Random facts about guitars

• Ancient names of the guitar: cithara, qitare, gitarre, guitare, guitarra.
• Guitars are recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as flamenco, blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, rock, jota, mariachi, soul, reggae and many forms of pop.
• There are left handed guitars and right handed ones, there is a change to the string order.
• The English word guitar, the German gitarre, and the French guitare were adopted from the Spanish guitarra.
• Many of the worlds most popular modern guitarists were left handed, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Kurt Cobain.
• Electric guitars were introduced in the 1930s.
• A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments (like guitars). The word luthier comes from the French word luth, which means "lute".
• There are 2 primary families of guitars: acoustic and electric.
• Traditionally, in classic guitars the strings were made of animal gut.
• There are 3 main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar.
• Archtop guitars are carved in a curve rather than the traditional flat shape.
• Electric guitars rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone.
• The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying the essential features of a guitar is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard.