By Group 24
According to Dictionary.com, the basic, modern definition for a guitar is “a stringed musical instrument with a long, fretted neck, a flat, somewhat violinlike body, and typically six strings, which are plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum.” Instruments similar to following this modern definition are known to be popular for over 5,000 years. The original variation of the guitar is assumed to be originated from ancient India and Central Asia, known as the Sitara. The oldest know representation of a basic guitar is found in a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard (a poet or scholar of the Mediterranean regions).
The guitar commonly seen today is derived from a combination of the Roman cithara, brought by the Romans to the Spanish region in approximately 40 AD and the four-string oud from the Moors during the 8th century conquest of the Iberian peninsula.
The vihuela, a Spanish, guitar-like instrument from the 16th century, is believed to be the diversion from a renaissance style instrument to the modern guitar. It had a guitar styled body and lute styled tuning but only had a short period of popularity; it's last known publication of music is from 1576.
The modern dimensions of the guitar are credited to have been set by Antonio Torres Jurado (a Spanish guitarist and guitar maker) while working in Seville in the 1850s. The concept of fan strutting over traverse table bracing is believed to be in combination of works from Antonio Torres Jurado and Loius Panormo of London.
Guitars, or similar instruments, have been used by musicians for more than thousands of years. The first experiments with the electrical amplification of guitars took place in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. Guitarists were looking for ways of making their instruments match the volume of the ensembles in which they played, especially big dance bands. The principal problem was to find a suitable pickup.
In 1924, Lloyd Loar, an inventive engineer working for the Gibson guitar company, designed the first magnetic pick-up. In Loar's pickup design, the strings passed vibrations through the bridge to the magnet and coil, which registered those vibrations and passed the electric signal on to an amplifier. This first pick-up was crude, but it was a great beginning.
In 1931, the Electro String Company founded by Paul Barth, George Beauchamp, and Adolph Rickenbacker developed the first electric guitars marketed to the general public. These guitars, nicknamed "Frying Pans" because of their circular bodies and long necks, were Ôlap steelÕ or Hawaiian guitars because the instruments were played resting on the guitaristÕs lap and the strings being stopped by a steel bar held in the left hand. Around this time the National company produced one of the earliest electric Spanish-style guitars, followed shortly by Rickenbacker with the Electro Spanish model. The Gibson company entered the electric guitar market in 1935 with an Electric Hawaiian guitar, the EHÐ150, and an electric Spanish guitar, the ESÐ150.
The electric guitars quickly become popular, even though there was a major problem with their construction. The first electric guitar bodies would vibrate due to the amplified sounds coming through the speakers they were plugged into causing feed-back. Therefore, innovators sought to build a guitar with a solid body so it wouldnÕt vibrate so easily.
The electric guitar that is most prevalent today is the solid body electric guitar. The solid body guitar was created by musician and inventor Les Paul in 1941. It is a guitar made of solid wood with no soundholes. The original solid body guitar created by Les Paul was called "The Log" because it was very plain--a simple rectangular block of wood connected to a neck with six steel strings.
During the 1950s, Gibson introduced Les PaulÕs invention to the world. The Gibson Les Paul, as it was and still is called, quickly became a very popular electric guitar. It has remained the most popular guitar for 50 years.
Around the same period of time, another inventor named Leo Fender came up with a solid body electric guitar of his own. In the late 1940s, Fender introduced the Fender Broadcaster electric guitar. The Broadcaster, which was renamed the Telecaster, was officially introduced to the public in 1954. The Telecaster was a very different guitar in comparison to the Les Paul. It had a different shape, different hardware and was significantly lighter.
Check out the Five Noteworthy Instruments from 1931-1947
The Spanish guitar, also known as Classical guitar or nylon guitar, is a musical instrument from the family of musical instruments called chordophones. The Spanish guitar is characterized by nylon strings (the bass strings usually being of nylon wound with a thin metallic "thread") which are plucked by the guitarists fingers. The name classical guitar does not mean that only classical repertoire is performed on it, but all kinds of music like rock, pop, classical, jazz, folk, etc. can be and are performed on it.
More information can be found on the Spanish Guitar
The origin of Hawaiian guitar music is generally credited to the Mexican and Spanish cowboys who were hired by King Kamehameha III around 1832. It was from the Hawaiian cowboys, or paniolos, that the tradition of Hawaiian slack key guitar music finds its roots. The Hawaiian guitar was a 6-string wooden guitar built to be a Spanish guitar, but converted to a steel guitar by inserting a metal converter nut over the nut at the headstock to raise the strings about a half inch off the fret-board, and played with a steel bar. It was laid flat on the player's knees, and therefore the sound was directed to the ceiling.
