The guitar (violao) is a musical instrument that uses strings to produce sound. In general, the guitar is made with six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars are not rare.

Guitar (violao) is regarded as an instrument in many forms of music like blues, country, flamenco, rock and even pop. Acoustically playing, the guitar involves production of the signal by the vibration of the string and modulation by the hollow body. The electronic manipulation also be done in the tone using an amplifier.

Combinations of various woods, with either nylon strings or steel used to build guitars. The person who makes and repairs stringed instruments like guitar is called a luthier.

History and development of string instruments similar to guitar (violao) dates to at least 5,000 years. In those days, when the synthetic material was not available for making guitars, a guitar was defined as "a long, fretted neck, wooden sounding flat, ribs, and a flat back instrument, most with curved inward parts. "

There are two main types of guitars:

Acoustic guitar (violao): A sound card (found in front of the body of the guitar as a piece of wood) is used to produce the sound of this type of guitars. No external system or device is needed to produce sound. This makes the acoustic guitar quieter than other commonly found band or orchestra instruments and often an external amplifier is used to make the acoustic guitar sound and match the sound of other band instruments. The last series of acoustic guitars come with a series of pick-ups to expand and modify the raw guitar sound.

In the acoustic type guitar, sub-categories include: classical guitar, flamenco guitar, steel string guitars (including the flat top or "popular", guitar); Twelve guitars string; Arch-top guitars, Renaissance and Baroque guitars, resonator guitars resophonic or Dobro, guitars Russia acoustic bass guitars, tenor guitar, Harp guitar, extended reach, swing guitar.

Electric guitar: Electric guitar bodies are solid, semi-hollow or hollow. The sound produced is small and low without amplification. An amplifier is an integral part of electric guitars. Vibrations of steel strings converted to electrical signals electromagnetic pick-ups are fed into an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is often modified either using electronic devices or through distortion of valves naturally. The pick-ups here are of two types: a single line or double line, each can be active or passive. Guitar sound electricity is most commonly used in jazz, rock-n-roll and blues music style.

The construction of the guitar (violao) is based on whether the player left or right. Typically, players use their dominant hand to pluck the strings. For most people, is right hand. The other player's hand is on the frets for depressing and gripping guitar strings.

The various major guitar components include: head, nut, fingerboard, frets, bar truss, inlays, neck, heel or neck joint, strings, guitar body and pickups.

There are certain accessories that might be useful while playing the guitar (violao). Accessories like: Plectrum – also called the guitar pick is used to pick the strings. It's made of plastic as hard material; Slides – used for creating glissando effect in blues and rock music genre. The neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar, either these can be used as a slide; Copatasto – used to change the pitch of open strings.

About the Author:

This article can also be accessed in portuguese language from the Article section of page www.polomercantil.com.br/violao.php
Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for www.PoloMercantil.com.br

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Interesting Facts About Guitars

SC-020 The Major Scale – How and Why – Guitar Lesson