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Finnish_language	Who wrote the first novel in Finnish?	Aleksis Kivi	data/set5/a5	Finnish_language Finnish ( , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% Tilastokeskus - VÃ¤estÃ¶ ) and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and MeÃ¤nkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a Finnish dialect spoken in Northern Norway, is an official minority language in Norway. Finnish is the eponymous member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects the forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence. Finnish is a member of the Baltic-Finnic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of languages which in turn is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The Baltic-Finnic subgroup also includes Estonian and other minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with the Uralic languages in several respects including: Shared morphology: :case suffixes such as genitive -n, partitive -(t)a / -(t)Ã¤ ( Virtual Finland: Where do Finns come from?. According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Finnish is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Defense Language Institute Areas in Southern Sweden with a Finnish-speaking population (2005) Finnish is spoken by about six million people who reside mainly in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Canada, and the United States. The majority of the population of Finland, 91.51% , speak Finnish as their first language. The remainder speak Swedish (5.5%), Sami (Northern, Inari, Skolt) and other languages. It has achieved some popularity as a second language in Estonia. Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish, spoken by 5.49% of the population Statistikcentralen - Befolkning ) and an official language of the European Union. It enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden. It is also one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rÃ¤tt att anvÃ¤nda sitt eget sprÃ¥k i annat nordiskt land, Nordic Council website. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention, Nordic news, February 22, 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. According to recent estimations, Proto-Uralic language arrived in Finland around 1900 BCE, soon to be developed into Proto-Finnic. The Balto-Finnic languages evolved from the Proto-Finnic language after SÃ¡mi was separated from it around 1500-1000 BCE. Current research indicates there were three or more Proto-Finnic dialects. The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued to influence each other. Therefore, the Eastern Finnish dialects are genetically Eastern Proto-Finnic, with many Eastern features, and the Southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences. Finland was annexed to Catholic Sweden in the Middle Ages. Prior to this, Finnish was an oral language. Even after, the language of larger-scale business was Middle Low German, the language of administration Swedish, and religious activities were held in Latin, leaving few possibilities for Finnish-speakers to use their mother tongue in situations other than daily chores. The first known written example of Finnish comes from this era and was found in a German travel journal dating back to c.1450: Mynna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emyna dayda (Modern Finnish: "MinÃ¤ tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltÃ¤, [mutta] en minÃ¤ taida"; English: "I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I cannot"). According to the travel journal, a Finnish bishop, whose name is unknown, was behind the above quotation. Mikael Agricola, a 19th century drawing by Albert Edelfelt The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola, a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his orthography on Swedish, German, and Latin. His ultimate plan was to translate the Bible, but first he had to define rules on which the Finnish standard language still relies, particularly with respect to spelling. He also invented single-handedly many words such as armo meaning both "mercy" and "grace" (as in "from grace alone, not out of good works...") and vanhurskas "righteous". More than fifty percent of these words are still in use. Agricola's written language was based on western dialects of Finnish, and his intention was that each phoneme should correspond to one letter. Yet, Agricola was confronted with many problems in this endeavor and failed to achieve uniformity. This is why he might use different signs for the same phonemes depending on the situation. For example he used dh or d to represent the voiced dental fricative (English th in this) and tz or z to represent the geminate unvoiced dental fricative (the th in thin). Additionally, Agricola might use gh or g to represent the voiced velar fricative and either ch, c or h for /h/. For example he wrote techtin against modern spelling tehtiin. Later others revised Agricola's work, striving for a more phonemic system. Along the way, Finnish lost some of its phonemes. The sounds and disappeared from the standard language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. Elsewhere, traces of these phonemes persist as their disappearance gave Finnish dialects their distinct qualities. For example, became ht or tt (e.g. meÃ¾Ã¾Ã¤ â mehtÃ¤, mettÃ¤) in the eastern dialects and in some western dialects. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost phonemes is thus: * became * became * became but only if the voiced velar fricative appeared originally between high labial vowels, otherwise lost entirely. Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon character (:) to separate the stem of the word and its grammatical ending in some cases (such as after abbreviations), where some other alphabetic writing systems would use an apostrophe. Suffixes are required for correct grammar, so this is often applied, e.g. EU:ssa "in the EU". Elias LÃ¶nnrot as depicted in a 19th century caricature LÃ¶nnrot made several journeys to Karelia and Eastern Finland to collect folklore, from which he compiled the Kalevala. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress the need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a full-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become a language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias LÃ¶nnrot. His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly crucial. In addition to compiling the Kalevala, he acted as an arbitrator in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that the western dialects Agricola had preferred preserved their preeminent role, while many originally dialectical words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish-speaker) was Seven Brothers, published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. Map of Finnish dialects The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, the Western dialects and the Eastern dialects. The dialects are almost entirely mutually intelligible and distinguished from each other by only minor changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm. For the most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology, grammar and vocabulary. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in Rauma dialect and the Eastern exessive case. The classification of closely related dialects spoken outside of Finland is a politically sensitive issue that has been controversial since Finland's independence in 1917. This concerns specifically the Karelian language in Russia and MeÃ¤nkieli in Sweden, the speakers of which are often considered oppressed minorities. Karelian is different enough from standard Finnish to have its own orthography. MeÃ¤nkieli is a northern dialect entirely intelligible to speakers of any other Finnish dialect, which achieved its status as an official minority language in Sweden for historical and political reasons regardless of the fact that Finnish is an official minority language in Sweden, too. The South-West dialects (lounaismurteet) are spoken in Finland Proper and Satakunta. Their typical feature is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects (hÃ¤mÃ¤lÃ¤ismurteet) are spoken in Tavastia. They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels (tie â tiÃ¤, miekka â miakka, kuolisi â kualis). The Southern Ostrobothnian dialects (etelÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia. Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of 'd' as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/. The Middle and North Ostrobothnia dialects (keski- ja pohjoispohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia. The Far-Northern dialects (perÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Lapland. The dialects spoken in the western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old 'h' sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One of the Far-Northern dialects, MeÃ¤nkieli, which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border, is taught in some Swedish schools as a distinct standardized language. The speakers of MeÃ¤nkieli became politically separated from the other Finns when Finland was annexed to Russia in 1809. The categorization of MeÃ¤nkieli as a separate language is controversial among the Finns, who see no linguistic criteria, only political reasons, for treating MeÃ¤nkieli differently than other dialects of Finnish. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms, in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects (savolaismurteet) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects spoken now only in Finnish South Karelia. The South-Eastern dialects (kaakkoismurteet) were previously spoken also on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria. The Karelian Isthmus was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most of Ingrian Finns were deported to various parts of Russia and Estonia. Palatalization, a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in Baltic-Finnic languages, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with a 'j', e.g. vesj, cf. standard vesi. The language spoken in the parts of Karelia that have not historically been under Swedish or Finnish rule is usually called the Karelian language, and it is considered to be more distant from standard Finnish than the Eastern dialects. Whether this language of Russian Karelia is a dialect of Finnish or a separate language is a matter of interpretation. However, the term Karelian dialects is often used colloquially to the Finnish South-Eastern dialects. * Western dialects Southern-Western dialects Proper Southern-Western dialects * Northern dialect group Southern dialect group Southern-Western middle dialects *Pori region dialects Ala-Satakunta dialects dialects of Turku highlands Somero region dialects Western Uusimaa dialects Tavastian dialects *YlÃ¤-Satakunta dialects Heart Tavastian dialects Southern Tavastian dialects Southern-Eastern