Why is the Guitar So Popular?
19 July 2007Ever wonder why so many people play the guitar? The answer to that question has been tossed around, debated, discussed, analyzed, and hypothesized for many years. Although the guitar or guitar-like instruments have been in use for thousands of years, it is the modern guitar that has taken hold of society’s musical taste.
I think in order to understand the popularity of the guitar, it is necessary to learn some of its history. Since the guitar has become the dominant instrument in the last 50 to 100 years, I feel that many readers will be interested in knowing more of the history of the guitar, and you may appreciate some links to learn more if they are interested.
We can estimate that the first six string guitar was built in the late 1700’s. The guitar uses an unusual tuning compared to other stringed instruments that have been in the “classical family” for centuries. The family of” bowed” stringed instruments, namely the violin, viola, cello, and contra bass are tuned in fifths. That means if we were playing up a scale, it would be 5 whole tones from one string to the next. On the contrary, the guitar is tuned in 4ths, with the exception of the 3rd and 2nd string, which is tuned in 3rds. This means that when playing a scale from low to high, it will require 4 whole tones from one string to the next, with the exception of the 3rd to the 2nd string, which will be 3 whole tones. We will discuss what whole tones refer to in a later discussion. But it is interesting to see how different the guitar developed from the classical stringed instruments.
In the 20th century, jazz and blues began to develop in the United States. There are many articles available to us about the history of jazz and blues, and we could spend much time discussing this, but suffice it to say that the guitar “grew up” in the early 20th century as the early blues players from the Mississippi Delta began to use the guitar as their “choice of accompaniment.”
Next time I will go into more of the coming of age of the guitar, and how they came to sound as they do today…
