Classical Guitar Cutaway

The guitar is one of the most popular music instruments in the United States with a history which spans over four centuries. Throughout this time span the classical guitar has evolved from three sources, namely; the Lute, the Vihuela and the Baroque guitar. The popularity of this classical guitar which evolved from these three sources has been sustained by many well known players and composers such as John Williams and Christopher Parkening.

The classical guitar is a six stringed instrument which has excelled in popularity among common music lovers. The rising popularity of the guitar is proved by the accelerated levels of sales of the instrument. The term classical does not denote that only classical repertoires are performed; instead all kinds of music such as folk, jazz etc. are performed on it.

A key feature of characterizing the classical guitar is its specific instrumental technique, i.e. to use the right hand to pluck or pick the strings while the left to be used to grip notes. In order to ease this general technique of playing the instrument a guitar cutaway is created. A guitar cutaway is an indentation in the body of the guitar adjoining the neck of the instrument. In addition to this ease in playing the instrument through the cutaway, it has also been identified that these subtle features can have a huge impact on the function of the instrument. For instance the classical guitar cutaway exposes the fretboard of the guitar making it easier to reach and play higher notes.

The guitar cutaway has become so important that some manufacturers denote the model of the guitar by its cutaway. Classical guitar cutaway are of two types; Venetian and Florentine. These names of the two types are used to describe the actual shape of the classical guitar cutaway.

The Venetian style of classical guitar cutaway is one which owns a shape of a rounder edge while the Florentine style of classical guitar cutaway represents a sharper bout in a pointed form. The very first Venetian classical guitar cutaway was used in reference to an acoustic archtop in 1939 named The Super 400P. The initial Florentine classical guitar cutaway was used to describe a series of mandolins and the Gibson's 'O' style guitars in 1902. However it has been identified that the Florentine style of classical guitar cutaway was also evident in the 19th century in a book named 'The Steve Howe guitar collection'. This book contained an instrument of a French guitar maker named Georges Warnecke with the Florentine cutaway.

Despite the pros of a classical guitar cutaway, the cons are also being debated. One such disadvantage is the unattractiveness of the cutaway which ruins the total appearance of the guitar. But this is a subjective argument based on personal preferences. Therefore it becomes vital to select the right guitar in terms of its cutaway based on personal requirements, capabilities as well as budget.