Tavastian dialects *Hollola dialect group Porvoo dialect group Iitti dialect group Southern Botnian dialects Middle and Northern Botnian dialects Middle Botnian dialects Northern Botnian dialects PerÃ¤pohjola dialects *Tornio dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) Kemi dialects KemijÃ¤rvi dialects JÃ¤llivaara dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) *Ruija dialects ("Kven language" in Northern Norway) Eastern dialects Savonian dialects Northern Savonian dialects Southern Savonian dialects Middle dialects of Savonlinna region Eastern Savonian dialects or the dialects of North Karelia Kainuu dialects Central Finland dialects PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne Tavastia dialects Keuruu-EvijÃ¤rvi dialects Savonian dialects of VÃ¤rmland (Sweden) Southern-Eastern dialects Proper Southern-Eastern dialects Middle dialects of Lemi region Middle dialects of Sortavala region (now in Russia) Dialects of Ingria (in Russia) /ref> There are two main varieties of Finnish used throughout the country. One is the "standard language" (yleiskieli), and the other is the "spoken language" (puhekieli). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" (kirjakieli), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on the other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish (Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951â61), with 201,000 entries, was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin (Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja, 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, the Language Office Dictionary (Kielitoimiston sanakirja) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (Iso suomen kielioppi, Hakulinen, Auli et al. (2004): Iso suomen kielioppi. SKS:n toimituksia 950. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. ISBN 951-746-557-2. 1,600 pages 1,600 pages) was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperÃ¤, published in 1992â2000, and a handbook of contemporary language (Nykysuomen kÃ¤sikirja), and a periodic publication, Kielikello. Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The spoken language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The spoken language develops significantly faster, and the grammatical and phonological simplifications include also the most common pronouns and suffixes, which sum up to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language, such as the irregularization of some common verbs by assimilation, e.g. tule- â tuu- (although tule can be used in spoken language as well). Written language certainly still exerts a considerable influence upon the spoken word, due to the fact that illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk like a book" (puhuvat kirjakieltÃ¤), although this is seen as pedantic. More common is the intrusion of typically book-like constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It should also be noted that it is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of the effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsÃ¤ : metsÃ¤n, as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria. In fact, it has arisen from the spelling 'ts' for the dental fricative [Î¸Ë], which has disappeared. In spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ (mettÃ¤ : mettÃ¤n) and Eastern /ht : t/ (mehtÃ¤ : metÃ¤n) has been created: /tt : t/ (mettÃ¤ : metÃ¤n). Yleiskielen ts:n murrevastineet It is notable that neither of these are forms are identifiable as or originate from a specific dialect. The orthography of the informal language follows that of the formal language. However, sometimes sandhi may be transcribed, especially the internal ones, e.g. menenpÃ¤ â menempÃ¤. This never takes place in formal language. : Note that there are noticeable differences between dialects. These examples are mostly from the language as spoken in the capital area (Helsinki dialect or even Stadin slangi). Also note that here the formal language does not mean a language spoken in formal occasions but the standard language which exist practically only in written form. Characteristic features of Finnish (common to other Finno-Ugric languages) are vowel harmony and an agglutinative morphology; due to the extensive use of the latter, words can be quite long. The main stress is always on the first syllable, and it is articulated by adding approximately 100 ms more length to the stressed vowel. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable. There are eight vowels, whose lexical and grammatical role is highly important, and which are unusually strictly controlled, so that there is almost no allophony. Vowels shown in the table below, followed by the IPA symbol when not identical. These are always different phonemes in the initial syllable; for noninitial syllable, see morphophonology below. : 1 Although conventionally and conveniently written with the close-mid symbols , and , they are more accurately described as mid vowels ( , and ). The usual analysis is that Finnish has long and short vowels and consonants as distinct phonemes. However, long vowels may be analyzed as a vowel followed by a chroneme, or also, that sequences of identical vowels are pronounced as "diphthongs". The quality of long vowels mostly overlaps with the quality of short vowels, with the exception of u, which is centralized with respect to uu; long vowels do not morph into diphthongs. There are eighteen phonemic diphthongs; like vowels, diphthongs do not have significant allophony. Finnish has a consonant inventory of small to moderate size, where voicing is mostly not distinctive, and fricatives are scarce. Finnish has relatively few non-coronal consonants. Consonants are as follows, where consonants in parenthesis are found only in a few recent loans. # is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation, and thus occurs only medially, or in non-native words; it is actually more of an alveolar tap rather than a true voiced stop, and the dialectal realization varies wildly; see main article. # The glottal stop can only appear at word boundaries as a result of certain sandhi phenomena, and it is not indicated in spelling: e.g. 