Legend has it that in the mid 1890's Joseph Kekuku, a Hawaiian schoolboy, discovered the sound of the Hawaiian steel guitar while walking along a railroad track strumming his Portuguese guitar. He picked up a bolt lying by the track and slid the metal along the strings of his guitar. Intrigued by the sound, he taught himself to play using the back of a knife blade."
Over the years the sound of the Hawaiian steel guitar has found its way into many forms of American and world music including blues, "hillbilly", country and western music, rock and pop and also the music of Africa and India.
More information can be found on the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association
Electric Bass Guitar
The roots of today’s electric bass guitar, more commonly known as the electric bass, date back to the 17th century, when the electric bass’s less practical, distant relative, called the “double bass” was introduced. Although, not until the 20th century, did significant advances come to the design of the bass.
The first electric double bass was introduced in the 1920s by Lloyd Loar of Gibson, a guitar manufacturer. This design used an electro-static pickup, but due to a lack of technology in bass amplification, there remained no practical way of hearing this instrument play. Finally, arriving with the entrance into the 1930s came a much more reasonably sized electric bass, built by Paul Tutmarc. This model’s features included a 42-inch long solid body, composed of black walnut, a pickup, and piano strings. His design was featured in the sales catalogue of Audiovox as the “electric bass fiddle”. Midway through the decade, popular names in the guitar-making industry, such as Lyon & Healy, Rickenbacker, and Gibson began production on much less bulky, yet still tall, unfretted and upright, bass designs.
The beginning of the 1940s brought the first instance of an electric bass guitar being produced by a big-time guitar distributor. Based out of Portland, Oregon, L.D. Heater Music Co., working in coordinance with designer Paul Tutmarc, manufactured a fretted instrument with a pickup, which was much smaller than earlier versions of the electric bass. What made this bass stand out from previous models was that this instrument was meant to be played more like a standard guitar, that is, in the horizontal position rather than upright. Still, mass production of the electric bass did not come along until the 1950s.
Leo Fender gains credit for introducing the Precision Bass, also known as the P-bass, to the world, in the year 1951. To many people, this is the first “real” appearance of the electric bass guitar, despite the developments of the double bass instrument, prior to this point, although, there were at least five other prototypes in existence, resembling the modern electric bass guitar. Despite the controversy, now, players were able play perfectly toned notes due to the presence of frets on the bass. Added comfort was given by the contoured body design with its beveled edges. Withholding the test of time, this design became very popular and recognizable throughout the guitar playing masses, then and now. Following suit, a small number of other guitar companies such as Danelectro, Rickenbacker, and Hofner began manufacturing similarly designed electric bass guitars throughout the 1950s. And in 1953, Gibson released its violin-shaped EB-1 Bass. Tweaks to the headstock and pickguard fine-tuned the electric bass, in 1957. Two years later, more conventional design showed up, with Gibson’s EB-0. This design was closely similar in styling to the ever-popular Gibson SG. That same year, Danelectro created the first six-string bass.
Despite Gibson’s advances, Fender still dominated the electric bass guitar market, dawning the term “Fender bass”, a popular nickname for the electric bass, throughout the 1950s and 1960s. What really blew Gibson out of the water was the Fender Jazz Bass (J-bass), also known as the Deluxe Bass, which complimented Fender’s Jazzmaster Guitar. In 1964, Fender also designed the first five-string bass. Other developments of the 1960s include the first fretless electric bass by Ampeg, in 1965, and an eight-string bass by Hagstroem. This period brought such great advances and mass interest to the industry that in 1969, Carol Kaye released a bass instructional book entitled How to Play the Electric Bass.
Leo Fender rolled in the 1970s with the founding of Music Man Instruments. M.M.I.’s claim to fame came with the production of the StingRay. This was the first widely-produced, electronically powered electric bass guitar, which meant bringing an impedance buffering pre-amplifier to the table, lowering the output impedance of the bass’s pickup circuit, increasing low-end output and overall frequency response. All of this, in turn, created a greater range of highs and lows. Specific models began to correlate to specific styles of music, for example, the Rickenbacker 4001 series became identified with progressive rock bassists like Chris Squire of Yes, while Louis Johnson of the funk band, Brothers Johnson, played the StingRay. In 1971, Alembic established the standard for what would be known as “boutique” or “high end” electric basses. Boutique electric basses, which featured unique designs made of premium wood bodies, were custom-tailored and hand-crafted by masters of the art. These basses were much more expensive than standard models, although. Alembic, along with other boutique electric bass makers, began producing four-string and five-string basses, which included a low “B” note, in the mid-1970s. Anthony Jackson (bassist, 1975), commissioned guitar-maker Carl Thompson to make a six-string bass tuned B, E, A, D, G, C, high to low. This same man is known for building the first fretless six-string bass in 1978. Finishing up the developments of the ‘70s was Ned Steinberger, who introduced a headless bass in the last year of the decade.
Steinberger also introduced the Trans-Trem tremolo bar, using new materials such as graphite in 1984. Three years later, Guild Guitar Corporation launched the fretless Ashbory bass, with a piezoelectric pickup and silicone rubber strings, which was used to produce a “double bass” sound, accompanying a short eighteen-inch scale length. Later into the 80s, the bass was popularized by MTV’s “Unplugged”. In the 1990s, five-string basses became much more widely, affordable and available. The five-string instruments are used for added lower range, pertaining to genres ranging from metal to gospel. What were formerly known as “boutique” instruments also became increasingly more affordable and available throughout the ‘90s into the 2K years. Today, classic designs such as the Fender Precision Bass and the Fender Jazz Bass still remain extremely popular, and in 2006, Fender released the 60th Anniversary Edition P-bass. Although, many tweaks and improvements have revolutionized the electric bass industry, basic design is still standing true. One can only hope that many further enhancements may bless the time-tested design of the electric bass guitar.
"The Portuguese guitar is known for being a similar model to the preceding English guitar. It has twelve strings and is strung in six courses, with each course being comprised of two strings. The Portuguese guitar came to be in the 18th century when there was a lot of trade between the British and Portuguese. The Portuguese guitar however, was not nearly as popular as other forms of guitar. It was only used moderately throughout big cities in Portugal. This could be due to the fact that the English guitar was in high demand at the time and therefore was much more popular and appealing. Sadly the Portuguese guitar never had a big role in music and no instrument of its kind is used anymore.
The mainstream types of the Portuguese guitar are the Lisboa guitar and the Coimbra guitar. These two types differ in the scale and also the body measurements, which leads primarily to a different in timbre or tone color. The Lisboa version is known for its crystalline bell-quality like sound, having a larger waist relative to the Coimbra guitar and a more narrow neck. The Coimbra guitar has a teardrop shaped oval and is tuned one tone lower than a Lisboa guitar; this is turn leads to its longer scale. Armandinho, a Portuguese guitar artist born in 1891, was know for being one of the most influential players of the Lisboa version of the Portuguese guitar. Armandinho's playing style was characterized by the overuse of tremolo picking, along with muting and glissandos. However, Armandinho was not the originator of this style for it reflected the style of Lisboa guitarist from decades before. Armandinho's playing was most commonly accompanied by Fado singers in Lisboa and is most well know for the recorded label "His Master's Voice." Other notable players of the Lisboa guitar are Fontes Rocha, Jaime Santos, Jose Nunes and Raul Nery.
Artur Paredes, a Portuguese guitar artist born in 1899, preferred the Coimbra style of the Portuguese guitar. He was a key artist in the city of Coimbra. So much that today most of the Combra guitar features can be traced back to Artur Paredes' and his contact with the local luthiers. Artur Paredes throughout the 1920's would accompany Coimbra student vocalist and perform. Most of his work was either lost or never recorded however, he is still accredited for being very popular in the movement of the instrument. Another notable player of the Coimbra style guitar was Carlos Paredes, the son of Artur Paredes. It is often argued who was more popular player. Carlos Paredes' music was known for being hard to distinguish between having Portuguese folk motifs or being a simple, classical inspired melodies. Other than Artur and Carlos Paredes notable players of the Coimbra style of the Portuguese guitar included Antonio Portual and Antonio Brojo."
The guitar is perhaps one of the most popular musical instruments in the world today. They are recognized as one of the primary instruments in many different styles of music such as country, rock, pop and blues. Today, there are two main styles of ways that guitars can be played; either acoustically or electronically. Each guitar has its own style and is played with a different kind of music. The acoustic guitar is a light weight, non-electric guitar that can accompany to many different types of music. The acoustic guitar is not dependant on any electronic devices and is a much quieter guitar than the electric guitar, this helps bring out the raw sound of the guitar. However, with an electronic guitar the sounds of the strings are sent through an amplifier in which it converts the vibrations into electrical signals, often producing a much louder sound than the acoustic guitar. The acoustic guitar has gone through a significant amount of changes throughout the last century and is still a wonderful instrument for beginners and professionals. I will be discussing the brief history of the guitar, the construction of acoustic guitars and how they work, as well as distinguishing some of the different types of acoustic guitars.
The guitar dates all the way back into the Ancient Babylonian times of 1850B.C. where figures were shown playing musical instruments in which some had a general resemblance of the guitar. Later evidence from Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt also suggest that stringed instruments were used in these times as well. However it was not until around the 19th Century that the guitar became a widely known instrument. Europeans get most credit for the early development of the acoustic guitar, however today’s steel stringed acoustic guitars were developed in America. During Renaissance times, guitars were either four-course or five-course, meaning they had four or five sets of strings. Renaissance guitars were much like the modern twelve string guitar which has twelve strings and six courses. The sound produced by these multi-stringed guitars is a much richer sound than the modern six string guitar. The guitar has been around for a very long time, and it has been about 200 years that people have been developing the guitar to fit different types of music (ThinkQuest.org).
The Acoustic Guitar is a descendant from the Classical Guitar which has been around for about 100 years. The main difference between the classical guitar and the acoustic guitar is that the classical guitar is strung with nylon string where as the Acoustic Guitar is strung with steel, giving it a louder tone. Another major difference is the acoustic guitar has a bigger body, stronger structure and a narrower neck so it can withstand more pressure placed on the steel strings. A major aspect in the makeup of a quality acoustic guitar is what kind of wood is used to make it. When talking about the type of wood used to make a guitar, the better wood you use will make a big difference in how the guitar will play. The better sounding acoustic guitars will usually be made out of better cut wood. As for the body of the guitar, more expensive acoustics will be made from higher cuts of solid spruce top wood. As for the neck of the guitar, more expensive guitars are made up of mahogany, maple or rosewood. Acoustic guitars with necks made of a high quality maple or mahogany and bodies made with solid spruce top are quality guitars with great tone (Ezine Articles).
Unlike the electric guitar, which depends on electronic amplification to be heard, the acoustic guitar uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted onto the front of the guitar. During the playing of an acoustic guitar, there is no amplification occurring during this process, so no energy is being externally added to increase the loudness of the sound. This is the distinguishing factor between the acoustic and electronic guitars. All the energy is provided by the plucking of the string. An unamplified acoustic guitar, one with no soundboard, would have a low volume but the strings would vibrate much longer. The body of the guitar is hollow, so the vibrating strings drive the soundboard through the bridge, making it vibrate. The soundboard has a larger surface area and thus displaces a larger volume of air, producing a much louder sound than what the strings alone would sound like. As the soundboard vibrates, sound waves are produced from both the front and back faces. The back of the guitar will also vibrate a little, driven by the air in the cavity. Some sound is ultimately projected through the sound hole. This sound mixes with the sound produced by the front face of the soundboard. This sound will result in a complex mixture of harmonics that gives the acoustic guitar its distinctive sound (Wikipedia).
There are over ten different types of the acoustic guitar. The most common are the Dreadnought, Parlor and Classical. However all of the different types are used to accompany different styles of music. First is the Dreadnought guitar in which there are three different types; the six string, the twelve strings and the cutaway. The six string Dreadnought style guitar is sometimes called the western guitar. It is a big guitar with a full, loud sound and is accompanied with lots of bass. This is the type of guitar that and average player would use because they accompany singers and fit into many different types of music. The twelve string dreadnought guitar is very similar to the six string guitar but has double the amount of strings. The strings work in pairs that are tuned to the same note. The twelve string guitar has a much richer and higher sound and is less ideal for beginners because of the additional strings. The last member of the Dreadnought family is the Cutaway. The Cutaway Dreadnought strings are cut so that you can reach much higher notes and frets. This guitar has a lot less bass and an is accompanied with a much higher increase in volume (Blues for Kids 1,3,4).
The next most popular is the Parlor Guitar. The term parlor describes the size and style of the guitar. These guitars have smaller bodies than dreadnaughts and often even smaller than the classical guitar. Their reduced size is not to accompany smaller players, contrary to popular belief, but rather to provide for a more even frequency response. The bass, treble and all other frequencies in between are the same volume. This helps accompany finger style players as opposed to players who use a pick. It also has a wider neck which better accommodates the finger style players because it gives him or her more room to get their individual fingers in between the strings (Blues for Kids 5).
