’, GSJ, xxiii (1970), 49–63

T.F. Heck: ‘The Role of Italy in the Early His­tory of the Clas­sic Gui­tar’, Gui­tar Review, no.34 (1971), 1–6

1. Hud­son: ‘The Music in Ita­lian Tabla­tu­res for the Five-Cour­se Spa­nish Gui­tar’, JLSA, iv (1971), 21–42
2. Tonaz­zi: Liu­to, vihue­la, chi­ta­rra e stru­men­ti simi­la­ri nelle loro inta­vo­la­tu­re, con cen­ni sulle loro let­te­ra­tu­re (Anco­na, 1971, 3/1980)
3. Chie­sa: ‘Sto­ria della let­te­ra­tu­ra del liu­to e della chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, nos.1–61 (1972–87) [series of articles]
4. Nic­kel: Bei­trag zur Ent­wic­klung der Gita­rre in Euro­pa (Haimhau­sen, 1972)
5. Sic­ca: ‘La chi­ta­rra e gli stru­men­ti a tas­tie­ra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.1 (1972), 27–32; Eng. trans., rev. in Gui­tar Review, no.39 (1974), 17–22; Ger. trans., enlar­ged in Gita­rre und Lau­te, ii/1 (1980), 16–23
6. Stri­zich: ‘Orna­men­ta­tion in Spa­nish Baro­que Gui­tar Music’, JLSA, v (1972), 18–39
7. Faus­to Ciur­lo: ‘Cen­ni sulle ricer­che delle ori­gi­ni etni­che della chi­ta­rra e del liu­to’,Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.2 (1973), 16–24
8. Gilar­dino: ‘Aspet­ti della musi­ca per chi­ta­rra del seco­lo XX’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.2 (1973), 7–10
9. Gilar­dino: ‘La musi­ca con­tem­po­ra­nea per chi­ta­rra in Gran Bre­tag­na’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.5 (1973), 8–14
10. Vigliet­ti: Ori­gen e his­to­ria de la gui­ta­rra (Bue­nos Aires, 1973/R)
11. de Zayas: ‘The Vihue­la: Swoo­se, Lute, or Gui­tar’, ‘The Music of the Vihue­lists and its Inter­pre­ta­tion’, ‘The Vihue­lists’, Gui­tar Review, no.38 (1973), 2–5
12. Dan­ner: ‘L’a­dat­ta­men­to della musi­ca baroc­ca per chi­ta­rra all’e­se­cu­zio­ne moder­na’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.7 (1974), 11–20
13. Gilar­dino: ‘La musi­ca ita­lia­na per chi­ta­rra nel seco­lo XX’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.7 (1974), 21–5
14. Mauerho­fer: Leonhard von Call: Musik des Mit­tels­tan­des zur Zeit der Wie­ner Klas­sik (diss., U. of Graz, 1974)
15. Simoes: A gui­ta­rra por­tu­gue­sa (Evo­ra, 1974)
16. Turn­bull: The Gui­tar from the Renais­san­ce to the Pre­sent Day (Lon­don and New York, 1974)
17. Whee­ler: The Gui­tar Book: a Hand­book for Elec­tric and Acous­tic Gui­ta­rists (New York, 1974, 2/1978)
18. Cano Tama­yo: Un siglo de la gui­ta­rra gra­na­di­na (Gra­na­da, 1975)
19. dell’A­ra: ‘La chi­ta­rra nel 1700’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.12 (1975), 6–14
20. Sic­ca: ‘Note cri­ti­che sul pro­ble­ma delle tras­cri­zio­ni per chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.11 (1975), 23–5
21. Witoszynsk­yi: ‘Vihue­la und Gita­rre im Spie­gel neuer Lit­te­ra­tur’, ÖMz, xxx (1975), 186–93
22. Duar­te: ‘La nota­zio­ne della musi­ca per chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.14 (1976), 14–20
23. Ophee: ‘Gui­tar Cham­ber Music: Why?’, Sound­board, iii (1976), 47–8, 82–5; iv (1977), 22–5, 35ff

J.W. Tanno: ‘Current Dis­co­graphy’, Sound­board, iii (1976–) [series of articles]

1. Witoszynsk­yi: ‘Die Gita­rre in der Kam­mer­mu­sik und der Bei­trag Wiens’, ÖMz, xxxi (1976), 640–44

G.J. Bakus: The Spa­nish Gui­tar: a Com­prehen­si­ve Refe­ren­ce to the Clas­si­cal and Fla­men­co Gui­tar (Los Ange­les, 1977)

1. Dan­ner: ‘Bre­ve sto­ria della musi­ca per chi­ta­rra in Ame­ri­ca’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.20 (1977), 18–25
2. and M.A. Evans: Gui­tars: Music, His­tory, Cons­truc­tion and Pla­yers from the Renais­san­ce to Rock (New York, 1977)
3. Ophee: ‘Cham­ber Music for Terz Gui­tar: a Look at the Options’, Gui­tar Review, no.42 (1977), 12–14
4. Roberts: Gui­tar Tra­vels (Valen­cia, 1977)
5. Sclar: ‘Gui­tar: Con­sort to the Voi­ce. Chap­ter One, Ben­ja­min Brit­ten: Songs from the Chi­ne­se’, Gui­tar Review, no.42 (1977), 17–24
6. Camos: Repor­ta­je a la gui­ta­rra (Bue­nos Aires, 1978)
7. Grun­feld: ‘L’ac­cord par­fait en amour: Inci­den­tal Notes to the Graphic Music of Bal­za­c’s Paris’, Gui­tar Review, no.44 (1978), 1–2

T.F. Heck: ‘Com­pute­ri­zed Gui­tar Research: a Report’, Sound­board, v/4 (1978), 104–7; ‘Post­s­cript’, vi (1979), 12

1. Ragoss­nig: Hand­buch der Gita­rre und Lau­te (Mainz, 1978)

F.-E. Denis: ‘La gui­ta­re en Fran­ce au XVIIe siè­cle: son impor­tan­ce, son réper­toi­re’, RBM, xxxii–xxxiii (1978–9), 143–50

