| | Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:11 pm | | | | Comments: 0 Views: 262 |
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Exactly when the six-string guitar came about is ambiguous. Its initial popularity started in either France or Italy (Johanson, 2001, p. 37), and part of that fashion may have included cutting part of the headstock off 10 course baroque guitars in order to more resemble a six-string guitar. This indicates that the Baroque Guitar, Six course guitar, and six string guitar all existed in popularity simultaneously but that the music increasingly required instruments with greater range and contrapuntal capacity, which is congruent with the blooming Classical Style in music composition.
The construction of the six-course guitar, which increased the size of the soundboard from the five-course guitar, became popular towards the end of the 18th century. Guitarists started using standard notation more often, which allowed the guitar to exist closer to higher and more popular tastes. A more effective fan bracing system for the soundboard was developed during this time, which improved the guitar's tone, volume and strength. In 1780 Antonio Ballestero published Obra para guitarra de seis odrenes, which was the first piece of music published for the six-course guitar. In 1799 the six-course guitar is established by four publications from Spain. (Johanson, 2001, p.36-37).
Guitarists began stringing their guitars without courses at the very end of the 18th century. In 1790 Antoine Marcel Lemoine published Nuvelle method courte et facile pour la guitarra a l'usage de commencans. This composition contains music for the five and six single string guitar. Courses often had trouble playing in tune because the gut strings could not be gauged consistently. By removing the doubled tones the guitar could play more in tune and reduce the amount of time it took to tune, though, this detracted from the tone and volume of the instrument.
Equal temperament and advances in metal tooling allowed guitars to use permanent metal frets, and guitars also started using tuning machines instead of the less accurate tuning pegs. It didn't take long for metal frets to completely replace tied gut frets on guitars. The guitar also elevated the neck and extended the fretboard onto the body of the guitar using wooden frets that extended to the soundhole giving the guitar as many as 17 frets. These modifications to the fretboard required that the bridge be raised and a saddle be built to support the height of the bridge (Johanson, 2001, p. 38-39).
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