Lastly is the Classical Guitar, sometimes also called the Spanish Guitar. This type of guitar is characterized by the use of its nylon strings which are plucked by the guitarists’ fingers. Typically these types of guitars have a very wide neck and a flat fingerboard. Most instructors feel that this is the best guitar to be used by beginners because the lighter string tension is much easier on the fingers. Classical guitars are mostly used for classical music, so most musicians tend to stick with steel stringed guitars for more popular music styles (Blues For Kids 6).
Over the years, the acoustic guitar has become a much perfected guitar. Its unique body and distinct sound have helped it become one of the most used guitars in the world. The acoustic guitar is non electric, so it is not dependant on electric amplification to be heard. With all of the different types of acoustic guitars, I’m sure you can see why it is one of the most popular used musical instruments in our world today. With its rich history dating back hundreds of years, it’s no wonder there are so many different types of these guitars. Ever since the first guitar dating all the way back into the Ancient times, guitars have been a huge part of the musical lifestyle. The acoustic guitar is an amazing instrument for both beginners and professionals, and it is no doubt that each guitar better suits a different kind of music. Thanks to the transformation of the acoustic guitar, it has helped bring together millions of people through the playing of music.
Acoustic bass guitars were originally devolved in the 1960’s. Created in San Luis Obispo, California by Ernie Ball. He first came up with the idea after realizing that if an electric guitar had an electric bass guitar then the Acoustic guitar should also have a counterpart. At this time he realized that the closest thing to his idea was a Mexican “guitarron” and he went to Tijuana played around with it. He soon teamed up with a former employee of fender named George Fullerton to develop and introduce the Earthwood Acoustic Guitar in 1972. “The Ernie Ball company describes Ball's design as "an idea before its time"; the instrument was little-used in acoustic musical performances until the late 1980s, when the acoustic basses were used in performances on the MTV Unplugged television program.” 1 The guitar was also very deep and bulky because of this the Acoustic Bass guitar was taken out of production in 1974. It was brought back by an employee of Ball years later and then was taken out of production again in 1985.
The instrument is a large hollow wooden guitar that is mostly fretted but sometimes fretless. The bass has 4 strings just as the electric bass with notes tuned to E A D and G. It is sometimes difficult to hear an Acoustic bass so they have pickups so they can be plugged into an amp or a PA system.
There are many manufactures of bass guitars including the following Alvarez, Breedlove, Cort, Crafter, Jerzey, Dean, Eston, Gibson, Washburn, Ibanez, Maton, Ovation, Michael Kelly, Prestige Ribbecke Halfling Bass, Sunlite, Takamine, Tacoma, Tanglewood, Fender and Martin.
Guitarrón in Spanish Really means large guitar. It is a 6 stringed acoustic bass guitar. Early guitarrons had five gut strings and were unvarnished. It is an element of a mariachi band which includes at least three violins, two trumpets, one Mexican guitar, one vihuela and one guitarrón. Due to the guitarróns large size it does not need an amplifier because of its deep body it works well at projecting sound. The strings are very heavy in guage and it has no frets. It is also said that it takes someone with a strong left arm to play the guiarron. The hard resistance when striking a string with a pick is impeccable as it takes great skill. It inspired the creation of the Acoustic bass guitar. It was very popular in Spain and France as well as the Latin countries. Since it has six strings, an interesting fact is that three of the strings are nylon-wound with a nylon core, and the other three strings are metal bases that vary between copper, brass, bronze, or steel.
The Bordouna is a guitar native to Puerto Rico with a large deep body that comes in many shapes and sizes, some are known to look like Panama, but definitely much larger. It is the biggest plucked instrument of Puerto Rico. The original Bordouna has evolved from the 16th century from a Spanish Baja de uno. In the 1920’s and 1930’s the Bordouna served as an accompaniment to melody instead of the typical bass role. Today, all Bordouna are used as bass guitars as they promote folk music. There are many different bordouna types today depending on the number of the strings it has. The six-string bordouna is called the “6-string Bordouna,” the eight string bordouna has four pairs of strings attached, and the most common type of bordouna contains five pairs of strings also known as the “10-string bordouna.” The guitar boudouna has the deepest voice of all the instruments in Puerto Rico which is why it is able to be played as a melody or chord.
