Talk:Guitar/Archive 2

Vandalism
There's pretty blatant vandalism in the introduction. As an unregistered reader, I can do nothing about it. I hope someone will; I noticed some mention of it in the page history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.195.147.144 (talk) 01:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a Deleuze-Guattari guitar! Those are a couple of philosophers of postmodernism... Please delete this.

I've reverted what seems to be some vandalism in the introduction stating that the guitar was "invented by tyler olausen". Dexeron (talk) 16:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Wrong guitar description in the top-level image?
It says Classic guitar and Bass guitar when both seems to be classic guitars and there is no Bass guitar.

Playing range
The picture at the beginning that shows the playing range of regularly tuned guitars isn't correct. Guitar can reach much higher notes even if it is regularly tuned. For example, even fret 12 out of 19 in classical guitars in the bottom string is a higher note than the one the picture shows.
 * Geez Sorry, a little more knowledge and I understand what it is showing so beat it you asses.--AresAndEnyo (talk) 08:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[Personal attack by Bluestribute removed]

Small Typo
I noticed a small typo:

"In an acoustic instrument, the body of th guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it."

Just thought I'd point that out.

Also, in the tuning section: "One exponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan." The word should be "proponent" not "exponent." Nygenxer (talk) 07:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)nygenxer

Both tasks have been completed (not by me) Abcasada (talk) 17:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Disco guitars
Does anyone know anything about the unique guitar sounds in disco music?

Why is there an 8 below the clef on some guitar music? 24.250.2.248 (talk) 04:47, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

There is an 8 underneath the Clef of guitar music, because the guitar is an Transposing instrument. Middle C sound an octave lower. Barnadine (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Error in the History Section
Indian sitar is mentioned in the article as the ancestor of the modern guitar. This is wrong as the sitar itself is a derivative of the tar, an ancient instrument from central Asia. The word تار tar itself means "string" in Persian. This is the root of the name of the guitar, as well as the Indian sitar. The waisted shape of the tar is clearly visible in the classical guitar. The article also mentions a 3300 year old Indian carving as the oldest pictographic representation of similar instruments, while the ancient carvings and statues recovered from Susa, depicted in the article, are some 4000 years old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.169.241.31 (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The mention of Danelectro is out of place - Epiphone, Gibson and others were producing archtop electric guitars which were widely available and played in the jazz and blues scenes from the 1930s onward, and Fender began producing popular solid body electrics from the early 1950s onward (e.g. Esquire, Telecaster, Stratocaster). Danelectro are deserving of a place in a more detailed article on solid body electrics perhaps, but they hardly constitute a key part of the design history of the guitar or even the electric guitar in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.164.27 (talk) 03:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Error in strings section
I noticed that when it says "Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings." It should say Or more recently with either nylon, steel, brass, or nickel wound strings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sawicki5 (talk • contribs) 19:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Too much spam
There is way too much spam in this article!! can someone fix it please??


 * Please be more specific. feydey (talk) 13:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ❌ - please provide specific examples of what should be removed, and establish a consensus that the removal is appropriate. Happy‑melon 09:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

For example Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music site links to page witch ask for username and password. <boooooobe confused with double neck guitars). There is a comparison to a 12 string but no mention that there are actual 12 string electrics, which there are. There is no mention of the 5 string bass or 6 string bass. The multiple necks (double neck, etc.) are mentioned after electric bass only. This may confuse some readers because there are multiple neck guitars other than basses.

I mentioned earlier that acoustic was covered well but the double necks are not mentioned in that section even though there are double necked acoustics and steel guitars.

There is a mention of hybrids of the acoustic and electric. Maybe this should be another section because you have electric acoustics, electric acoustic basses (which can be further broken down to 5 strings and 6 strings), electric acoustic double necks, electric acoustic 12 string, etc.

