Classical guitar

The classical guitar is distinguished by a number of features.

• It is an acoustic instrument. The sound is amplified by a sound box.
• It has six strings.
• The strings are made from cat gut, or much more commonly these days nylon, as opposed to the metal strings found in some other forms of guitar. These strings have a much lower tension than steel strings. The lower three strings ('bass strings') are wound with metal, commonly silver or bronze.
• Because of the low tension of the strings the neck can be made entirely of wood, not requiring a steel truss road.
• The neck tends to be broader than with steel string guitars, making more complex work easier, but requiring a left hand position which ultimately makes the guitar less stable to hold.
• The strings are usually plucked with the fingers.

The heyday of the classical guitar repertoire lies in the 19th century. Some guitar composers are:

• Dionisio Aguado[?] 1784-1849
• Leo Brouwer 1939-
• Matteo Carcassi 1792-1853
• Fernando Carulli[?] 1770-1841
• Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco[?] 1895-1968
• Napoleon Coste[?] 1806-1883
• Mauro Giuliani[?] 1780-1840
• Luigi Legnani[?] 1790-1877
• Miguel Llobet[?] 1878-1937
• Joaquin Rodrigo 1901-1999
• Fernando Sor[?] 1778-1839
• Francisco Tarrega[?] 1852-1909
• Heitor Villa-Lobos 1887-1959

Because of the relative scarcity of pieces, guitarists often play transcriptions of music originally written for other instruments.

Classical guitar players:

• Manuel Barrueco[?]
• Ben Bolt[?]
• Julian Bream[?] 1933
• Charo
• Eric Hamilton[?]
• Andrés Segovia 1893-1987
• Narciso Yepes[?] 1927-1997
• John Williams 1941