1.
Mariachi
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Mariachi is a musical expression that dates back to at least 18th century Western Mexico. Modifications of the music include influences from music such as polkas and waltzes, the addition of trumpets. The musical style began to take on national prominence in the first half of the 20th century, with its promotion at presidential inaugurations, in 2011 UNESCO recognized mariachi as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, joining six others of this list from Mexico. The origin of the word is disputed, but prominent theories attribute it to indigenous roots, one states that it comes from the name of the wood used to make the dance platform. Another states that mariachi comes from the name of a tree called pilla or cirimo. In many Mexican cultures they are also called Marietti, Mariachi can refer to the music, the group, or just one musician. The word mariachi was thought to have derived from the French word marriage, dating from the French intervention in Mexico in the 1860s and this was a common explanation on record jackets and travel brochures. This theory was disproven with the appearance of documents that showed that the word existed before this invasion, prior to the arrival of the Spanish, indigenous music was played with rattles, drums, flutes, and conch-shell horns as part of religious celebrations. The Spanish introduced violins, guitars, harps, brass instruments, and woodwinds, the Europeans introduced their instruments to use during Mass, but they were quickly adapted to secular events. Indigenous and mestizo peoples learned to play and make these instruments, often giving them modified shapes, in addition to instruments, the Spanish introduced the concept of musical groups—which, in the colonial period, generally consisted of two violins, a harp, and various guitars. This grouping gave rise to a number of musical styles in Mexico. One of these musical styles was the son. Modern mariachi music developed from this son style, with “mariachi” as a name for son jaliscense. Those who could play the son jaliscense/mariachi music could find work at haciendas at a higher rate than those who could not, the distinction of mariachi from the older son jaliscense occurred slowly sometime during the 19th century. The music originated in the center-west of Mexico, most claims for its origin lie in the state of Jalisco but neighboring states of Colima, Nayarit, and Michoacán have also claimed it. However, by the late 19th century, the music was firmly centered in Jalisco, most legends put the origin of the modern mariachi in the town of Cocula, Jalisco. The distinction from son to modern mariachi comes from the modification of the music, one variety was the salon orchestras called orquestas típicas that performed in more rural settings, notably in charro outfits. This use of the outfit was repeated with urban mariachi in the 1920s
2.
Bass guitar
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The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass guitar is an instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker on stage, or into a larger PA system using a DI unit. Since the 1960s, the guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary widely from one style of music to another, many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, heavy metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, symphonic rock, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusion, Latin, funk, progressive rock and other rock, the adoption of a guitar form made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments. The addition of frets enabled bassists to play in more easily than on acoustic or electric upright basses. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period, around 1947, Tutmarcs son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948, however, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton and his Fender Precision Bass, which began production in October 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. This split pickup, introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups, the pole pieces and leads of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, producing a humbucking effect. Humbucking is a design that electrically cancels the effect of any AC hum, the Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, which could be easily transported, and which was less prone to feedback when amplified than acoustic bass instruments. Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, roy Johnson, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, following Fenders lead, in 1953, Gibson released the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass, the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance
3.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
4.
Guitar chord
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In music, a guitar chord is a set of notes played on a guitar. A chords notes are played simultaneously, but they can be played sequentially in an arpeggio. The implementation of guitar chords depends on the guitar tuning, standard tuning requires four chord-shapes for the major triads. There are separate chord-forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, for a six-string guitar in standard tuning, it may be necessary to drop or omit one or more tones from the chord, this is typically the root or fifth. The layout of notes on the fretboard in standard tuning often forces guitarists to permute the order of notes in a chord. The playing of chords is simplified by open tunings, which are especially popular in folk, blues guitar. For example, the typical twelve-bar blues uses only three chords, each of which can be played by fretting six-strings with one finger, open tunings are used especially for steel guitar and slide guitar. Open tunings allow one-finger chords to be played with greater consonance than do other tunings, the playing of guitar chords is simplified by the class of alternative tunings called regular tunings, in which the musical intervals are the same for each pair of consecutive strings. Regular tunings include major-thirds tuning, all-fourths, and all-fifths tunings, for each regular tuning, chord patterns may be diagonally shifted down the fretboard, a property that simplifies beginners learning of chords and that simplifies advanced players improvisation. On the other hand, in regular tunings 6-string chords are more difficult to play and it can make a possible a chord which is composed of the all same note on different strings. Many chords can be played with the notes in more than one place on the fretboard. The theory of guitar-chords respects harmonic conventions of Western music, discussions of basic guitar-chords rely on fundamental concepts in music theory, the twelve notes of the octave, musical intervals, chords, and chord progressions. The octave consists of twelve notes and its natural notes constitute the C major scale. The unison and octave intervals have perfect consonance, octave intervals were popularized by the jazz playing of Wes Montgomery. The perfect-fifth interval is highly consonant, which means that the playing of the two notes from the perfect fifth sounds harmonious. A semitone is the distance between two adjacent notes on the circle, which displays the twelve notes of an octave. As indicated by their having been emboldened in the table, a handful of intervals—thirds, perfect fifths, as already stated, the perfect-fifths interval is the most harmonious, after the unison and octave intervals. An explanation of perception of harmony relates the mechanics of a vibrating string to the musical acoustics of sound waves using the harmonic analysis of Fourier series
5.
Guitar picking
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Guitar picking is a group of hand and finger techniques a guitarist uses to set guitar strings in motion to produce audible notes. These techniques involve plucking, strumming, brushing, etc, using a single thumb pick with the bare fingers is similar to hybrid picking. Another mixed technique is to play different passages with a plectrum or fingerstyle, the pros of each guitar picking style are indirectly correlated to the cons of the other. It is easier to play non-adjacent strings at the same time and it is easier to play polyphonically, with separate musical lines, or separate melody, harmony and bass. It is easy to play arpeggios, a simpler motion is required to play notes on non-adjacent strings. It is possible to play chords with no arpeggiation, there is less need to use the fretting hand to damp notes in chords, since the guitarist can pluck just the required strings. A great variation in strokes is possible, accommodating expressiveness in timbre, a wide variety of strums and rasgueados are possible. Fingerstyle is useful in almost any genre, fingerstyle players use up to four surfaces to strike string independently. However, that does not equate to four plectrums, since plectrums can more easily strike strings on both up and downstrokes—which is much more difficult for fingers, picking back and forth with a pick is easier. Alternate picking is usually the most efficient technique, Tremolo effects may be easier to achieve. The guitarist picks the string with less contact that a finger would involve, a pick can be louder compared to bare finger playing. It may be easier to maintain articulation or clarity when playing fast, playing on heavier gauge strings can damage un-coated nails, fingerstyle is more suited to nylon strings or lighter gauge steel strings. To achieve Tremolo effects, varied arpeggios, and rapid, fluent scale passages, the player must practice alternation, that is, plucking strings with a different finger each time. Using p to indicate the thumb, i the index finger, m the middle finger, has the appearance of walking along the strings. I-m-a-i-m-a Tremolo pattern with a triplet feel p-a-m-i-p-a-m-i A tremolo or apreggio pattern, p-m-p-m A way of playing a melody line on the lower strings. However, in other genres—such as classical, flamenco or fingerstyle jazz—it becomes necessary to switch fluently between patterns, tone production is important in any style. Classical guitar, for example, stresses many techniques are applicable to other styles. Tonal techniques include, Plucking distance from the bridge, guitarists actively control this to change the sound from soft plucking the string near its middle, to hard plucking the string near the bridge
6.
Electric guitar
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The vibrations of the strings are sensed by a pickup, of which the most common type is the magnetic pickup, which uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by a guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is plugged into a guitar amplifier before being sent to a loudspeaker. The output of a guitar is an electric signal. Invented in 1931, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitarists. Early proponents of the guitar on record included Les Paul, Lonnie Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, T-Bone Walker. During the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into an instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles in genres ranging from pop and rock to country music, blues and jazz. It served as a component in the development of electric blues, rock and roll, rock music, heavy metal music. Electric guitar design and construction vary greatly in the shape of the body and the configuration of the neck, bridge, Guitars may have a fixed bridge or a spring-loaded hinged bridge that lets players bend the pitch of notes or chords up or down or perform vibrato effects. The sound of a guitar can be modified by new playing techniques such as string bending, tapping, hammering on, using audio feedback, in a small group, such as a power trio, one guitarist switches between both roles. In larger rock and metal bands, there is often a rhythm guitarist, many experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument were made dating back to the early part of the 20th century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters were adapted and placed inside violins, hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, however, these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal. With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, Electric guitars were originally designed by acoustic guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow-bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups, the first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, the general manager of the National Guitar Corporation, with Paul Barth, who was vice president. The maple body prototype for the one-piece cast aluminum frying pan was built by Harry Watson, commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation, in Los Angeles, a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. In 1934, the company was renamed the Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company, in that year Beauchamp applied for a United States patent for an Electrical Stringed Musical Instrument and the patent was issued in 1937. The Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts provided players a full 25 scale, with 17 frets free of the fretboard and it is estimated that fewer than 50 Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts were constructed between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 10 are known to survive today. The need for the guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when acoustic guitars had to compete with large
7.
