I’ve recently started acquiring a bunch of new world music compilations, thanks to some great recommendations from y’all, and have been meditating on the role of the guitar in folk and other indigenous music. It seems somewhere between “common” and “prevalent” in many Western (i.e., European) and Western-colonized (e.g., N&S American, Africa)n cultures, esp. the ones that synchretized their own musical traditions with those of the colonizers. Sometimes the tradition was translated and transformed (e.g. Polynesian – see, e.g., Hawaiian music, which turned the guitar into a ukulele), and sometimes the guitar was absorbed wholesale (Mexican mariachi, etc.). Other, mostly Asian, cultures seem not to have picked up the guitar at all, sometimes because of the almost total lack of Western influence (Japan, China, prior to the 20th century), or because … other stringed intstruments were available? The colonizing culture never dominated in the same way? (India)
I can see why the guitar became so dominant – it’s easily portable; lends itself to both chords and melodies; one can play and sing at the same time, etc.
Oh, you want a question or something here? Okay – does anyone know the actual history here? Where does the guitar really start from? Is my speculation about why some cultures and not others at all plausible? Etc.
My fuzzy memory recalls that the guitar was an import from Africa, based on the kora and other stringed instruments used in antiquity. The kora can be heard extensively on albums by Ali Farka Toure and Salif Keita, but you probably already know that.
If you are listening to world music, I would suggest Amalia Rodriguez, who, besides having one of the most powerful voices in recorded history, had brilliant accompaniment on the Portuguese guitar. That link also briefly discusses the Renaissance cittern, from which the English guitar sprang.
The guitar is generally accepted to have come from the arabian oud (whence the italian lute also sprang) after the 711 invasion of Spain, although I have heard it suggested that there were already similar instruments in the Iberian peninsula before this time. The oud is still the most popular instrument in the middle east. As to why certain cultures have never picked up the guitar, I would guess that it is mainly because in many of those parts there were already highly developed musical forms. This is certainly true of the region from the Balkans to India, where a guitar would be unable to play the music, which relies heavily on undefined intervals smaller than the semitone. (Unfortunately, with the import of keyboard instruments music from these regions is now often played to a tempered scale, which usually sounds pretty awful). I would guess with regard to Africa, much of the the music of Africa was less developed either harmonically or modally than in Europe or Asia, and as such the guitar would fit in easily enough. The same is probably true of the Americas and the Pacific islands.
No power this weekend; now at work - no time to post. Argh.
There is lots of history to it. I haven’t checked Wikipedia yet, but suspect it is a good place to start.
There are progenitors in Africa and, as noted, Moorish Spain. It eventually evolved into the vihuela - which became the guitar. But the concept of a “drum box that makes noise via strings instead of beating it” emerged in a number of cultures - look at Russian (balalaika) and Asian (shamisen) examples, too.