answersLogoWhite

0

There is no specific person ever noted in history that invented the guitar, all historians know is that the oldest known guitar like instrument was discovered around 3,300 years ago in a stone engraving. Guitars were developed from early guitar-like instruments so the exact date of the first modern guitar is difficult to determine:

  • Thousands of years ago - tantar and sitar developed in India. The name guitar comes from the original name for sitar
  • 3300 years ago Hittites played stringed guitar like instruments
  • 40 CE the Romans have a cithara which is brought to Spain and combined with the Moorish oud
  • 8th century CE - 6 stringed instruments in use in Europe
  • 12th century CE - 4 string guitars in use, some with central sound holes
  • 15th and 16th century the Spanish have guitar like, but lute-tuned, instruments
  • 1779 CE first six string guitars in Italy - built by the Vincaccia family
  • Modern guitars in place (look, size, tuning) in the 1850's

The name 'guitar' is derived from the ancient Greek 'kithara', traditionally the lyre used by Apollo, the god of music. A lyre is not a guitar, though. The guitar is a member of the necked-lute family, which includes instruments from double-basses to mandolins. A lyre has a frame to attach the strings to, rather than a neck. The earliest depiction of a necked string instrument dates back to the West Semites of the 3rd millennium BCE in Syria; the earliest extant examples come from Egypt in the second millennium BCE.

The earliest surviving depiction of an instrument with the guitar's characteristic hourglass body shape, as distinct from the classic oval of most lutes, is a carving from the first century CE, in Uzbekistan, Central Asia. After the 4th century this guitar shape is not seen again until it turns up in Byzantium in the 11th century, and then, increasingly, in Europe.

The Renaissance guitar in the 15th-16th centuries was not unlike the present day Ukulele, though double-strung.

User Avatar

Wiki User

8y ago

What else can I help you with?