Lap steel guitar
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The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fretboard, there are three main types of lap steel guitar, Lap steel guitars, the first developed, which use a similar sound box to a Spanish guitar. Resonator guitars, particularly those with square necks, but also round neck versions with a raised nut, Electric lap steel guitars, which include the first commercially successful solid body instruments. These were originally marketed as electric Hawaiian guitars, in addition to the lap-played model, a closely related version called a console steel guitar is supported on legs. Electric lap steels typically have six or 8 and up to ten strings, Lap steel and resonator guitars may also be fitted with pickups, but do not depend on electrical amplification to produce sound. A lap steel guitars strings are raised at both the nut and bridge ends of the fingerboard, typically to about half an inch. The strings are too high to contact the surface of the neck, so frets, some lap steel guitars can be converted between lap and fretted playing, or are modified versions of conventional guitars—the only difference is usually string height. Round-necked resonator guitars set up for steel playing fall into this category, instruments designed exclusively as lap steel guitars typically have modified necks that make fretted playing impossible. The hollow neck acoustic lap steel, developed by Chris Knutsen and popularized by Weissenborn, the square-necked resonator guitar has a strengthened square profile neck, allowing heavier string gauges and/or higher tunings that would normally be considered impossible on a conventional guitar. The electric lap steel guitar typically incorporates the entire neck into the body of the guitar, again providing extra strength to allow a greater variety of string gauges. The lap steel guitar is typically placed on the players lap and this method of playing greatly restricts the number of chords available, so lap steel music often features melodies, a restricted set of harmonies, or another single part. This allows the player greater control when picking sets of notes on non-adjacent strings, on the other hand, a minority of Blues players, and many Rock players, use a conventional flatpick. Tut Taylor is one of the few Dobro players that use a flatpick and it is widely reported that the lap steel guitar was invented by a man named Joseph Kekuku in 1885. It is said that, at the age of 7, Kekuku was walking along a track and picked up a metal bolt. He taught himself to using this method with the back of a knife blade. Various other people have also credited with the innovation. The instrument became a fad in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. The instrument became popular in Hawaii, as musicians played in tent-rep shows
8.
Resonator guitar
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A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by carrying string vibration through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones, instead of to the sound board. Resonator guitars were designed to be louder than regular acoustic guitars. They became prized for their sound, however, and found life with several musical styles well after electric amplification solved the issue of inadequate guitar sound levels. The body of a guitar may be made of wood, metal. Typically there are two sound holes, positioned on either side of the fingerboard extension. In the case of models, the sound holes are either both circular or both f-shaped, and symmetrical. The older tricone design has irregularly shaped sound holes, cutaway body styles may truncate or omit the lower f-hole. Dopyera experimented with configurations of up to four resonator cones and with cones composed of different metals. In 1927, Dopyera and Beauchamp formed the National String Instrument Corporation to manufacture guitars under the brand name National. The first models were metal-bodied, and featured three conical aluminum resonators joined by a T-shaped aluminum bar that supported the system called the tricone. National originally produced wooden-bodied Tricone models at their factory in Los Angeles and they called these models the Triolian, but made only 12 of them. They changed the body meant for tricones to single-cone models, and this system was cheaper to produce, and produced more volume than Nationals tricone. National countered the Dobro with its own single resonator model, which Dopyera had designed before he left the company and they also continued to produce the tricone design, which many players preferred for its tone. Both National single and tricone resonators remained conical, with their convex surfaces uppermost, single resonator models used a wooden biscuit at the cone apex to support the bridge. At this point, both companies sourced many components from Adolph Rickenbacher, including the aluminium resonators, after much legal action, the Dopyera brothers gained control of both National and Dobro in 1932, and subsequently merged them into the National Dobro Corporation. However, they ceased all resonator guitars production following the U. S. entry into World War II in 1941. Emile Dopyera manufactured Dobros from 1959, before selling the company and trademark to Semie Moseley, in 1967, Rudy and Emile Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company to manufacture resonator guitars, first branded Hound Dog. In 1970 they again acquired the Dobro trademark, Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation, the Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired OMI in 1993, and announced it would defend its right to exclusive use of the Dobro trademark—which many people commonly used for any resonator guitar
9.