From the bordouna guitar branches off a smaller version called the bandurria which are the same as the larger version. They have a figure eight shape and a very narrow waist between the upper and lower bouts.
It was virtually replaced by the classical guitar because of its melody. Bordouna artists have developed great sounds and styles of playing called "lloriqueo" and "gemido.” The Bordouna is now in disuse asides for the special orchestras devoted to keep folk music alive.
Talk boxes are devices that use the shape of the artist’s mouth to modify the sound coming out of an instrument. The most widely known use of the talk boxes are with guitars. It is usually a pedal on the floor which directs the sound to either the talkbox speaker or the normal speaker. The frequency changes in the artist’s voice are really what determine the sound modification of the guitar. It has the same effects that vocal folds have when speaking. A speaker in the artist’s mouth and a microphone outside allow the artist to use their mouth to allow different frequencies and volumes without using their hands. The first well known use of this device was Pete Drake who used it with his pedal steel guitar in the song Forever. This song was released in 1964 and his guitar got to be known as the “talking steel guitar.”
Effects pedals are most commonly associated with electric guitars. They are devices that are encased in a metal housing which the guitarist can turn on and off with his foot. It adds various changes to the sound of the guitar coming out of the amplifier. Distortion, fuzz, overdrive, and reverberation are all things that these pedals can cause to the sound of the instrument. There are some pedals where actually rocking your foot determines the amount to which the sound is modified. Pedals are intended mostly for live performances only. This is because in a studio there are more advanced pedals which are actually mounted in the wall and many can be switched to without having the artist worry about the pedal. For multiple effects the artist can have multiple pedals all linked to each other in a chain. When the pedal is inactive the sound is put through the bypass and no effect is added or sound is altered. Then it can reach the next pedal unaffected. This also can allow the artist to make combinations with the pedals so although you may only have four pedals you can have a large number of different sounds that can be produced.
Delay is an effect which will record an input, store it in an audio storage medium, and then can be replayed in a loop effect. The recording can be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again thus creating and echoing effect. This is a very useful tool for solo artists. This will allow an artist to play the rhythm to a song, put it on a loop effect, and then play the lead or solo parts of the song without having the need of another guitarist present. Before the invention of delays the artist would have to play the music in a place where there were naturally occurring echoes to have it recorded. Some of the first delay devices used magnetic analog recording. With the final invention of digital delays, the possibilities became much easier. The digital delays started out very expensive and were large and wall mounted. Eventually smaller less expensive delays were released, and these actually became the size of a pedal. This really helped the delays to become more widely available. Eventually delays were added to the computers in studios and it became much easier for artists to record echoes or record a repeating part of a song.
Distortion is usually used in all types of harder or punk rock. It is an effect that is added to the guitar usually through a pedal before it reaches the amplifier. It can give the lead guitar great effects for solos or provide a crunchy tone to the rhythm guitar. The effect of distortion is actually a device which makes the sound come out as though it were more powerful than the amplifier can handle. The amount of distortion and volume increase the harder the strings are plucked when this effect is added. Early attempts to create distortion were used by the artist using a razor or screwdriver to actually poke holes in the speaker and cause the sound to not come out as clear. At a later time artists found ways to do this electronically and no longer needed to ruin their equipment.
History of the Guitar: http://guitar.about.com/od/education/a/history_guitar.htm
Wikipedia entry for 'Guitar': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar
Music Guidebook: http://www.musicguidebook.com/articles/electric-guitar-history-how-music-was-changed-forever
Ezine Articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Brief-History-Of-The-Electric-Guitar&id=439356
How Stuff Works 'Electric Guitar': http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar3.htm
Wikipedia entry for 'Portuguese Guitar': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_guitar
Verdes Anos Portuguese Guitar: http://www.verdesanos.com/gp_e.htm
Wikipedia entry for 'Acoustic Guitar': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_guitar
Types of Acoustic Guitars: http://www.blues4kids.com/musical_instruments/html/acoustic_types.htm
A Look at the History of the Acoustic Guitar and How they Work: http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Look-At-The-History-Of-The-Acoustic-Guitar-And-How-They-Work&id=534902
ThinkQuest.org 'Acoustic Guitar': http://library.thinkquest.org/C001468F/library/instruments/strings/acousticguitars.htm
Wikipedia entry for 'Talk Box': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_box
Wikipedia entry for 'Guitar Pedals': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_pedals
Wikipedia entry for 'Delay': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_pedal
Wikipedia entry for 'Distortion': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_%28guitar%29