The modern steel string guitar, on the other hand, usually has 14 frets clear of the body (see Dreadnought) and is commonly held with a strap around the neck and shoulder.

The musicologist and author Graham Wade writes: Nowadays it is customary to play this repertoire on reproductions of instruments authentically modelled on concepts of musicological research with appropriate adjustments to techniques and overall interpretation.

These guitars in turn sound different from the Torres models used by Segovia that are suited for interpretations of romantic-modern works such as Moreno Torroba.

As an example: It is impossible to play a historically informed de Visee or Corbetta (baroque guitarist-composers) on a modern classical guitar.

However, they are considered to emphasize the fundamental too heavily (at the expense of overtone partials) for earlier repertoire (Classical/Romantic: Carulli, Sor, Giuliani, Mertz, ...; Baroque: de Visee, ...; etc.).

[7] While fan-braced modern classical Torres and post-Torres style instruments coexisted with traditional ladder-braced guitars at the beginning of the 20th century, the older forms eventually fell away.

On the other hand, Segovia was playing concerts around the world, popularizing modern classical guitar—and, in the 1920s, Spanish romantic-modern style with guitar works by Moreno Torroba, de Falla, etc.

Segovia collaborated with the composers Federico Moreno Torroba and Joaquín Turina with the aim of extending the guitar repertoire with new music.

[17] Luiz Bonfá popularized Brazilian musical styles such as the newly created Bossa Nova, which was well received by audiences in the USA.

The classical guitar repertoire also includes modern contemporary works – sometimes termed "New Music" – such as Elliott Carter's Changes,[18] Cristóbal Halffter's Codex I,[19] Luciano Berio's Sequenza XI,[20] Maurizio Pisati's Sette Studi,[21] Maurice Ohana's Si Le Jour Paraît,[22] Sylvano Bussotti's Rara (eco sierologico),[23] Ernst Krenek's Suite für Guitarre allein, Op.

These include works such as Brian Ferneyhough's Kurze Schatten II,[27] Sven-David Sandström's away from[28] and Rolf Riehm's Toccata Orpheus etc.

Do not understand me wrong, we have many guitarists today that are very excellent performers, but none with such a distinct personality in their tone and style as Llobet, Segovia and Bream.

[34] This means that contemporary Iranian instruments such as the tanbur and setar are distantly related to the European guitar, as they all derive ultimately from the same ancient origins, but by very different historical routes and influences.

The earliest extant six-string guitar is believed to have been built in 1779 by Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 – after 1831) in Naples, Italy; however, the date on the label is a little ambiguous.

The modern classical guitar was developed in the 19th century by Antonio de Torres Jurado, Ignacio Fleta, Hermann Hauser Sr., and Robert Bouchet.

The Spanish luthier and player Antonio de Torres gave the modern classical guitar its definitive form, with a broadened body, increased waist curve, thinned belly, and improved internal bracing.

Noted players were: Francisco Tárrega, Emilio Pujol, Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, Agustín Barrios, and John Williams (guitarist).

However Johann Kaspar Mertz, for example, is notable for specifying the thumb to fret bass notes on the sixth string, notated with an up arrowhead (⌃).

To achieve tremolo effects and rapid, fluent scale passages, the player must practice alternation, that is, never plucking a string with the same finger twice in a row.

The most important composer who did not write for the guitar but whose music is often played on it is Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Germany 1685), whose baroque lute, violin, and cello works have proved highly adaptable to the instrument.

The steel-string and electric guitars characteristic to the rise of rock and roll in the post-WWII era became more widely played in North America and the English-speaking world.

Other prominent Latin American composers are Leo Brouwer of Cuba, Antonio Lauro of Venezuela and Enrique Solares of Guatemala.

Julian Bream of Britain managed to get nearly every British composer from William Walton and Benjamin Britten to Peter Maxwell Davies to write significant works for guitar.

There are significant works by composers such as Hans Werner Henze of Germany, Gilbert Biberian of England and Roland Chadwick of Australia.

Nevertheless, some guitar concertos are nowadays widely known and popular, especially Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (with the famous theme from 2nd movement) and Fantasía para un gentilhombre.

Composers, who also wrote famous guitar concertos are: Antonio Vivaldi (originally for mandolin or lute), Mauro Giuliani, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Manuel Ponce, Leo Brouwer, Lennox Berkeley and Malcolm Arnold.

Frets are the metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fingerboard and placed at points that divide the length of string mathematically.

A classical guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck.

Some contemporary guitar makers have introduced new construction concepts such as "double-top" consisting of two extra-thin wooden plates separated by Nomex, or carbon-fiber reinforced lattice – pattern bracing.

Also, the position of the saddle, usually a strip of bone or plastic that supports the strings off the bridge, determines the distance to the nut (at the top of the fingerboard).