1. Giertz: Den klas­si­ka gita­rren: ins­tru­men­tet, musi­ken, mäs­ter­na (Stockholm, 1979)
2. Pin­nell: ‘The Theor­boed Gui­tar: its Reper­toi­re in the Gui­tar Books of Gra­na­ta and Gallot’, EMc, vii (1979), 323–9
3. Pow­roź­niak: ‘Die Gita­rre in Russ­land’, Gita­rre und Lau­te, i/6 (1979), 18–24
4. Rado­le: Liu­to, chi­ta­rra e vihue­la: sto­ria e let­te­ra­tu­ra (Milan, 1979)
5. Schroth: ‘Dem Gesang versch­wis­tert: die Gita­rre in der Roman­tik’, Musi­ca, xxxiii (1979), 23–6
6. Sclar: ‘Gui­tar: Con­sort to the Voi­ce. Chap­ter Two, Domi­nick Argen­to, Let­ters from Com­po­sers’, Gui­tar Review, no.45 (1979), 6–11

J.M. Ward: ‘Sprightly & Cheer­ful Musick: Notes on the Cit­tern, Git­tern and Gui­tar in 16th- and 17th-Cen­tury England’, LSJ, xxi (1979–81) [who­le issue]

1. Gilar­dino: ‘La musi­ca per chi­ta­rra nel seco­lo XX’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.31 (1980), 25–9; no.32 (1980), 21–5; no.33 (1980), 25–9; no.34 (1981), 30–33; no.35 (1981), 47–9; no.36 (1981), 26–8
2. Klier and I. Hac­ker-Klier: Die Gita­rre: ein Ins­tru­ment und sei­ne Ges­chich­te (Bad Schus­sen­ried, 1980)
3. Leeb: ‘Die Gita­rre’, Gita­rre und Lau­te, ii (1980), no.2, 34–40; no.3, 32–41
4. Sch­nei­der: ‘The Con­tem­po­rary Gui­tar’, Sound­board, vii– (1980–) [series of articles]
5. Wade: Tra­di­tions of the Clas­si­cal Gui­tar (Lon­don, 1980)

G.M. Dau­send: ‘Die Gita­rre im Barock­zei­tal­ter: Ins­tru­men­te, Kom­po­nis­ten, Wer­ke, Nota­tions­for­men und Spiel­tech­nik’, Zupf­mu­sik, xxxiii (1980), 85–6, 114–18; xxxiv (1981), 16–20, 71–4; xxxv (1982), 17–19, 87

1. Duar­te: ‘The Gui­tar in Early Music’, Gui­tar & Lute, nos.13–18 (1980–81) [series of articles]
2. Bacon, ed.: Rock Hard­wa­re (Poo­le, Dor­set, 1981)
3. dell’A­ra: ‘Ico­no­gra­fia della chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, I: no.36 (1981), 28–42; II: no.38 (1982), 33–41; III: no.40 (1982), 12–27; IV: no.42 (1983), 24–33

N.D. Pen­ning­ton: The Spa­nish Baro­que Gui­tar, with a Trans­crip­tion of De Mur­cia’s Pas­sa­ca­lles y Obras (Ann Arbor, 1981)

C.S. Smith: ‘Aris­to­cra­tic Patro­na­ge and the Spa­nish Gui­tar in the 17th Cen­tury’, Gui­tar Review, no.49 (1981), 2–21; no.50 (1982), 12–23

M.P. Bau­mann: ‘Music, Dan­ce, and Song of the Chi­pa­yas (Boli­via)’, LAMR, ii (1981), 171–222

1. Stri­zich: ‘L’ac­com­pag­na­men­to di bas­so con­ti­nuo sulla chi­ta­rra baroc­ca’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.34 (1981), 15–26; no.35 (1981), 8–27
2. Stri­zich: ‘The Baro­que Gui­tar: Then and Now’, Sound­board, viii (1981), 128–36

M.P. Bau­mann: ‘Music of the Indios in Boli­via’s Andean High­lands (Sur­vey)’, World of Music, xxiv/2 (1982), 80–96

1. Den­yer: The Gui­tar Hand­book (Lon­don, 1982/R)
2. Dis­ler: ‘Fin­ding Litur­gi­cal Music for Clas­sic Gui­tar’, Sound­board, ix (1982), 15–17
3. Hud­son: The Folia, the Sara­ban­de, the Pas­sa­ca­glia, and the Cha­con­ne: the His­to­ri­cal Evo­lu­tion of Four Forms that Ori­gi­na­ted in Music for the Five-Cour­se Spa­nish Gui­tar (Neuhau­sen-Stutt­gart, 1982)
4. Low: ‘A His­tory of Ken­yan Gui­tar Music: 1945–1980’, AfM, vi/2 (1982), 17–39
5. Low: Sha­ba Diary (Vien­na, 1982) [dis­cus­ses Kan­tan­ga gui­tar sty­les and songs of the 1950s and 60s]

C.H. Rus­sell and A.K. Topp Rus­sell: ‘El arte de recom­po­si­ción en la músi­ca espa­ño­la para la gui­ta­rra barro­ca’, RdMc, v (1982), 5–23

C.H. Rus­sell: ‘San­tia­go de Mur­cia: the French Con­nec­tion in Baro­que Spain’, JLSA, xv (1982), 40–51

J.-A. van Hoek: Die Gita­rren­mu­sik im 19. Jahrh.: Ges­chich­te, Tech­nik, Inter­pre­ta­tion (Wilhelmsha­ven, 1983)

1. Kozinn and others: The Gui­tar: the His­tory, the Music, the Pla­yers (New York, 1984)
2. Sch­nei­der: The Con­tem­po­rary Gui­tar (Ber­ke­ley, 1985)
3. See­ger: Gita­rre: Ges­chich­te eines Ins­tru­ments (Ber­lin, 1986)
4. Ophee: ‘La chi­ta­rra in Rus­sia: osser­va­zio­ni dall’Oc­ci­den­te’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.58 (1987), 8–27
5. Wol­zien: ‘Early Gui­tar Lite­ra­tu­re’, Sound­board, xiv (1987), 57–9, 186–8; xv (1988), 48–51, 218–20
6. dell’A­ra: ‘La chi­ta­rra a Pari­gi negli anni 1830–1831’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.63 (1988), 19–25
7. Gre­ci: ‘La chi­ta­rra: sua ori­gi­ne, sto­ria, evo­lu­zio­ne’, NRMI, xxii (1988), 703–25
8. Päff­gen: Die Gita­rre: Grund­zü­ge ihrer Ent­wic­klung (Mainz, 1988)
9. But­ton: The Gui­tar in England, 1800–1924 (New York, 1989)
10. Egger: Die ‘Schram­meln’ in ihrer Zeit (Vien­na, 1989) [dis­cus­ses the popu­lar Vien­ne­se quar­tet with bass gui­tar c1900]
11. Noel: ‘Gran­deur et déca­den­ce de la gui­ta­re en Fran­ce au temps de Louis XIV’, Cahiers de la gui­ta­re, no.35 (1990), 20–24

C.A. Water­man: Jùjú: a Social His­tory and Eth­no­graphy of an Afri­can Popu­lar Music (Chica­go, 1990)

1. Bacon and P. Day: The Ulti­ma­te Gui­tar Book (Lon­don and New York, 1991)
2. Dunn: ‘Robert de Visées Trans­krip­tio­nen’, Gita­rre und Lau­te, xiii/6 (1991), 46–54
3. Gla­se­napp: Die Gui­ta­rre als Ensem­ble- und Orches­te­rins­tru­ment in der Neuen Musik unter beson­de­rer Berück­sich­ti­gung der Wer­ke Hans Wer­ner Hen­zes (Laa­ber, 1991)
4. Huber: The Deve­lop­ment of the Modern Gui­tar (West­port, CT, 1991)
5. Chris­ten­sen: ‘The Spa­nish Baro­que Gui­tar and Seven­teenth-Cen­tury Tria­dic Theory’, JMT, xxx­vi (1992), 1–42

G.-M. Dau­send: Die Gita­rre im 16. bis 18. Jahrhun­dert (Düs­sel­dorf, 1992)

1. Nowotny: Vil Lute hör­te ich ers­cha­llen: die frühe Ges­chich­te der Fie­deln, Lau­ten- und Gita­rre­nins­tru­men­te (Essen, 1992)

J.M. Ward: Music for Eli­za­bethan Lutes (Oxford, 1992)

1. Esses: Dan­ce and Ins­tru­men­tal ‘Dife­ren­cias’ in Spain during the 17th and Early 18th Cen­tu­ries (Stuy­ve­sant, NY, 1992–4)

E.F. Madri­gue­ra: The His­pa­ni­za­tion of the Gui­tar: from the gui­ta­rra lati­na to the gui­ta­rra espa­ño­la (diss., U. of Texas, Dallas, 1993)

1. Rebours: ‘Le reper­toi­re de la gui­ta­re renais­san­ce’, Cahiers de la gui­ta­re, no.45 (1993), 24–30
2. Sch­mitt: Unter­su­chun­gen zur aus­ge­wähl­ten spa­nis­chen Gita­rren­lehr­wer­ken vor 1800 (Colog­ne, 1993)
3. Tread­well: ‘Gui­tar alfa­be­to in Ita­lian Monody: the Publi­ca­tions of Ales­san­dro Vin­cen­ti’, LSJ, xxxiii (1993), 12–22

H.G. Brill: Die Gita­rre in der Musik des XX. Jahrhun­derts (Colog­ne, 1994)

1. Lib­bert, ed.: Die Gita­rre im Auf­bruch: Fes­ts­chrift Heinz Teu­chert (Munich, 1994)

M.A. Mala­mu­si: ‘Rise and Deve­lop­ment of a Chi­le­ka Gui­tar Sty­le in the 1950s’, For Gerhard Kubik: Fes­ts­chrift, ed. A. Sch­midho­fer and D. Schü­ller (Frank­furt, 1994), 7–72

1. Sch­midt, ed.: ‘The Gui­tar in Afri­ca: the 1950s–1960s’, World of Music, xxxvi/2 (1994)

Afri­can Gui­tar, video­ta­pe, dir. G. Kubik (Spar­ta, NJ, 1995)

G.R. Boye: Gio­van­ni Bat­tis­ta Gra­na­ta and the Deve­lop­ment of Prin­ted Music for the Gui­tar in Seven­teenth-Cen­tury Italy (diss., Duke U., 1995)

1. Bur­zik: Que­llens­tu­dien zu euro­päis­chen Zup­fins­tru­men­ten­for­men: Metho­den­pro­ble­me kunsthis­to­ris­che Aspek­te und Fra­gen der Namens­zuord­nung (Kas­sel, 1995)
2. Eisenhardt: ‘La gui­ta­rre roya­lle: de hoog­tij­da­gen van der gitaar’, Tijds­chrift voor oude muziek, x/1 (1995), 9–11
3. Heck: ‘Gui­tar Nota­tion: a His­to­ri­cal Over­view’, Mau­ro Giu­lia­ni: Vir­tuo­so Gui­ta­rist and Com­po­ser (Colum­bus, OH, 1995), 140–49
4. Monno: Die Barock­gi­ta­rre: Dars­te­llung ihrer Ent­wic­klung und Spiel­wei­se (Munich, 1995)

C.H. Rus­sell: San­tia­go de Mur­cia’s ‘Codi­ce Sal­di­var No.4’: a Trea­sury of Secu­lar Gui­tar Music from Baro­que Mexi­co (Cham­paign, IL, 1995)

1. Cabrel, M. Fers­ten­berg and K. Blas­quiz: Luthiers & gui­ta­res d’en Fran­ce (Paris, 1996)
2. Tryn­ka, ed.: Rock Hard­wa­re: 40 Years of Rock Ins­tru­men­ta­tion (Lon­don, 1996)
3. Heck: ‘Gui­tar-Rela­ted Research in the Age of the Inter­net: Current Options, Current Trends’, Sound­board, xxv (1998), 61–8
4. Sch­mitz: Gita­rre­mu­sik für Dilet­tan­tren: Ent­wic­klung und Ste­llen­wert des Gita­rrens­piels in der bür­gli­chen Musik­pra­xis der ers­ten Häl­fte des 19. Jahrhun­derts in deu­tschs­pra­chi­gen Raum (Frank­furt, 1998)

