Talk:Steel-string acoustic guitar

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If you learn acoustic is it very easy to learn classical and electric because they are simalar?

Learn acoustic first because they are more difficult to play than an electric. It is easier to go from an acoustic to an electric than vice versa.

I have added a link to the stub I have written about Open D tuning. user:DanG

From what I've read acoustic guitars are built more strongly than classical guitars becuase of the added tension from the steel strings. But can you convert the acoustic guitar into a classical guitar simply by using nylon strings?

Nope, for basically the same reason: "classical" guitars (i.e., nylon-string guitars) have lighter bracing (fan bracing), so nylon strings on a steel-string guitar (which generally use what's called "X-bracing") won't sound right. Not that nobody's done it; I'm sure someone has. Just not generally recommended. --ILike2BeAnonymous 00:29, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The name of this article is wrong no longer wrong

... or so I believe. I've played, worked on and otherwise been involved with guitars for some decades now, and to me, "acoustic guitar" means just what it says: any non-electric guitar, including "classical" guitars.

I've always preferred distinguishing guitars by the kinds of strings they use, so by that criterion, this article should properly be titled "Steel-string[ed] guitar". I believe this way of classifying guitars is also the one most people use.

Alternatively, this article should cover both steel-string and nylon-string ("classical") guitars.

So, whaddya think? --ILike2BeAnonymous 00:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I was trying to find out info about guitars and was confused by the names on Wikipedia. Your idea seems clearer and also seems to make more sense. But I am not an expert on guitars.

OK, thanks for agreeing. (By the way, could you sign your comments? Even if you're anonymous, it puts a timestamp on that's useful for tracking conversations.) Further research at this end has revealed that the information in the main guitar article here is much more comprehensive and correctly delineates the differences between types of acoustic guitars. Therefore, it seems that only the "acoustic guitar" article is in need of fixing. More research needed to come up with a better structure for subtopics. --ILike2BeAnonymous 21:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I actually think this article should be called "guitar". "Electric guitar" should be differentiated. There were no guitars before the acoustic. I think the name acoustic guitar is redundant.
What you say may have been true some time ago, before the rise of the electric guitar. However, since then, the term "guitar" is in no way restricted in common usage to the non-electric type, so, unfortunately, the reduncancy is unavoidable. ==ILike2BeAnonymous 18:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I would contend that it's still true. While I am not saying that the electric guitar is not truly a guitar, I hold that the electric guitar is simply a variation of the original, in many ways contradicting the intent of its design. The fact that it's a "popular" variation should not be a factor. But I realize that the average person doesn't really care, so I don't suppose differentiating "acoustic guitar" from "electric guitar" is going to cause me to lose any sleep. Dubc0724 18:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I also use the term 'acoustic guitar' in the sense of 'classical guitar'. I suppose that's a matter of what one is used to and that it's a difference in use between America and Europe. And since most editors here will be from the US it started off with one POV in stead of the other. So why not make it neutral and make acoustic guitar a disambiguation page? And there are more types of acoustic guitar, like the dobro. Also, there are combinations like the Archtop guitar (although that might also a bit of a misnomer), so that could also be disambiguated here. And terms like western, folk and country guitar also need diambiguation, although I don't know if this would be the right place (and I've heard it's really a distinction between playing styles, not guitars). DirkvdM 07:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
The decision to create a disam page was a reasonable one, but for future reference you may want to read the recommended process prior to making the change. Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Preparation. The way this was done created quite a bit of work for others (specifically Wikipedia:Disambiguation_pages_with_links). Srice13 23:36, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, it's taxonomy time:

Does that help? (By the way, these are the terms I'd use to classify these critters.) +ILike2BeAnonymous 07:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll give it a go. DirkvdM 07:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh dear, now the discussion page is double. I haven't encoutered this before. Do you know how to deal with this? No, it is just one talk page for both articles, because edtis appear in both. Weird.
Do you know what type of strings the russian guitar and acoustic bass have? DirkvdM 08:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
1: "Double"? Not sure what you mean.
2: Pretty sure the Russian guitar uses steel strings. Not sure about acoustic bass. And you haven't forgotten the guitarron, have you? Actually, you might want to check the list of string instruments to see what else there is. +ILike2BeAnonymous 08:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
As an exaple of the page-problem, if you go to acoustic guitar, go to its talk page and then click 'article', you arrive at Steel-string acoustic guitar. So the two talk pages are one, the steel string article being the default (somthing like that). I suppose we need an admin to resolve this.
Which instruments to include is a bit difficult. The guitarron is not really a guitar, strictly speaking (according to the article), but it comes close enough. Some other possiblities are Bajo sexto, Chitarra battente, Cuatro (instrument), Portuguese guitar, English guitar, Tiple. Tres, Ukelele, Vihuela and Warr guitar and Chapman Stick. The Chitarrone sounds like it should be included, but is part of the lute family. I have only looked at 'European' instruments that rang a bell or sounded likely, so this is probably not quite complete.
A problem with classification is that the articles don't generally say what kind of strings they use, and I've made that the main distinctive factor. DirkvdM 11:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Range

I just measured the range of my acoustic steel-string. It goes from (in standard tuning) E2 to E4 plus a few more notes. Is this limitation a big deal to alot of guitarists? What can be done to change it?

Don't you mean from E2 to E5? The open (top) E string is E4, so you've got at least another octave on top of that, plus "a few more notes". So far as changing it goes, I suppose you could modify your instrument into a cutaway. +ILike2BeAnonymous 06:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah you're probably right. Maybe a cutaway 7 string would be perfect.
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