History of the classical guitar History of the classical guitar The evolution of classical guitars began with the influences of the vihuela and gittern in the sixteenth century and ended with the modern classical guitar in the mid nineteenth century. While the precise lineage of the instrument is still unclear, historians believe that the guitar is the descendant of the Greek kithara, gittern, lyre, European and Middle Eastern lutes, and the Spanish vihuela. The poem "The Book of Good Love" [circa 1330] describes two early instruments, guitarra morisca and guitarra latina. Instruments called "guitars" were first mentioned in literature in the 13th century, though many
Classical guitar technique is known as a trill. Because the note is being plucked repeatedly it is possible to continue a trill indefinitely. Occasionally, the upper note in such a trill is played by alternating fingers thus: 2-1-3-1-, etc. The classical guitar vibrato is executed by rocking the tip of the left-hand finger(s) back and forth horizontally within the same fret space (i.e. along the string axis, and not across it as for a vertical "bend" in rock or blues music) producing a subtle variation in pitch, both sharper and flatter than the starting note, without noticeably altering the fundamental tonal focus of