Modern classical guitar Modern classical guitar The modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar), the immediate forerunner of today's guitars, was developed in the 19th century by Antonio de Torres Jurado, Ignacio Fleta, Hermann Hauser Sr., Robert Bouchet The fingerstyle is used fervently on the modern classical guitar. The thumb traditionally plucks the bass or root note whereas the fingers ring the melody and its accompanying parts. Francisco Tárrega, Emilio Pujol, Andrés Segovia In the 20th century, many non-guitarist composers wrote for the instrument, which previously only players of the instrument had done. Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909), Roberto Gerhard (1896–1970), Heitor Villa-Lobos
Classical guitar overall interpretation. Thus over recent decades we have become accustomed to specialist artists with expertise in the art of vihuela (a 16th-century type of guitar popular in Spain), lute, Baroque guitar, 19th-century guitar, etc. Different types of guitars have different sound aesthetics, e.g. different colour-spectrum characteristics (the way the sound energy is spread in the fundamental frequency and the overtones), different response, etc. These differences are due to differences in construction; for example modern classical guitars usually use a different bracing (fan-bracing) from that used in earlier guitars (they had ladder-bracing); and a different voicing was used by the luthier.