O.V. Timo­fe­yev: The Gol­den Age of the Rus­sian Gui­tar: Reper­toi­re, Per­for­man­ce Prac­ti­ce, and Social Fun­ction of Rus­sian Seven-String Gui­tar Music, 1800–1850 (diss., Duke U., in preparation)

1. Tyler and P. Sparks: The Gui­tar from the Renais­san­ce to the Clas­si­cal Era (Oxford, forthcoming)

c: the instrument

Arz­ber­ger: ‘Vors­chlag zu einer wesentli­chen Ver­bes­se­rung im Bau der Gui­ta­rre’, AMZ, xi (1808–9), 481–8

J.A. Otto: ‘Über die Gui­ta­rre’, Über den Bau der Boge­nins­tru­men­te (Jena, 1828), 94–7

1. Bathio­li: Gui­ta­rre-Fla­geo­lett-Schu­le mit Bemer­kun­gen über den Gita­rren­bau (Vien­na, ?1833)
2. Stakho­vich: Isto­ri­ya semis­trun­noy gita­rï (Mos­cow, 1864)
3. Famin­tsyn: Dom­ra i srodn­ye yey intru­men­tï russ­ko­go naro­da (St Peters­burg, 1891)
4. Chi­le­sot­ti: ‘La chi­ta­rra fran­ce­se’, RMI, xiv (1907), 791–802
5. Zuth: ‘Die englis­che und deu­ts­che Gita­rre des aus­gehen­den 18. Jahrh.’, Der Gita­rre­freund, xxii (1921), 77–9, 88–90, 99–100
6. Gei­rin­ger: ‘Der Ins­tru­men­ten­na­me Quin­ter­ne und die mit­te­lal­ter­li­chen Bezeich­nun­gen der Gita­rre, Man­do­la und Colas­cio­ne’, AMw, vi (1924), 103–10
7. Koc­zirz: ‘Die alt-Wie­ner Gita­rre um 1800’, Gita­rris­tis­che Mit­tei­lung aus Öste­rreich, i (1925), no.3, pp.1–2; no.4, pp.2–3; no.5, pp.2–3
8. Sch­warz-Reiflin­gen: ‘Die Torres­gi­ta­rre’, Die Gita­rre, ix (1928), 47–53
9. Schus­ter: ‘Zur Ges­chich­te des Gita­rren­bau in Deu­ts­chland’, Die Gita­rre, x (1929), 83–7
10. Cha­se: ‘Gui­tar and Vihue­la: a Cla­ri­fi­ca­tion’, BAMS, vi (1942), 13–16
11. Iva­nov: Russ­ka­ya semis­trun­na­ya gita­ra (Mos­cow, 1948)
12. Lesu­re: ‘Le trai­té des ins­tru­ments de musi­que de Pie­rre Tri­chet: des ins­tru­ments de musi­que à chor­des’, AnnM, iv (1956), 175–248, esp. 216; also pubd sepa­ra­tely (Neuilly-sur-Sei­ne, 1957/R; Eng. trans., 1973)
13. Usher: ‘The Spa­nish Gui­tar in the 19th and 20th Cen­tu­ries’, GSJ, ix (1956), 5–36
14. Duar­te: ‘Variants of the Clas­sic Gui­tar, an Eva­lua­tion’, Gui­tar Review, no.25 (1961), 22–5
15. Jah­nel: Die Gita­rre und ihr Bau: Tech­no­lo­gie von Gita­rre, Lau­te, Man­do­li­ne, Sis­ter, Tan­bur und Sai­te (Frank­furt, 1963, 6/1996; Eng. trans., 1981)

J.C. Tanno: ‘A Brief Dis­cus­sion of the Cons­truc­tion and Assembly of Gui­tars by Non-Spa­nish Luthiers’, Gui­tar Review, no.28 (1965), 28–31

1. Sloa­ne: Clas­sic Gui­tar Cons­truc­tion: Dia­grams, Pho­to­graphs, and Step-by-Step Ins­truc­tions (New York, 1966/R)
2. Hell­wig: ‘Makers’ Marks on Pluc­ked Ins­tru­ments of the 16th and 17th Cen­tu­ries’, GSJ, xxiv (1971), 22–32
3. McLeod: The Clas­si­cal Gui­tar: Design and Cons­truc­tion (Wood­brid­ge, NJ, 1971)
4. Artzt: ‘The Gui­tar: Wet or Dry?’, Gui­tar Review, no.37 (1972), 4–5
5. Kasha: Com­ple­te Gui­tar Acous­tics (Tallahas­see, FL, 1973)

E.F. Ciur­lo: ‘La chi­ta­rra nella liute­ria moder­na’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.6 (1974), 20–31

1. God­win: ‘Eccen­tric Forms of the Gui­tar, 1770–1850’, JLSA, vii (1974), 90–102

H.E. Hut­tig: ‘The Tri­po­di­son of Dio­ni­sio Agua­do’, Gui­tar Review, no.39 (1974), 23–5

1. Kasha: ‘Phy­sics and the Per­fect Sound’, Bri­tan­ni­ca Year­book of Scien­ce and the Futu­re (1974), 128–43
2. Meyer: ‘Die Abs­tim­mung der Grun­dre­so­nan­zen von Gita­rren’, Das Musi­kins­tru­ment, xxiii (1974), 179–86
3. Meyer: ‘Das Reso­nanz­verhal­ten von Gita­rren bei mittle­ren Fre­quen­zen’, Das Musi­kins­tru­ment, xxiii (1974), 1095–1102

A.E. Overhol­tzer: Clas­sic Gui­tar Making (Chi­co, CA, 1974, 2/1983)

1. Tee­ter: The Acous­tic Gui­tar: Adjust­ment, Care, Main­te­nan­ce, and Repair (Nor­man, OK, 1974)
2. Bros­nac: The Steel String Gui­tar: its Cons­truc­tion, Ori­gin, and Design (San Fran­cis­co, 1973, 2/1975)

E.F. Ciur­lo: ‘Chi­ta­rra quar­ti­to­na­le’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.10 (1975), 25–6

