Russian guitar Russian guitar The Russian guitar (sometimes referred to as a "Gypsy guitar") is an acoustic seven-string guitar that was developed in Russia toward the end of the 18th century: it shares most of its organological features with the Spanish guitar, although some historians insist on English guitar ascendancy. It is known in Russian as the "semistrunnaya gitara" (семиструнная гитара), or affectionately as the "semistrunka" (семиструнка), which translates to "seven-stringer". These guitars are most commonly tuned to an open G chord as follows: . In classical literature, the lowest string (D) occasionally is tuned down to the C. Although in a
Classical guitar strumming of the string by the fingers in reverse order employing the back of the fingernail—a familiar characteristic of Flamenco. Flamenco technique, in the performance of the rasgueado also uses the upstroke of the four fingers and the downstroke of the thumb: the string is hit not only with the inner, fleshy side of the fingertip but also with the outer, fingernail side. This was also used in a technique of the vihuela called dedillo which has recently begun to be introduced on the classical guitar. Some modern guitarists, such as Štěpán Rak and Kazuhito Yamashita, use the little finger