David Kraus: The Listening Room

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The Most Versatile Guitar

The nylon string guitar, more commonly known as the "classical" guitar, is without a doubt the most versatile
of all the instruments included in the guitar family. This family of fretted plucked instruments also includes the steel string acoustic guitar (which is the one most people
identify as an acoustic guitar), the solid body electric, the hollow body electric (specifically the "archtop" jazz guitar), and may also include other well known instruments such as the mandolin, the banjo, and more. But it is the nylon string guitar which allows for so many differing styles to be played upon it and sound natural and musically beautiful. It is because of the many kinds of musics that are heard on the nylon that I (and most guitar players today) eschew the word "classical" when speaking of it. Though it is the instrument used for performing classical music, the term "classical guitar" can be misleading to the listener when the performer is using the instrument to play other styles of music on it that are not classical. To say that I am playing jazz or Brazilian music on the classical guitar can indeed be confusing. One may knit their eyebrows and query "Does this mean you're playing jazz in a classical style?" This is a legitimate question when we have for so long associated classical music with the nylon string guitar.

More coming...

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