denny Schools Periods & Styles book

While "classical guitar" is today mainly associated with the modern classical guitar design, there is an increasing interest in early guitars; and understanding the link between historical repertoire and the particular period guitar that was originally used to perform this repertoire. Nowadays it is customary to play this repertoire on reproductions of instruments authentically modelled on concepts of musicological research with appropriate adjustments to techniques and overall interpretation. Thus over recent decades we have become accustomed to specialist artists with expertise in the art of vihuela (a 16th-century type of guitar popular in Spain), lute, Baroque guitar, 19th-century guitar, etc.[6] Different types of guitars have different sound aesthetics, eg different colour-spectrum characteristics (the way the sound energy is spread in the fundamental frequency and the overtones), different response, etc. These differences are due to differences in construction, for example modern Spanish guitars usually use a different bracing (fan-bracing), than was used in earlier guitars (they had ladder-bracing); and a different voicing was used by the luthier. See Classical guitar making for more information. It is interesting to note the historical parallel between musical styles (baroque, classical, romantic, Spanish nationalist, flamenco, jazz) and the style of "sound aesthetic" of the musical instruments used, for example: Robert de Visée played on a baroque guitar with a ...