guitar

A six-stringed, wood-bodied instrument with a fretted neck. The basic guitar, which emerged from the confluence of Islamic and Greco-Roman musical traditions in the Iberian penninsula, developed into different types derived from a variety of cultural traditions, such as flamenco, mariachi, and eventually styles like American folk and rock-and-roll, each of which augmented the traditional guitar design to accommodate new playing pracitices, aesthetics, and desired sounds.