T.F. Heck: ‘Stal­king the Oldest Six-String Gui­tar’, Gen­dai Gui­tar, no.98 (1975), 64–71 [in Jap.]; Eng. orig. 〈www.uakron.edu/gfaa/stalking/html〉

1. Long­worth: Mar­tin Gui­tars: a His­tory (Cedar Knolls, NJ, 1975, enlar­ged 3/1998 as C.F. Mar­tin & Co., Est. 1833: a His­tory)
2. Sloa­ne: Steel-String Gui­tar Cons­truc­tion: Acous­tic Six-String, Twel­ve-String, and Arched-Top Gui­tars (New York, 1975/R)
3. Tyler: ‘The Renais­san­ce Gui­tar 1500–1650’, EMc, iii (1975), 341–7
4. Witoszyns­ki: ‘Vihue­la and Gui­tar: some His­to­ri­cal Deve­lop­ments’, Gui­tar, iv/2 (1975), 19–21

D.R. Young: The Steel String Gui­tar: Cons­truc­tion and Repair (Rad­nor, PA, 1975, 2/1987)

1. Hall: ‘The “gui­ta­rra espa­ño­la”’, EMc, iv (1976), 227 [let­ter]
2. Meyer: ‘Die Bes­tim­mung von Qua­li­täts­kri­te­rien bei Gita­rren: Mit­tei­lung aus der phy­si­ka­lisch-tech­nis­chen Bun­de­sans­talt’, Das Musi­kins­tru­ment, xxv (1976), 1211–22
3. Poul­ton: ‘Notes on the Gui­ta­rra, Laud and Vihue­la’, LSJ, xviii (1976), 46–8

I.J. Schoen­berg: ‘On the Loca­tion of Frets on the Gui­tar’, Ame­ri­can Mathe­ma­ti­cal Monthly, 83/7 (1976), 550

1. Achard: The Fen­der Gui­tar (Lon­don, 1977/R)
2. Bros­nac: An Intro­duc­tion to Scien­ti­fic Gui­tar Design (New York, 1978)
3. Elli­ker: ‘On Gaso­ge­nes, Penang Law­yers, Echi­quiers and Terz Gui­tars’, Sound­board, v (1978), 112–13
4. Ophee: ‘La chi­ta­rra ter­zi­na’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.25 (1978), 8–24
5. Sch­nei­der: ‘The Well-Tem­pe­red Gui­tar’, Sound­board, v (1978), 108–11 [dis­cus­ses inter­chan­gea­ble fingerboards]
6. Sto­ne: ‘A New Tonal Uni­ver­se for the Gui­tar: Inter­chan­gea­ble Fin­ger­boards’, Gui­tar & Lute, no.6 (1978), 19–21
7. Weber: ‘Gita­rren­kor­pus geo­me­trisch abge­lei­tet: Ins­tru­men­ten­ges­chich­te aus Spa­nien’, IZ, xxxii (1978), 774 only
8. Achard: The His­tory and Deve­lop­ment of the Ame­ri­can Gui­tar (Lon­don, 1979)
9. Den­ning: ‘The Vihue­la: Royal Gui­tar of 16th-Cen­tury Spain’, Sound­board, vi/2 (1979), 38–41
10. Evans and others: Gui­ta­res: chefs d’o­euvre des collec­tions de Fran­ce (Paris, 1980)
11. Heck: ‘Mys­te­ries in the His­tory of the Gui­tar’, La gui­ta­rra, nos.37–8, 40–41 (1980) [series of short articles]
12. Sorri­so: ‘La chi­ta­rra bat­ten­te in Cala­bria’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.31 (1980), 29–31
13. Gill: ‘Vihue­las, Vio­las and the Spa­nish Gui­tar’, EMc, ix (1981), 455–62
14. Heck: ‘The His­to­ric Variety in Gui­tar Sizes’, La gui­ta­rra, no.42 (1981), 2
15. Ros­sing: ‘Phy­sics of Gui­tars: an Intro­duc­tion’, Jour­nal of Gui­tar Acous­tics, no.4 (1981), 45–67
16. Sch­nei­der: ‘The Micro­to­nal Gui­tar’, Gui­tar & Lute, no.16 (1981), 42–6; no.17 (1981), 32–4; no.19 (1981), 28–31; no.20 (1982), 20–22; no.21 (1982), 33–4; no.25 (1982), 14–17

Acous­ti­cal Society of Ame­ri­ca Mee­ting CIII: Gui­tar Ses­sion: Chica­go 1982 [Jour­nal of Gui­tar Acous­tics, no.6 (1982)]

1. Meyer: ‘Fun­da­men­tal Reso­nan­ce Tuning of Gui­tars’, Jour­nal of Gui­tar Acous­tics, no.5 (1982), 19
2. Whee­ler: Ame­ri­can Gui­tars: an Illus­tra­ted His­tory (New York, 1982, 3/1992)
3. Chris­ten­sen: ‘The Res­pon­se of Pla­yed Gui­tars at Midd­le Fre­quen­cies’, Acus­ti­ca, liii (1983), 45–8

R.C. Hart­man: Gui­tars and Man­do­lins in Ame­ri­ca, Fea­tu­ring the Lar­sons’ Crea­tions (Schaum­burg, IL, 1984, 2/1988)

1. Nic­kel: ‘Zur Ent­wic­klungs­ges­chich­te der Gita­rre im Mit­te­lal­ter’, Bas­ler Jb für his­to­ris­che Musik­pra­xis, viii (1984), 131–46
2. Hodg­son: ‘The Strin­ging of a Baro­que Gui­tar’, FoMRHI Quar­terly, no.41 (1985), 61–7
3. Hop­kin: ‘The Bi-Level Gui­tar’, Expe­ri­men­tal Musi­cal Ins­tru­ments, i/4 (1985), 1 [with three pages of illustrations]
4. Meyer: Akus­tik der Gita­rre in Ein­zel­dars­te­llun­gen (Frank­furt, 1985)
5. Riboui­llault: ‘La déca­cor­de de Caru­lli et Laco­te’, Gui­ta­re, no.13 (1985), 4–6
6. Car­lin: ‘The Impro­ba­ble Evo­lu­tion of the Arch-Top Gui­tar’, Frets, viii/10 (1986), 26–32
7. Win­ter: ‘Aspec­ten van der gui­taar­bouw’, Jaar­boek van het Volks­mu­zie­ka­te­lier, iv (1986), 61–84

