If you want to learn and master guitar because you simply love playing
the instrument then it is not necessary for you to know about the
guitar history. Infact you need not touch the historical aspect at all if
you simply want to learn & master guitar playing, because the two things
are not connected in any way at all. However, if you love the
instrument itself, and the charisma associated with it, then you would indeed
want to know more about the evolution of the instrument of your choice.

Describing the history and origin of guitar is not a simple task by any
means. The history of this magical musical instrument dates back to
some 4000 years ago. In fact, guitar is probably a modernized version of
identical instruments that originated some 5000 years back, have been
in existence in many cultures and been used extensively throughout the
world since then.

Guitar and other such similar musical instruments can be categorized as
stringed instruments. As per archaeological evidences, the earliest
known stringed instruments were bowls, harps and tanburs. During early
days, stringed instruments were primarily visual depictions that had a
very simple design. There has been no real evidence regarding their
existence nor there were any continuous musical notes written for them. It
was during the late medieval or early renaissance period that the world
witnessed the origin of a stringed instrument that can be compared
with the modern day guitar. During this period, guitars were either
four-course or five-course. However, these instruments produced music that
had a richer sound than a modern day six-string guitar. Gradually, six
string instruments came into existence during the 18th century and became
widely popular. Gaetano Vinaccia is considered to be the first person
to have made the earliest version of modern acoustic guitar. Finally it
was in the year 1936 that George Beauchamp received the first patent
for making an electric guitar.

Even the word “guitar” has an interesting history. As per language
experts, “guitar” is an adaptation of a Spanish word called “Guitarra”
which was further adapted from a Greek word “Kithara”. By going further
deep into the linguistic history, some experts even consider the word
“guitar” to have an Indian origin where “guit” means music and “tar” means
chord or string. In fact, there are various stringed musical
instruments such as “sitar” that have the root “tar” in their names.

Check out http://www.madguitarlicks.com for some tasty video licks!