The Guitar is nothing new.  People often ask me, who invented the guitar?  They frequently believe the instrument was a recent development, perhaps as recent as the fifties... with the birth of "Rock And Roll".  Some think that perhaps it was put together by some cowboy to easily carry along on cattle drives out on the range.  A few people believe it was developed in Spain, and that since it is popular in Spanish music, that must be where it all began, this is also not true.  The beginning of the guitar is actually none of the above, and yet it does have a very noticeable point of origin.  In fact, the guitar in many ways is the beginning of all the present string instruments.

As on other pages of this website, I have shown pictures of the prototypes of the guitar,  and explained the meaning of the word guitar... or at least part of it's name. As previously stated, the last syllable of the word guitar "Tar", means string.  Yes, actually even today in some areas of the world the word tar still means string, like common twine.  The guitar is perhaps the only instrument in the world with even a part of the root meaning of it's name in it.  This is not because other instrument have been here longer and lost over time their heritage, but because they, the other instruments, are all newer.  Yes, the guitar is perhaps the most ancient of instruments.  Therefore, knowing this puts to rest endless questions about who invented the guitar.  Very clearly the guitar has in one form or another been here on this earth from about the time of the dawn of civilization itself.  In fact, the origin of the word "Tar" comes out of the area of the world where civilization is believed to began... the area often called "The Fertile Crescent".  This makes the guitar perhaps the oldest of string  instruments, perhaps only preceded by the harp... which is really the same concept, only with additional strings and without out a neck to fret over.

Craig Smith