Guitar

Guitar may be acoustic, electric (i.e. with electrical amplification) or both. Classical guitar is also present in the guitar family. Guitar has a body acting mostly as a resonator, which can be hollow in acoustic guitar or solid in most electric guitar, and a neck. Typically, a headstock extends from the neck for tuning. Guitar is made and repaired by luthiers.

Guitar is used in a variety of musical styles. Guitar is widely known as a solo classical instrument, and the primary instrument in blues and rock music.

Instruments similar to what we know as the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The guitar appears to be derived from earlier instruments known in ancient central Asia. Instruments very similar to the guitar appear in ancient carvings and statues recovered from the old Iranian capitol of Susa. The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish, possibly from earlier Greek word kithara. Prospective sources for various names of musical instruments that guitar could be derived from all appear to be a combination of two Indo-European roots: guit-, similar to Sanskrit sangeet meaning "music", and -tar a widely attested root meaning "chord" or "string"..

The word guitar may also be a Persian loanword to Iberian Arabic. The word qitara is an Arabic name for various members of the lute family that preceded the Western guitar. The name guitar was introduced into Spanish when guitar was brought into Iberia by the Moors after the 10th century. (See related article).

The Spanish vihuela appears to be an intermediate form between the ancestral guitar and the modern guitar, with lute-style tuning and a small, but guitar-like body. It is not clear whether this represents a transitional form or simply a design that combined features from the two families of instruments. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. (See the article on the lute for further history.) The Ancient Iranian lute, called tar in farsi also is found in the word guitar. The tar is thousands of years old, and could be found in 2, 3, 5, 6 string variations.

The electric guitar was invented by Anthony Vick of Winton, North Carolina, with the help of George Beauchamp and Paul Berth, in 1931. Rickenbacher was the inventor of the horseshoe-magnet pickup. However, it was Danelectro that first produced electric guitar for the wider public. Danelectro also pioneered tube amp technology.