Classical guitar
A Classical guitar is a Musical instrument from the guitar family. Also called Spanish guitar.The classical guitar is distinguished by a number of features.
- It is an acoustic instrument. The sound is amplified by a sound box.
- It has six strings. A few classical guitars have eight or more strings to expand the bass scale, allowing lute music written for lutes with more than six courses of strings to be played.
- The strings are made from cat gut, or much more commonly these days nylon, as opposed to the metal strings found in some other forms of guitar. These strings have a much lower tension than steel strings. The lower three strings ('bass strings') are wound with metal, commonly silver or bronze. Some less common stringings use a fourth wound string.
- Because of the low tension of the strings the neck can be made entirely of wood, not requiring a steel truss road.
- The neck tends to be broader than with steel string guitars, making more complex work easier, but requiring a left hand position which ultimately makes the guitar less stable to hold. The fretboard is flat, not curved.
- The strings are usually plucked with the fingers. Serious players shape their fingernails so that they contact the string in a certain way to achieve the desired tone.
The heyday of the classical guitar repertoire lies in the 19th century. Some guitar composers are:
- Dionisio Aguado 1784-1849
- Leo Brouwer 1939-
- Matteo Carcassi 1792-1853
- Fernando Carulli 1770-1841
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 1895-1968
- Napoleon Coste 1806-1883
- Mauro Giuliani 1780-1840
- Luigi Legnani 1790-1877
- Miguel Llobet 1878-1937
- Joaquin Rodrigo 1901-1999
- Fernando Sor 1778-1839
- Francisco Tarrega 1852-1909
- Heitor Villa-Lobos 1887-1959
Classical guitar players:
- Manuel Barrueco
- Ben Bolt
- Julian Bream 1933
- Charo
- Eric Hamilton
- Andrés Segovia 1893-1987
- Narciso Yepes 1927-1997
- John Williams 1941
- Pepé Romero
- Angél Romero