Semi-acoustic guitar
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A semi-acoustic guitar or hollow-body electric is a type of electric guitar that originates from the 1930s. It has both a box and one or more electric pickups. This is not the same as a guitar, which is an acoustic guitar with the addition of pickups or other means of amplification. This led makers to try a series of designs that focused on amplifying a guitar electrically through a loudspeaker, in 1936, Gibson made their first production run of electric guitars. These guitars, known as ES-150s were the first manufactured semi-acoustic guitars, Gibson based them on a standard production archtop, with f holes on the face of the guitars soundbox. This model resembled traditional jazz guitars that were popular at the time, the soundbox on the guitar let limited sound emit from the hollow body of the guitar. These guitars, however, could be electrically amplified via a Charlie Christian pickup, the clear sound of the pickups made the ES series immediately popular with jazz musicians. The first semi-acoustic guitars are thought of as an evolutionary step in the progression from acoustic guitars to full electric models. However, Gibson made the ES-150 several years after Rickenbacker made the first solid-body electric guitar, the ES series was merely an experiment the Gibson company used to test the potential success of electric guitars. The experiment was a successful venture, and the ES series is often referred to as the first successful electric guitar. The ES-150 was followed by the ES-250 a year later, in became a long line of semi acoustics for the Gibson company. In 1949 Gibson released two new models, the ES-175 and ES-5 and these guitars came standard with built-in electric pickups and are widely considered the first fully electric semi-acoustic guitars. Prior models were not built with pickups, rather, they came as attachments, several models, including the ES-350T by Gibson, were made in the 1950s to accommodate this growing demand by including a more comfortable version of the archtop model. Gibson and other makers followed these variations with a new type of guitar that featured a block of solid wood between the front and back sections of the guitars cutaway. This guitar still functioned acoustically, but had a resonant cavity inside. Gibson first manufactured this variant in 1958 and it is commonly referred to as a semi-hollow body guitar, because of the smaller, less open body. Rickenbacker also began making semi-acoustic guitars in 1958, when the company changed ownership in 1954, they hired German guitar crafter, Roger Rossmiesl. He developed the 300 series for Rickenbacker, which was a wide semi-acoustic that did not use a traditional f hole, rather it used a sleeker dash hole on one side of the guitar, the other side had a large pickguard
10.
Steel-string acoustic guitar
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The steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar that descends from the classical guitar, but is strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. It is often referred to simply as a guitar, though the nylon-strung classical guitar is also sometimes called an acoustic guitar. The most common type is called a flat top guitar, to distinguish it from the more specialized archtop guitar. The standard tuning for a guitar is E-A-D-G-B-E, although many players, particularly fingerpickers, use alternate tunings, such as open G, open D. There are many variations in construction and materials used in steel-string guitars, different combinations of woods and construction elements affect the timbre or tone of the guitar. Many players and luthiers are convinced that a well-made guitars tone improves over time, acoustic guitars are commonly constructed in several different body types. The proportion and overall size of two parts helps determine the overall tonal balance and native sound of a particular body style – the larger the body. The 00, also called the Double-Oh or the Grand Concert and it has the thinnest soundbox and the smallest overall size of the major styles, making it very comfortable to play but also one of the quietest. Its smaller size makes it suitable for younger or smaller-framed players and these guitars are commonly called parlor steels as they are well-suited to smaller rooms. Martins 00-xxx series and Taylors x12 series are common examples, the Grand Auditorium guitar, sometimes called the 000 or the Triple-Oh, is very similar in design to the Grand Concert, but slightly wider and deeper. Many 000-style guitars also have a back panel to increase the volume of space in the soundbox without making the soundbox deeper at the edges. Eric Claptons signature Martin guitar, for example, is of this style, Martins 000-xxx series and Taylors x14 series are well-known examples of the Grand Auditorium style. The Dreadnought style was designed by Martin Guitars to produce a deeper sound than classic-style guitars and this body styles combination of a small profile with a deep sound has made it immensely popular, and it has since been copied by virtually every major steel-string luthier. Martins D series guitars, such as the highly-prized D-28, are examples of the Dreadnought. This comes at the expense of being oversized, with a very deep sounding box, the foremost example of this style is the Gibson J-200, but like the Dreadnought, most guitar manufacturers have at least one jumbo model. Any of these body type can optionally incorporate a cutaway, a cutaway guitar has a redesigned upper bout that removes a section of the soundbox on the underside of the neck, hence the name cutaway. This allows for access to the frets that are located on top of the soundbox past the heel of the neck. The tradeoff is reduced soundbox volume, and often a change in bracing, the 12-string guitar replaces each single string with a course of two strings
