{"id":44394,"date":"2023-10-20T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.classicalguitarcorner.com\/?p=44394"},"modified":"2023-10-20T10:00:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:00:06","slug":"what-is-classical-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.classicalguitarcorner.com\/what-is-classical-guitar\/","title":{"rendered":"What is classical guitar?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is classical guitar?<\/h2>\n

What is classical guitar? And how does it differ from other types of guitar? This might be confusing at first as you will hear different people use the term “classical guitar” in different ways. Let’s look at some examples. Classical guitar can refer to:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A nylon-string acoustic guitar<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. A technical approach to playing guitar that uses right-hand fingers to pluck, sitting with the guitar neck at an angle, and no amplification<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. A style of instrumental music that centers around specific repertoire that first originated in Spain but carries other European, Latin American, and other world influences.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Or even all of the above!\u00a0<\/span>
    \n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So “classical guitar” in the simplest terms often refers to a guitar with nylon strings. However, it also refers to a specific <\/span>style <\/span><\/i>of guitar playing<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>Classical guitar in this latter sense refers to a nylon-string guitar that is used to play <\/span>classical music<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Classical Music<\/h2>\n

    Let\u2019s take a step back because that term may also be confusing for some. What counts as “classical music”? In the strictest sense it refers to Western music written during the “Classical” period (think music from the time of CPE Bach up to Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven). Most date the Classical period of music from 1750 (after Bach) up to around 1830 (around the time Beethoven began his \u201clate period\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    But the term is also used in a more general sense to refer to Western European art music from the time of ecclesiastical and royal court music (in the medieval period) up through the 19th century and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

    On a television program called Young People\u2019s Concerts<\/em> in 1959<\/a>, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein said, \u201cPeople use [classical music] to describe music that isn\u2019t jazz or popular songs or folk music, just because there isn\u2019t any other word that seems to describe it better.\u201d Perhaps this is the best description we can offer of classical music.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Classical Guitar Music<\/b><\/h2>\n

    But when it comes to classical <\/span>guitar<\/span><\/i> music this description doesn\u2019t fit as well. The classical music of classical guitar repertoire is not all Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. In fact, a lot of the music composed for the instrument is popular music, often in the form of dance music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Yes, the repertoire is full of traditional Western art music from the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. It has many pieces that are both quite formal and complex. And a huge bulk of the pedagogical material for the instrument also comes from the late “Classical” period (Sor, Aguado, Giuliani, Carulli, Carcassi, etc.).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    However, also present in the classical guitar repertoire are influences of flamenco, jazz, blues, rock, and pop music. I think this has to do at least in part with the fact that classical guitar music is still very much <\/span>guitar <\/span><\/i>music. And the guitar has always been a popular instrument, for the masses. Thus classical guitar is not exactly easily associated with the wigs and ballroom dances we sometimes associate with “classical music.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Another common feature of classical guitar music is that it does not use tablature (or TAB). Well, this one is a bit more complicated. Composers used tablature for music written for both the Renaissance and Baroque lutes as well as the baroque guitar and the vihuela (all early cousins of the guitar). However, by the Classical period tablature became less popular and all guitar music was written in standard notation alone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    The Instrument<\/h2>\n

    The guitar has evolved through many different phases throughout its history. It has had different shapes, build styles, different types of strings, even different numbers of strings, and so on. Today there are steel-string acoustic guitars used in folk, fingerstyle, country, bluegrass, rock, and pop; electric guitars used in jazz, pop, rock, metal, and everything in between; and classical guitars used in all of the above but especially in flamenco and classical music.<\/p>\n

    But, most classical guitar music is usually played on an instrument called a classical guitar. The \u201cclassical guitar\u201d most often refers simply to a nylon-string guitar. But here are a few other common features of classical guitars:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n