Between the 16th and the 19th century, the guitar was improved upon greatly.
By the turn of the 17th century, it gained another course of strings, making
it five in total. Before the 19th century, a sixth course was added. In the 1800s,
the double courses were switched out for single strings which were tuned to E-A-D-G-B-E,
which is the same modern tuning we use to this day. That violin-inspired pegbox was replaced
for a flat head that utilized rear tuning pegs, which were then upgraded to tuning pegs.
Other changes included the fretboard which was switched from a flat board to a slightly
raised board.
The evolution of Spanish guitars settled by the 1790s; they had the standard body type and
six courses of strings that resembles the modern guitar, but were smaller. Spanish musician
and guitar maker Antonio de Torres Jurado changed all that in the mid-1800s, when he created
the style of guitar that gave rise to all guitars to follow. Many people consider him as “one
of the single most important inventors in the history of guitar.” His guitars featured a broadened
body, thinned belly and increased curve at the waist. He also replaced wooden tuning pegs with a
machined heads. His innovative approach to body design and fan bracing, which is that system of
wooden struts inside the instrument, gave his classical guitars their distinctive, rich voice.
Influential Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia established Torres’ classic guitar as a concert
instrument. The talented guitarist also penned complex musical compositions that we now identify
as “classical guitar” music. At about this same time, Europeans brought a steel-stringed version
of the Spanish instrument when they immigrated to America. There, the modern guitar took on a new
shape and a new place in history, with the invention of the flat top, archtop and modern electric
guitar.