There are probably more kinds of guitars not mentioned. If putting all this in the section is too much, an idea would be to list all the other types with a link to read more on them. Feral Mind (talk) 13:08, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * There should be some coverage on the sizes of guitar too. Also most common sizes for kids and adults.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.200.30.4 (talk) 15:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there such a thing as a neckless guitar? 198.177.27.27 (talk) 00:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Barely. If you search for "neckless guitar", you'll find at least one patent for such a thing. Now, if you count pedal steels, are they guitars? If so, are they neckless or are they bodyless? --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 02:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Tuning- scordatura
to imitate lute tuning the 3rd string is tuned to F-sharp, not the 2nd string to B-flat as stated in the article. There are many sources for this including various editions of Dowland lute music transcribed for guitar. 193.113.37.9 (talk) 11:43, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Possible vandalism
it appears that to users who have not logged in that the first sentence of the article contains a sentence which is offensive and irrelevant DrNeutrophil (talk) 01:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Japanese t-shirt
Today, I went into my office in Tokyo, feeling somewhat grumpy and crappy because I've been off sick for the last couple of days with the flu (or something flu-like). Being Casual Friday, one of my Canadian co-workers was wearing a typical decorative Japanese t-shirt, the type with the chunk of English text on it 'cause it looks cool. This t-shirt, however, unlike pretty much every other one I've seen before, had its English text not in "Engrish", but in perfectly coherent, understandable, and even informative English. Pretty unusual for a Japanese t-shirt maker to pay attention to such details, I thought -- and then I had a hunch.

I'm sure you see where this is going: I went to the computer, looked up this article on Wikipedia, lo, right there in this section was essentially the text in question. Proof:

When I pointed this out to my co-worker, he lamented that Wikipedia may mean the death of "Engrish". Hey, Wikipedia IS doing some good. It made my day. --Calton | Talk 14:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Inaccuracy in the Neck Joint section
The section "Neck Joint or 'Heel'" states that "Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks". This is hardly true, as several well known brands including Bourgeois, Collings and Guild's "Contemporary Series" also have bolt-on necks.
 * Bolt on necks do appear on acoustics but they are in the minority. Most steel string guitars are based on Gibson's J series, Martin's Dreadnoughts or Martin's OOO/OM series. These are all dovetail jointed guitars. For classical/gut stringed acoustics you will never see a bolt on neck. It doesn't say bolt-on's don't exist, just that they are in the minority. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.161.6 (talk) 14:16, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Inaccuracy in the Pickguard section
The "Pickguard" section states that "Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments." The plate usually attached to a flamenco guitar is actually called a "tap plate" or "golpeador", is usually made of clear plastic, and typically has a different shape than a pickguard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jnossen (talk • contribs) 16:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Changes needed to classical guitar definition
This is a statement in the Acoustic Guitar section:

"The classical guitar is designed to allow for the execution of solo polyphonic arrangements of music in much the same manner as the pianoforte can. This is the major point of difference in design intent between the classical instrument and other designs of guitar."

The first sentence, althoug misleading, is technically correct. The second sentence is just plain wrong. All guitars (bass guitars excluded) are inherently designed to play "solo polyphonic arrangements." The major "point of difference in design intent" between the various styles of guitar has everything to do with the musical setting in which they are to be used (jazz, fingerstyle, rock, flamenco, classical, etc), and nothing to do with the inherent capabilities of the instrument itself.

Since the edit requires more than just a minor spelling or grammar change, I'll give the author a few days to work on it before jumping in and making the edit myself.

Dualdraco (talk) 22:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)da
 * I'd ask you to consider Hawaiian guitars, high-action resonators and high-actioned flattops used primarily for rhythm playing/volume. I'm not disagreeing but there certainly is a case where gutairs suit a particular playing or musical style.


 * Except the design purpose and actual use often diverge dramatically: the resonator was designed for Hawaiian music, but quickly was adopted by blues players (Nationals) and country and bluegrass players (Dobros)- and from there led to lap steels, console steels and pedal steels, none of which is a rhythm instrument. Solicitr (talk) 18:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Update to History section
The History section only provides the history of the classical guitar, and does not mention anything about the developments of the guitar since the classical instrument (acoustic, electric, resonator, etc). Since there is already a link to the full "History of the Classical Guitar" page, I think this page should provide a more diversified (and less detailed) history of guitars in general. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 16:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge from String squeak
I don't really feel string squeak is particularly notable, any more than, for example, the sound of your string getting pulled over the edge of the fretboard, but if you think it is, and can cite some references, I feel it should be moved here. Conical Johnson (talk) 07:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Kramer
Also Kramer, owned by gibson we a leading guitar brand in the 1990's and 1980's recentley though, gibson is not wanting to be overtook by its own sub company so is limiting stocks of kramers and therfore makeing this brand of guitar harder to find now. Posted By Christopher Martino —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.86.35 (talk) 03:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

An instrument of feeling and emotion..
A guitar is an instrument in my opinion that can produce incredible feeling and emotion. With chords, vibrato, bends, picking, harmonics, a guitar is more unique than other insruments in a way that you can play music on it more EFFECTIVELY than other instuments.

Something to really think about... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coda532 (talk • contribs) 03:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Section on guitar literature???
I noticed that this article mainly deals with the physical construction of the guitar. Has anyone considered adding a section that describes written material produced for the guitar? (OR, is there an existing article that can be merged or linked with this one?) A section like this could include anything from classical repertoire, to well known rock n' roll guitar riffs, and especially: major theoretical/academic method books/articles for the guitar.  It seems like this would be a good place to collect this kind of information. I'd do it myself if the page wasn't locked. --Mandojack (talk) 07:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Depending on what's included and the content meets the notability guidelines, it may justify having its own article. However, what you're suggesting sounds a little like instructional material; I believe it wouldn't pass WP:NOTGUIDE. -charleca (talk) 14:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * for starters I linked to a preexisting page, list of compositions for guitar. I can see it will be hard to include links for any kind of instructional material without violating notability guidelines.--Mandojack (talk) 18:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Self tuning guitars
Contrary to statements made by Gibson's marketing department, the Gibson robot is not the first self tuning guitar. The Transperformance guitar has been around much longer, by about 2 decades. I couldn't find a quick reference. Brandon Nicol crafted the very Transperformance guitar much before Gibson's marketing department. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.30.130.62 (talk) 08:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Surely the VG strat needs mention here?

Tremolo arm (again)
I just removed another attempt to portray the naming of the tremolo arm as slang or wrong. Come on guys, it's confusing sure, but it's the standard terminology, and we've been thoroughly through this in various requested moves of the tremolo arm article. It's called a tremolo arm, maybe it shouldn't be but this is not the place to launch a campaign to change it.

Also removed a paragraph on the Bigsby, which claimed it was a significantly different device. It does exactly what any other tremolo arm does. Sure, it's got a particular effect, and many like it (and I like the mustang trem or none, and the most popular trem by far is the strat pattern with its many derivatives, and other guitarists like the Gibson Vibrolux, and so what?), and its maker called it a vibrato tailpiece which was a lot more sensible than Leo Fender's crazy terminology, but Leo actually called some of his trem arms vibrato units too. See the tremolo arm article, that's where this sort of detail belongs. Andrewa (talk) 13:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Bigsby arms are significantly different to the Fender style arms. Fender-style "tremolos" are generally setup to only go down in pitch, Bigsbys go both up and down. Also, whether you like it or not they are Vibrato arms - Tremolo is Fender terminology and does not apply. Usage of tremolo is a subset of vibrato, they are all vibrato arms but only Fender style devices are referred to as tremolos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.161.6 (talk) 14:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Nationalism rears its ugly head
Flag waving comments such as "Greater Iran is the ultimate origin of the guitar's first ancestor - leave Iran there - ancient Iran damn well was creative - more than India", are not helpful to the neutrality of the article. JamesBurns (talk) 05:51, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Very Slight Change
I understand this is not number one on the page-fixing priority list, but it feels a little too casual for Wikipedia to, under Russian Guitars, to say it was "the norm". Maybe it should just be "it was normal". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrmorozov987 (talk • contribs) 01:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Guitar History Timeline - image
Having a guitar related website myself and reading the history section of the article here on wiki, I felt there's a link missing to a Guitar History Timeline - image. I discovered that people are searching a lot on Google Images for this keyword and so I made such an image to put on my site but it has become so 'popular' that it scores number 1-3 on Google. Because of its popularity and the lack of alternatives on the net I thus believe it would be serving the public to link to the image in this article. If any of you editors support this idea, the image can be found at --www.easy-guitar-site.com/guitar-history-timeline.html-- but because it's to big to embed into the article (and also for copyright reasons) I would prefer a link rather than a copy.

--Clemste (talk) 16:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Loft of Guitars
The term relating to a collection of many guitars, attributed to Richard "Dickman" Cripps of the rock group "Nervous", having had a "Loft" full of guitars that they had displayed and photographed for a photo shoot. As far as I am aware there is no name for such a collection of guitars. Although this may sound somewhat inane, many musicians now use this for a collection of many guitars kept in one place. Generally more than three would constitute a "Loft"

Many guitarists have extraordinarily large collections of guitars, these would be considered to be a "Loft" of Guitars

--BrianIndian (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Brian Indian

Loft of Guitars
The term relating to a collection of many guitars, attributed to Richard "Dickman" Cripps of the rock group "Nervous", having had a "Loft" full of guitars that they had displayed and photographed for a photo shoot. As far as I am aware there is no name for such a collection of guitars. Although this may sound somewhat inane, many musicians now use this for a collection of many guitars kept in one place. Generally more than three would constitute a "Loft" Italic text