W.R. Cum­piano and J.D. Natel­son: Gui­tar­ma­king, Tra­di­tion and Tech­no­logy: a Com­ple­te Refe­ren­ce for the Design and Cons­truc­tion of the Steel-String Folk Gui­tar and the Clas­si­cal Gui­tar (Amherst, MA, 1987)

1. Forres­ter: ‘17th-Cen­tury Gui­tar Wood­work’, FoMRHI Quar­terly, no.48 (1987), 40–48
2. Strad­ner: ‘Die Ins­tru­men­te der Wie­ner Schram­meln’, Stu­dia orga­no­lo­gi­ca: Fes­ts­chrift für John Henry van der Meer, ed. F. Hell­wig (Tutzing, 1987), 445–52 [des­cri­bes the bass gui­tar of c1900]
3. Gétreau: ‘René, Ale­xan­dre et Jean Voboam: des fac­teurs pour “La gui­ta­rre roya­le”’, Ins­tru­men­tis­tes et luthiers pari­siens: XVIIe–XIXe siè­cles(Paris, 1988), 50–74
4. Huber: ‘Zur Wie­de­rent­dec­kung der Wap­pen­form­gi­ta­rre um 1900’, Quaes­tio­nes in musi­ca: Fes­ts­chrift für Franz Kraut­wurst, ed. F. Brus­niak and H. Leucht­mann (Tutzing, 1989), 251–69

I.C. Bishop: The Gib­son Gui­tar (West­port, CT, 1990)

1. Coro­na-Alcal­de: ‘The Viheu­la and the Gui­tar in Six­teenth-Cen­tury Spain: a Cri­ti­cal Apprai­sal of some of the Exis­ting Evi­den­ce’, LSJ, xxx (1990), 3–24
2. Gruhn and W. Car­ter: Gruh­n’s Gui­de to Vin­ta­ge Gui­tars (San Fran­cis­co, 1991)
3. Sand­berg: The Acous­tic Gui­tar Gui­de (Chica­go, 1991)

P.W. Sch­midt: Acqui­red of the Angels: the Lives and Works of Mas­ter Gui­tar Makers John D’An­ge­li­co and James L. D’A­quis­to (Metu­chen, NJ, 1991)

1. Peter­son: ‘Harp Gui­tar: that Extra String Thing’, Ame­ri­can Luthe­rie, no.29 (1992), 20–35
2. Peter­son: ‘A New Look at Harp Gui­tars’, Ame­ri­can Luthe­rie, no.34 (1993), 24–40
3. Broz­man: The His­tory and Artistry of Natio­nal Reso­na­tor Ins­tru­ments (Fuller­ton, CA, 1993) [focus­ses on ‘Dobro’ guitars]
4. Gruhn and W. Car­ter: Acous­tic Gui­tars and other Fret­ted Ins­tru­ments: a Pho­to­graphic His­tory (San Fran­cis­co, 1993)

B.E. Richard­son: ‘The Acous­ti­cal Deve­lop­ment of the Gui­tar’, Cat­gut Acous­ti­cal Society Jour­nal, ii/5 (1994), 1–10

1. Seger­man: ‘Strin­ging 5‑Course Baro­que Gui­tars’, FoMRHI Quar­terly, no.75 (1994), 43–5
2. Whit­ford, D. Vino­pal and D. Erle­wi­ne: Gib­so­n’s Fabu­lous Flat-Top Gui­tars: an Illus­tra­ted His­tory and Gui­de (San Fran­cis­co, 1994)
3. Car­ter: The Mar­tin Book: a Com­ple­te His­tory of Mar­tin Gui­tars (Lon­don, 1995)
4. Moust: The Guild Gui­tar Book 1952–1977 (Bre­da, Nether­lands, 1995)
5. Chi­nery and T. Bacon: The Chi­nery Collec­tion: 150 Years of Ame­ri­can Gui­tars (Lon­don, 1996)
6. Fisch and L.B. Fred: Epipho­ne: the Hou­se of Statho­pou­lo (New York, 1996)
7. Morrish, ed.: The Clas­si­cal Gui­tar: a Com­ple­te His­tory (Lon­don, 1997)

d: guitar technique

MGG2 (‘Gita­rre’, §B: Reper­toi­re und Spiel­tech­nik, I–II; M. Burzik)

