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Acoustic guitar
 
 
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An acoustic guitar is a guitar
Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
 that uses only acoustic methods to project the sound produced by its strings. The term is a retronym
Retronym

A retronym is the modification of the original name of an object or concept to differentiate it from a more recent version of the object, which acquired a modifier or adjective through later developments of the object or concept itself....
, coined after the advent of electric guitar
Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses pickup to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into an electrical current, which is made louder with an instrument amplifier and a speaker....
s, which depend on electronic amplification to make their sound audible.

Sound production
Types of guitars the sound is produced by the vibration
Vibration

Vibration refers to mechanical oscillations about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be periodic function such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road....
 of the strings.






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Acousticguitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar
Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
 that uses only acoustic methods to project the sound produced by its strings. The term is a retronym
Retronym

A retronym is the modification of the original name of an object or concept to differentiate it from a more recent version of the object, which acquired a modifier or adjective through later developments of the object or concept itself....
, coined after the advent of electric guitar
Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses pickup to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into an electrical current, which is made louder with an instrument amplifier and a speaker....
s, which depend on electronic amplification to make their sound audible.

Sound production


Types of guitars the sound is produced by the vibration
Vibration

Vibration refers to mechanical oscillations about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be periodic function such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road....
 of the strings. However, because the strings can only displace a small amount of air, the volume of the sound needs to be increased in order to be heard. In an acoustic guitar, this is accomplished by using a soundboard
Sounding board

The sounding board or soundboard is the part of a string instrument that transmits the vibrations of the strings to the air, greatly increasing the loudness of sound over that of the string alone....
 and a resonant cavity, the sound box
Sound box

A sound box or sounding box is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which alters the instrument's tone quality by modifying the way the instrument resonates....
. The body of the guitar is hollow. The vibrating strings drive the soundboard through the bridge, making it vibrate. The soundboard has a larger surface area and thus displaces a larger volume of air, producing a much louder sound than the strings alone.

As the soundboard vibrates, sound waves are produced from both the front and back faces. The sound box provides both a support for the sound board and a resonant cavity and reflector for the sound waves produced on the back face of the soundboard. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string (see Helmholtz resonance
Helmholtz resonance

Helmholtz resonance is the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity. The name comes from a device created in the 1850s by Hermann von Helmholtz to show the height of the various tones....
), increasing the volume of the sound again. The back of the guitar will also vibrate to a lesser extent, driven by the air in the cavity. Some sound is ultimately projected through the sound hole (some variants of the acoustic guitar omit this hole, or have holes, like a violin family
Violin family

The Violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The modern violin family consists of the violin, viola and cello, along with the double bass....
 instrument). This sound mixes with the sound produced by the front face of the soundboard. The resultant sound is a complex mixture of harmonics that give the guitar its distinctive sound.

No amplification
Amplification

Amplification may refer to:* The operation of an amplifier, a natural or artificial device intended to make a signal stronger.* Amplification , a figure of speech that adds importance to increase its rhetorical effect....
 actually occurs in this process, in the sense that no energy is externally added to increase the loudness
Loudness

Loudness is the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength .Loudness, a subjective measure, is often confused with objective measures of sound pressure such as decibels or sound intensity....
 of the sound (as would be the case with an electronic amplifier). All the energy is provided by the plucking of the string. The function of the entire acoustic system is to maximize intensity of sound, but since total energy remains constant, this comes at the expense of decay time. An unamplified guitar (one with no soundboard at all) would have a low volume, but the strings would vibrate much longer, like a tuning fork. This is because a damped harmonic oscillator decays exponentially, with a mean life inversely proportional to the damping. When the strings are driving the larger soundboard and sound box, the damping is much higher.

Types


Historical and modern acoustic guitars are extremely varied in their design and construction, far more so than electric guitars. Some of the most important varieties are the classical guitar
Classical guitar

The classical guitar, also known as the "Spanish guitar", and in more recent times as the "nylon string guitar" ? is a plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones....
 (nylon-stringed), steel-string acoustic guitar
Steel-string acoustic guitar

A steel-string acoustic guitar, is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound....
 and lap steel guitar
Lap steel guitar

The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, from which other types developed.There are three main types of lap steel guitar:* Lap slide guitars, the first developed, which use a similar sound box to a Spanish guitar....
. A more complete list is given below, refer to the individual articles for more specific detail.

  • Nylon/gut stringed guitars:
    • Renaissance guitar
    • Baroque guitar
      Baroque guitar

      The Baroque guitar is a guitar from the Baroque music , an ancestor of the modern classical guitar. The term is also used for modern instruments made in the same style....
    • Romantic guitar
    • Classical guitar
      Classical guitar

      The classical guitar, also known as the "Spanish guitar", and in more recent times as the "nylon string guitar" ? is a plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones....
      , the modern version of the original guitar, with nylon strings
    • Flamenco guitar
      Flamenco guitar

      A flamenco guitar is a type of classical guitar, built for the purpose of playing Flamenco music.Flamenco guitar can also refer to toque, the guitar-playing part of the art of Flamenco....
  • Steel stringed guitars:
    • Steel-string acoustic guitar
      Steel-string acoustic guitar

      A steel-string acoustic guitar, is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound....
      , also known as western, folk or country guitar
    • Twelve string guitar
      Twelve string guitar

      The twelve-string guitar is an Steel-string guitar or electric guitar guitar with twelve string in six Course , which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar....
    • Resonator guitar
      Resonator guitar

      A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an Steel-string guitar whose sound is produced by one or more metal cones instead of the wooden Sounding board ....
       (such as the Dobro
      Dobro

      Dobro is a trade name now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar....
      )
    • Archtop guitar
      Archtop guitar

      An archtop guitar is a steel-stringed acoustic guitar or semi-acoustic guitar guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with blues and jazz players....
    • Battente guitar
    • Lap steel guitar
      Lap steel guitar

      The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, from which other types developed.There are three main types of lap steel guitar:* Lap slide guitars, the first developed, which use a similar sound box to a Spanish guitar....
    • Lyre guitar
  • Acoustic bass guitar
    Acoustic bass guitar

    The acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar....
  • Russian guitar
    Russian guitar

    The Russian guitar is a seven-string acoustic guitar that arrived in Russia toward the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, most probably as an evolution of the cittern, kobza, and torban....
  • Novelty instruments:
    • Harp guitar
      Harp guitar

      The harp guitar is a stringed instrument with a history of well over two centuries. While there are several unrelated historical stringed instruments that have appropriated the name ?harp-guitar? over the centuries, the term today is understood as the accepted vernacular to refer to a particular family of instruments defined as "A guitar,...
    • Banjo guitar
      Guitjo (six-string)

      The guitjo or banjitar or ganjo is a six-string banjo with the neck of a guitar. It is tuned like a guitar and can be played by guitarists who desire the sound of a banjo....
    • Guitar lute
      Lute

      Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

See also

  • Types of guitar
    Guitar

    The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....