Last updated: February 23, 2024We all know about guitars. At least, we see and hear about them regularly. It’s effortless to fall in love with the beautiful melody that comes from guitars, but most people barely know everything about them beyond their physical appearance. It’ll interest you to know that a proper knowledge of guitar facts can shape your perspective about guitars. There are so many interesting facts about guitars, and whether you are writing a quiz, seeking enough knowledge to impress your friends, or just curious to know more, exciting guitar facts are always a good place to start from.
Knowing
more about guitars
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Guitar - Wikipedia
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is held flat against the player’s body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand.
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will also help you to appreciate the instrument more. This is why we’ve compiled some fascinating facts you’ll love to know about guitars. Perhaps after reading this, your guitar will mean more to you. Here, let’s start.
Guitar history has it that the first ever guitar-like instrument was created in Egypt. This guitar-like instrument may differ from what we have in today’s music world, considering all the developments and redesigns that it has gone through over time. However, the fact remains that the first guitar-like instrument was made over 3,500 years ago, and its use debuted with an artist of the called Har-Mose.
As expected, the world's smallest guitar Trusted Source BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Smallest 'guitar string' to weigh atoms Scientists are hoping that “playing” a tiny guitar string will be able to help weigh molecules to discover more about them. news.bbc.co.uk can’t even be seen. Designed at Cornell University, New York, this guitar has a length of only 10 micrometers. To put it into proper perspective, one meter contains more than one million micrometers. You’ll probably be surprised hearing that this very small instrument still produces sound. However, it cannot be played with actual fingers like regular guitars. The producers designed special equipment to be used for playing the guitar.
The strings of this little guitar are only 50 nanometers wide, the same size as 100 atoms. You can already imagine how small it looks, huh? Well, the sound produced from the guitar is also not so audible to the human ears.
Over time, different sizes of guitars have been made. However, the one still holding the record for the world’s biggest guitar measures more than 13 meters in length. Astonishing, right? Imagine having a guitar that’s as long as a tour bus. What’s even more impressive is that this guitar is playable, with the different strings conveying the correct pitch.
The guitar’s assembly might have taken a little more than a year. Still, it is evident that the Texas Academy of Science and Technology has done a fantastic job designing this beauty. And oh, it weighs an astounding 2,255lbs, so you’d better have a rethink if you want to carry it.
You probably didn’t know a guitar could cost a fortune. The unique Fender made Stratocaster is an example of such guitars. Nicknamed the Reach Out To Asia Stratocaster, this guitar’s sale served as a medium to raise funds for victims and casualties of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami Trusted Source 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami A disaster that devastated 14 countries. edition.cnn.com .
Apart from being a means to donate, this guitar sold so high because of its ‘one of a kind’ decoration. This guitar had the signatures of several guitar icons spare across the Strat’s face.
The name Ibanez instinctively reminds you of instruments or something related to music, right? But you probably didn’t know the brand pioneered the mass production of the seven strings. With many guitar models in the brand’s name, you can tell how far they’ve come in guitar production.
Of course, different brands like the ESP have been trying the addition of strings while creating their guitars for a long time. But it was Ibanez that first tried the mass production of guitars with seven strings and eight strings. It produced the seven-stringed guitar in 1990 and the eight-stringed guitar in 2007.
Interestingly, the brand meant to produce the seven-stringed guitar to have a high A String. However, after initial production, it turned out to be the low B string, which was a perfect option.
Only very few people can imagine playing the guitar non-stop for a full day. What if you realize that an Irish guitarist named Dave Browne played non-stop for four and a half days. Impressive, right? Till date, he still holds the world record after playing the guitar for 114 hours, 6 minutes, and 30 seconds. If you’ve ever struck a guitar, you can imagine how his finger would feel after playing for such a long time.
The event was held at the Temple Bar Pub, one of Dublin’s most famous temples. During this time, Dave Browne played over 1,370 whole songs without stopping.
Surprising, right? Of course, the name Fender instinctively reminds you of music. The brand has been producing top-quality musical instruments since the 1940s. Today, they’ve become one of the most famous producers of guitars across the world.
Despite gaining such popularity in guitar production, it seems ironic the brand’s founder never learned to play the guitar.
Maybe the world isn’t fair to lefties, even when they are rock icons. Jimi Hendrix, widely considered as the most famous and influential guitarist of all time, is one of such lefties that would have been limited by the typical guitar design. However, he flipped over the right-handed Fender Stratocasters and restrung them to change the string tension and microphone location. This way, he was able to produce the Hendrix signature mix of delicate lows and bright highs.
He mastered the guitar to the extent of playing with his teeth and behind the back. Thanks to reinventions by popular guitar brands, there are now left-handed acoustic guitars for left-handed people, so no one has to go through the stress of flipping or restring a guitar to play.
Yes, no fun facts about guitars will be complete without mentioning Chris Black’s famous marriage to a guitar. In 2001, the British musician fell so much in love with the red Fender Strat that he decided to marry it after ‘dating’ it for 35 years. A friend in a London church officiated the marriage ceremony.
Such a crazy fact to end the list, right? Well, nobody’s circling the earth anytime soon. However, the Fender factory is famous for making over 90,000 guitar strings per day. Do the math, and you’d realize that it amounts to 20,000 miles of string per year, enough to go round the earth.
There you have it, several interesting facts about guitars. What do you think about these facts? Were they surprising to you? We are sure you’ve not read so many fun facts about your favorite musical instrument in one piece before. Now that you know these facts playing the guitar is going to feel different to you. Who knows? Perhaps, one day, you might attempt beating Dave Browne’s playing record or try a 7-stringed guitar like the GRG 7221, which is, by the way, our editor’s pick. Whatever it is, you’ll definitely be motivated to try new things with your guitar.