1. Guth­mann: ‘Über Gui­ta­rrens­piel’, AMZ, viii (1805–6), 362–6
2. Seyf­fert: ‘Über das Gita­rres­piel mit Ring und Nage­lans­chlag’, Der Gita­rre­freund, viii (1907), 33–5, 41–3
3. Just: ‘Die Fla­geo­let­tö­ne und ihre Notie­rung’, Der Gita­rre­freund, xx (1919), 11–15, 23–6, 35–7
4. Buek: ‘Über den Nage­lans­chlag’, Der Gita­rre­freund, xxii (1921), 5–6
5. Lai­ble: ‘Phy­sio­lo­gie des Ans­chla­ges’, Die Gita­rre, ii (1920–21), 95–9
6. Lai­ble: ‘Phy­sio­lo­gie des Grei­fens’, Die Gita­rre, iv (1923), 45–7
7. Sch­warz-Reiflin­gen: ‘Kup­pen- oder Nage­lans­chlag?’, Die Gita­rre, vi (1925), 65–8
8. Koc­zirz: ‘Über die Fin­ger­na­gel­tech­nik bei Sai­te­nins­tru­men­ten’, Stu­dien zur Musik­ges­chich­te: Fes­ts­chrift für Gui­do Adler (Vien­na, 1930/R), 164–7
9. Sch­warz-Reiflin­gen: ‘Die moder­ne Gita­rren­tech­nik’, Die Gita­rre, xi (1930), 17–23, 34–6, 49–52, 81–6
10. Usher: ‘The Ele­ments of Tech­ni­cal Pro­fi­ciency’, Gui­tar Review, no.15 (1953), 6–8
11. Usher: ‘Tone and Tonal Variety’, Gui­tar Review, no.16 (1954), 23–4
12. Rycroft: ‘The Gui­tar Impro­vi­sa­tions of Mwen­da Jean Bos­co’, AfM, ii/4 (1958–61), 81–98; iii/1 (1962–5), 86–101
13. Pujol: El dile­ma del soni­do en la gui­ta­rra (Bue­nos Aires, 1960)
14. Huber: Ori­gi­nes et tech­ni­que de la gui­ta­re (Lau­san­ne, 1968)
15. Murphy: ‘Seven­teenth-Cen­tury Gui­tar Music: Notes on Ras­guea­do Per­for­man­ce’, GSJ, xxi (1968), 24–32
16. Bobri: The Sego­via Tech­ni­que (New York, 1972)
17. Sic­ca: ‘Il vibra­to come arric­chi­men­to natu­ra­le del suono: suo stu­dio sis­te­ma­ti­co sulla chi­ta­rra e sul liu­to’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.5 (1973), 24
18. Dan­ner: ‘Gio­van­ni Pao­lo Fos­ca­ri­ni and his “Nuo­va inven­tio­ne”’, JLSA, vii (1974), 4–18
19. Stri­zich: ‘A Spa­nish Gui­tar Tutor: Ruiz de Riba­ya­z’s Luz y nor­te musi­cal (1677)’, JLSA, vii (1974), 51–81
20. Gilar­dino: ‘Il pro­ble­ma della diteg­gia­tu­ra nelle musi­che per chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, iii (1975), no.10, pp.5–12; no.13, pp.11–14
21. Dun­can: ‘Stac­ca­to Arti­cu­la­tion in Sca­les’, Sound­board, iv (1977), 65–6

P.W. Cox: Clas­sic Gui­tar Tech­ni­que and its Evo­lu­tion as Reflec­ted in the Method Books, c1770–c1850 (diss., India­na U., 1978)

1. Dun­can: ‘About Vibra­to’, Sound­board, v (1978), 69–72
2. Tay­lor: Tone Pro­duc­tion on the Clas­si­cal Gui­tar (Lon­don, 1978)
3. Weid­lich: ‘Bat­tu­to Per­for­man­ce Prac­ti­ce in Early Ita­lian Gui­tar Music (1606–1637)’, JLSA, xi (1978), 63–86
4. Dun­can: ‘Arti­cu­la­tion and Tone: some Prin­ci­ples and Prac­ti­ces’, Gui­tar Review, no.46 (1979), 7–9
5. Dun­can: ‘La ten­sio­ne fun­zio­na­le e l’at­tac­co pre­pa­ra­to’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.28 (1979), 23–6
6. Sic­ca: ‘Una con­ce­zio­ne dina­mi­ca di alcu­ni pro­ble­mi chi­ta­rris­ti­ci’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.29 (1979), 18–23
7. Dan­ner: ‘Lute Tech­ni­que and the Gui­tar: a Further Look at the His­to­ri­cal Back­ground’, Sound­board, vii (1980), 60–67
8. Dun­can: The Art of Clas­si­cal Gui­tar Pla­ying (Prin­ce­ton, NJ, 1980)
9. Jef­fery: ‘La tech­ni­ca di unghia e pol­pas­tre­llo secon­do Dio­ni­sio Agua­do’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.33 (1980), 14–20
10. Lind: ‘Hal­tungs­pro­ble­ma­tik an der Kon­zert­gi­ta­rre’, Gita­rre und Lau­te, ii/6 (1980), 18–27
11. Cook: ‘The “Bat­te­ries” on the Spa­nish Baro­que Gui­tar Accor­ding to Marin Mer­sen­ne’, Gui­tar & Lute, no.19 (1981), 35–7
12. Cox: ‘Con­si­de­ra­zio­ni sui pri­mi meto­di per chi­ta­rra’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.34 (1981), 5–15
13. Riboui­llault: La tech­ni­que de gui­ta­re en Fran­ce dans la pre­miè­re moi­tié du 19ème siè­cle (1981)
14. Ophee: ‘The His­tory of apo­yan­do: Another View’, Gui­tar Review, no.51 (1982), 6–13
15. Riboui­llault: ‘Tech­ni­que de la gui­ta­re: la posi­tion de l’ins­tru­ment à l’é­po­que roman­ti­que’, Cahiers de la gui­ta­re, no.2 (1982), 28–35
16. Ophee: ‘Il toc­co appog­gia­to: pre­ci­sa­zio­ni e argo­men­ti sto­ri­ci’, Il ‘Fro­ni­mo’, no.43 (1983), 8–20
17. Jor­dan: ‘The Touch Tech­ni­que: Two-Han­ded Tap­ping’, Gui­tar Pla­yer, xviii/7 (1984), 29–30
18. Kienz­le: ‘The Evo­lu­tion of Country Fin­ger­pic­king’, Gui­tar Pla­yer, xviii/5 (1984), 38–41
19. Lynch: ‘My Tech­ni­que: Expan­ding the Boun­da­ries of Fin­ger-Tap­ped Gui­tar’, Gui­tar Pla­yer, xix/2 (1985), 14–15
20. Sch­nei­der: The Con­tem­po­rary Gui­tar (Ber­ke­ley, 1985) [explains new pla­ying tech­ni­ques and notations]
21. Leh­ner-Wie­ter­nik: Neue Nota­tions­for­men, Klang­mö­glich­kei­ten und Spiel­tech­ni­ken der klas­sis­chen Gita­rre (Vien­na, 1991)
22. Amos: ‘The Sup­pres­sion, Libe­ra­tion, and Triumph of the Annu­lar Fin­ger: a Brief His­to­ri­cal View of Right-Hand Gui­tar Tech­ni­que’, Sound­board, xxi/4 (1995), 11–15
23. Back: ‘William Foden and the Para­digms of his Tech­ni­que’, Gui­tar Review, no.102 (1995), 13–17
24. Hole­cek: För musi­kens skull: stu­dier i inter­pre­ta­tiv gitarrs­pel­tek­nik från tids­pe­rio­den c1800–c1930 (Göte­borg, 1996)

V.A. Coelho, ed.: Per­for­man­ce on Lute, Gui­tar and Vihue­la: His­to­ri­cal Prac­ti­ce and Modern Inter­pre­ta­tion (Cam­brid­ge, 1997)

e: guitarists

P.J. Bone: The Gui­tar and Man­do­lin: Bio­graphies of Cele­bra­ted Pla­yers and Com­po­sers (Lon­don, 1914, 2/1954/R)

1. Zuth: Hand­buch der Lau­te und Gita­rre (Vien­na, 1926–8/R)

S.N. Con­tre­ras: La gui­ta­rra, sus ante­ce­den­tes his­tó­ri­cos y bio­gra­fias de eje­cu­tan­tes céle­bres (Bue­nos Aires, 1927)

W.P. Masch­ke­witsch: ‘Rus­sis­che Gita­rris­ten’, Die Gita­rre, xi (1930), 68–72

1. Prat: Dic­cio­na­rio bio­grá­fi­co, biblio­grá­fi­co, his­tó­ri­co, crí­ti­co de gui­ta­rras … gui­ta­rris­tas … gui­ta­rre­ros (Bue­nos Aires, 1934/R)
2. Ter­zi: Dizio­na­rio dei chi­ta­rris­ti e liu­tai ita­lia­ni (Bolog­na, 1937)
3. Maka­rov: ‘The Memoi­res of Maka­roff’, Gui­tar Review, no.1 (1946), 8–10; no.2 (1947), 4–6; no.3 (1947), 6–9; no.5 (1948), 1–5

Gui­tar Review, no.11 (1950) [por­trait issue on con­tem­po­rary guitarists]

1. Sim­pson: ‘Some Early Ame­ri­can Gui­ta­rists’, Gui­tar Review, no.23 (1959), 16 only

Gui­tar News, no.60 (1961) [por­traits]

1. Car­fag­na and M. Gan­gi: Dizio­na­rio chi­ta­rris­ti­co ita­liano (Ancona,1968)
2. Vigliet­ti: Ori­gien e his­to­ria de la gui­ta­rra (Bue­nos Aires, 1973) [esp. gui­ta­rists in Argen­ti­na and Uruguay]

Jazz Gui­ta­rists: Collec­ted Inter­views from Gui­tar Pla­yer Maga­zi­ne (Sara­to­ga, CA, 1975) [with an intro­duc­tion by L. Feather]

Rock Gui­ta­rists: from the Pages of Gui­tar Pla­yer Maga­zi­ne (Sara­to­ga, CA, 1977)

1. Fer­gu­son, ed.: The Gui­tar Pla­yer Book (Sara­to­ga, CA, 1978) [popu­lar con­tem­po­rary guitarists]

M.J. Sum­mer­field: The Jazz Gui­tar: its Evo­lu­tion and its Pla­yers (Gateshead, 1978)

1. Moser: ‘Spa­nis­che Gita­rris­ten zwis­chen Agua­do und Tarre­ga’, Gita­rre und Lau­te, i/4 (1979), 26–30
2. Pow­roź­niak: Leksy­kon gitary (Kra­ków, 1979; enlar­ged Ger. trans., 1979)
3. Sch­nei­der: ‘Twen­tieth-Cen­tury Gui­tar: the Second Gol­den Age’, Gui­tar & Lute, no.12 (1980), 22–6 [dis­cus­ses 12 ‘spe­cia­list’ com­po­sers for the gui­tar, from Villa-Lobos to Brouwer]
4. Char­les­worth: A–Z of Rock Gui­ta­rists (Lon­don, 1982)
5. Sallis: The Gui­tar Pla­yers: One Ins­tru­ment and its Mas­ters in Ame­ri­can Music (New York, 1982/R)
6. Stro­pes and P. Lang: 20th-Cen­tury Mas­ters of Fin­ger-Sty­le Gui­tar (Mil­wau­kee, 1982)

M.J. Sum­mer­field: The Clas­si­cal Gui­tar: its Evo­lu­tion and its Pla­yers sin­ce 1800 (Gateshead, 1982, 3/1992)

1. Picart: Gui­tar héros (Paris, 1983)
2. Tobler and S. Grundy: The Gui­tar Greats (Lon­don, 1983)
3. Britt: The Jazz Gui­ta­rists (Poo­le, Dor­set, 1984)
4. Kienz­le: Great Gui­ta­rists (New York, 1985)
5. Chris­ten­sen: ‘Tage mit Saren­ko’, Gita­rre & Lau­te, viii/1 (1986), 13–16
6. Colon­na: Chi­ta­rris­ti-com­po­si­to­ri del XX seco­lo: le idee e le loro con­se­guen­ze (Padua, 1990)
7. Gue­rre­ro: Los gui­ta­rris­tas clá­si­cos de Méxi­co (Torreón, 1990)
8. Obrecht, ed.: Blues Gui­tar: the Men who Made the Music: from the Pages of Gui­tar Pla­yer Maga­zi­ne (San Fran­cis­co, 1990, 2/1993)
9. Yablo­kov: Klas­si­ches­ka­ya gita­ra v Ros­sii i SSSR: bio­gra­fi­ches­kiy muzï­ka­l’no-lite­ra­tur­niy slovar’-spravochnik russ­kikh i sovets­kikh deya­te­ley gitary (Tyu­men, 1992)
10. Gre­gory: 1000 Great Gui­ta­rists (Lon­don, 1994)
11. Mar­ten: Star Gui­tars: Gui­tars and Pla­yers that have Hel­ped Sha­pe Modern Music (Fuller­ton, CA, 1994) [empha­si­zes rock guitarists]
12. Gill: Gui­tar Legends: the Defi­ni­ti­ve Gui­de to the Worl­d’s Grea­test Gui­tar Pla­yers (Lon­don, 1995)
13. Pie­ters: ‘Die Wun­der­kin­der der Gita­rre wäh­rend der ers­ten Häl­fte des 19. Jahrhun­derts’, Gita­rre & Lau­te, xvii (1995), no.5, pp.13–21; no.6, pp.55–61