Many guitarists have extraordinarily large collections of guitars, these would be considered to be a "Loft" of Guitars

--BrianIndian (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Brian Indian

Loft of Guitars
The term relating to a collection of many guitars, attributed to Richard "Dickman" Cripps of the rock group "Nervous", having had a "Loft" full of guitars that they had displayed and photographed for a photo shoot. As far as I am aware there is no name for such a collection of guitars. Although this may sound somewhat inane, many musicians now use this for a collection of many guitars kept in one place. Generally more than three would constitute a "Loft" Italic text

Many guitarists have extraordinarily large collections of guitars, these would be considered to be a "Loft" of Guitars

--BrianIndian (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Brian Indian

history of guitars
i am writing a report and i need nfo on the history of the guitar like where it came from and other stuff —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.60.168 (talk) 21:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Under autotuning guitar, you might want to mention the open source effort at the Milwaukee ServoGuitar Project www.servoelectricguitar.com.

A servoelectric guitar is a fretless guitar that is played by controlling servomotors that change the tension of the strings over an octave or more on a real-time basis. Tuning is maintained by closed loop tension feedback for rapid and predictable response. Relatively small electrical motors and DC servo amplifiers are possible through a novel compensator spring design.

(this is from the web site but subject to the open source license per the following:

2. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Milwaukee Guitar Project hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, paid-up license to exercise the rights in the Guitar Design and Copywritable Work as stated below:

a. to use the Guitar Design to construct guitars;

b. to copy and use the Copywritable Work;)

--Speedieherculium (talk) 01:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)speedieherculeum

Missing info in picture
The commentary on the picture (which leads to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stratocaster_detail_DSC06937.jpg) should have the pickup switcher included into what is common on an electric guitar. GonX (talk) 09:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Oud -> vihuela????????
It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud

This is simply bizarre. Structurally the vihuela/viola da mano has nothing whatsoever in common with the oud or the lute, aside from being a necked stringed instrument. The vihuela with its flat back and separate bent sides is unmistakably connected to the Italian tradition which also gave rise to the viol and violin families, and not at all to the bowl-backed instruments.

Barring objection I'll edit in about 3 days. Solicitr (talk) 16:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

List of guitar brands
I think that a more complete list of guitar brands should be added in addition to the brief list in the introduction. If there is no objection, I'll probably do so myself sometime. Abcasada (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The brands list is heavily biased with makers who are primarily known as purveyors of electric guitars. --154.20.32.179 (talk) 23:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Ovation Guitar
Please add information about the Ovation Guitar onto this page. You have a page devoted specifically to Ovation Guitars, but they are not at all mentioned here. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.98.195 (talk) 06:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a page devoted to Ovation guitars? Can you tell me where it is? I can't find it because there isn't a link to it from this page, and I don't know how to use the search box, or guess at URL's, and I've never heard of this Google thing.--154.20.32.179 (talk) 02:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

'cut away'
the space in which an electric guitar's higher frets is accsessable is called a cutaway. I suggest a section for this, as it is a much more well known term for it. I could not find any other reference for this, if someone could add it or point me in the right direction i would be greatful. Stakingsin (talk) 12:28, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The section on acoustic bodies could do with breaking up into subsections on Back, Sides, Top, Bracing etc IMO. A subsection on cutaways coudl easily be added. 1Z (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph
The claim that there are three principal types of guitars: electric, classical, and acoustic is false on the face of it. The term "acoustic" means that the instrument produces sound by acoustic means, i.e. by the vibration of strings over an opening into an acoustic chamber. It was redundant for most of the time guitars have existed, as they ALL worked that way until someone figured out how to produce sound by vibrating the string over an electronic pickup instead. Thus every guitar that is not an electric guitar is an acoustic guitar. This includes all "classical" guitars. Apparently the author was trying (and failing) to draw a distinction between types of acoustic guitar. Perhaps not all acoustic guitars are classical guitars, but most assuredly all classical guitars are acoustic guitars. It should be edited, and I am doing so. Altgeld (talk) 23:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Made the change Solicitr (talk) 14:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

acoustic=steel string is technicaly incorrect but quite common 1Z (talk) 08:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide facts, not perpetuate errors. Just because some people think dolphins are fish, that doesn't mean it belongs here. Solicitr (talk) 14:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)