Summary
These problems kept the guitar relegated to composers' bedrooms until the beginning of the 19th century when advances in tooling allowed luthiers (instrument builders) to replace the gut frets with metal frets. Shortly thereafter, during the mid-19th century, a luthier named Antonio de Torres went to work on the volume problem. The first thing he did was make guitars bigger. Then he experimented with different types of woods, called "tone woods," to use on the top (the part with the hole in it) of the guitar. After finding some great tone woods, he then changed the bracing pattern on the inside of the guitar. Bracing is important because it keeps the thin top of the guitar from bending forward with the string tension. With better wood and better bracing, the volume of the guitar got louder. The "Stradivarius of the guitar," as Torres has been called, even went so far as to make a guitar with papier-mache back and sides, and a braced tone wood top to improve instrument volume. Torres is credited with inventing the modern-day classical guitar.
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Extract
Rock of Ages& a Short History of the Guitar
Armed with only three or four chords, the modern-day guitarist can play some of the greatest songs ever written. But, things used to be different--the guitar used to be ignored. And unlike other string instruments such as the violin--which has remained...
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