'let it be', orthographically anna olla. Moreover, this sound is not used in all dialects. # The short velar nasal is an allophone of in , and the long velar nasal , written ng, is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation (type of lenition) and thus occurs only medially. Almost all consonants have phonemic geminated forms. These are independent, but occur only medially when phonemic. Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e.g. 'rs' in karsta. However, due to a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e.g. strutsi "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward. As a Finno-Ugric language, it is somewhat special in two respects: loss of fricatives and loss of palatalization. An interesting feature of Finnic phonology is the development of labial vowels in non-initial syllables. Proto-Uralic had only 'a' and 'i' and their vowel harmonic allophones in non-initial syllables; modern Finnish allows other vowels in non-initial syllables (they are uncommon, however, compared to 'a', 'Ã¤' and 'i'). Palatalization is characteristic of Finno-Ugric languages, but Finnish has lost it. However, the Eastern dialects and the Karelian language have redeveloped a system of palatalization. For example, the Karelian word d'uuri , with a palatalized , is reflected by juuri in Finnish and Savo dialect vesj is vesi in standard Finnish. Finnish has only two fricatives, namely and . All other fricatives are recognized as foreign, of which Finnish speakers can usually reliably distinguish and . Finnish has several morphophonological processes between grammar ("logic") and phonology ("sounds") that require modification of the forms of words for daily speech. The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation. Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [Â±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [Â±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [Â±back] for the initial syllable. For example, tuote ("product") agglutinates to tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'Ã¤') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'Ã¤' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts. Consonant gradation is a lenition process for P, T and K, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique root tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta â Va, e.g. vanha+ta â vanhaa. Another instance is the imperative, which changes into a glottal stop in the singular but is shown as an overt 'ka' in plural, e.g. mene vs. menkÃ¤Ã¤. The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative-accusative; but there are two object cases: accusative and partitive. The contrast between the two is telic, where the accusative case denotes actions completed as intended (Ammuin hirven "I shot (killed) the elk"), and the partitive case denotes incomplete actions (Ammuin hirveÃ¤ "I shot (at) the elk"). Often this is confused with perfectivity, but the only element of perfectivity that exists in Finnish is that there are some perfective verbs. Transitivity is distinguished by different verbs for transitive and intransitive, e.g. ratkaista "to solve something" vs. ratketa "to solve by itself". There are several frequentative and momentane verb categories. Verbs gain personal suffixes for each person; these suffixes are grammatically more important than pronouns, which are often not used at all in standard Finnish. The infinitive is not the uninflected form but has a suffix -ta or -da; the closest one to an uninflected form is the third person singular indicative. There are four persons, first ("I, we"), second ("you (singular), you (plural)"), third ("s/he, they"). Also, the passive voice (sometimes called impersonal or indefinite) resembles a "fourth person" similar to e.g. English "people say/do/â¦". There are four tenses, namely present, past, perfect and pluperfect; the system mirrors the Germanic system. The future tense is not needed due to context and the telic contrast. For example, luen kirjan "I read a book (completely)" indicates a future, when luen kirjaa "I read a book (not yet complete)" indicates present. Nouns may be suffixed with the markers for the aforementioned accusative case and partitive case, the genitive case, eight different locatives, and a few other cases. The case marker must be added not only to the main noun, but also to its modifiers; e.g. suure+ssa talo+ssa, literally "big-in house-in". Possession is marked with a possessive suffix; separate possessive pronouns are unknown. Pronouns gain suffixes just as nouns do. Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus (1745) by Daniel Juslenius was the first comprehensive dictionary of the Finnish language with 16,000 entries. :See the lists of Finnish words and words of Finnish origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project. Finnish extensively employs regular agglutination. It has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. As an example, take the word kirja "a book", from which one can form derivatives kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet), kirje "a piece of correspondence, a letter", kirjasto "a library", kirjailija "an author", kirjallisuus "literature", kirjoittaa "to write", kirjoittaja "a writer", kirjuri "a scribe, a clerk", kirjallinen "something in written form", kirjata "to write down, register, record", kirjasin "a font", and others. Here are some of the more common such suffixes. Which of each pair is used depends on the word being suffixed in accordance with the rules of vowel harmony. -ja/jÃ¤ : agent (one who does) (e.g. lukea "to read" â lukija "reader") -lainen/lÃ¤inen: inhabitant of (either noun or adjective). Englanti "England" â englantilainen "English person or thing"; VenÃ¤jÃ¤ â venÃ¤lÃ¤inen "Russian person or thing". -sto/stÃ¶: collection of. For example: kirja "a book" â kirjasto "a library"; laiva "a ship" â laivasto "navy, fleet". -in: instrument or tool. For example: kirjata "to book, to file" â kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet); vatkata "to whisk" â vatkain "a whisk, mixer". -uri/yri: an agent or instrument (kaivaa "to dig" â kaivuri "a digging machine"; laiva "a ship" â laivuri "shipper, shipmaster"). -os/Ã¶s: result of some action (tulla "to come" â tulos "result, outcome"; tehdÃ¤ "to do" â teos "a piece of work"). -ton/tÃ¶n: lack of something, "un-", "-less" (onni "happiness" â onneton "unhappy"; koti "home" â koditon "homeless"). -llinen: having (the quality of) something (lapsi "a child" â lapsellinen "childish"; kauppa "a shop, commerce" â kaupallinen "commercial"). -kas/kÃ¤s: similar to -llinen (itse "self" â itsekÃ¤s "selfish"; neuvo "advice" â neuvokas "resourceful"). -va/vÃ¤: doing or having something (taitaa "to be able" â taitava "skillful"; johtaa "to lead" â johtava "leading"). -la/lÃ¤: a place related to the main word (kana "a hen" â kanala "a henhouse"; pappi "a priest" â pappila "a parsonage"). Verbal suffixes are extremely diverse; several frequentatives and momentanes differentiating causative, volitional-unpredictable and anticausative are found, often combined with each other, often denoting indirection. For example, hypÃ¤tÃ¤ "to jump", hyppiÃ¤ "to be jumping", hypeksiÃ¤ "to be jumping wantonly", hypÃ¤yttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump once", hyppyyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump repeatedly" (or "to boss someone around"), hyppyytyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone to cause a third person to jump repeatedly", hyppyytellÃ¤ "to, without aim, make someone jump repeatedly", hypÃ¤htÃ¤Ã¤ "to jump suddenly" (in anticausative meaning), hypellÃ¤ "to jump around repeatedly", hypiskellÃ¤ "to be jumping repeatedly and wantonly", hyppimÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping", hyppelemÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping around". Often the diversity and compactness of this agglutination is illustrated with istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" (from istua, "to sit, to be seated"): istua "to sit down" istun "I sit down" / istahtaa "to sit down for a while" istahdan "I sit down for a while" istahtaisin "I should sit down for a while" istahtaisinko "should I sit down for a while?" istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" Over the course of many centuries, the Finnish language has borrowed a great many words from a wide variety of languages, most from neighboring Indo-European languages. Indeed, some estimates put the core Proto-Uralic vocabulary surviving in Finnish at only around 300 word roots. Due to the different grammatical, phonological and phonotactic structure of the Finnish language, loanwords from Indo-European have been assimilated. In general, the first loan words into Finno-Ugric languages seem to come from very early Indo-European languages, and later mainly from Iranian, Turkic, Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic languages. Furthermore, a certain group of very basic and neutral words exists in Finnish and other Finnic languages that are absent from other Finno-Ugric languages, but without a recognizable etymology from any known language. These words are usually regarded as the last remnant of the Nordic language spoken in Fennoscandia before the arrival of the proto-Finnic language. Words included in this group are e.g. jÃ¤nis (hare), musta (black), mÃ¤ki (hill), saari (island), suo (swamp) and niemi (cape). Also some place names, like PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne and Imatra, are probably before the proto-Finnic era. HÃ¤kkinen, Kaisa. Suomalaisten esihistoria kielitieteen valossa (ISBN 951-717-855-7). Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura 1996. See pages 166 and 173. Often quoted loan examples are kuningas "king" and ruhtinas "prince, high ranking nobleman" from Germanic kuningaz and druhtinaz, but another example is Ã¤iti "mother", from Gothic aiÃ¾ei, which is interesting because borrowing of close-kinship vocabulary is a rare phenomenon. The original Finnish emo occurs only in restricted contexts. There are other close-kinship words that are loaned from Baltic and Germanic languages (morsian "bride", armas "dear"). Examples of the ancient Iranian loans are vasara "hammer" from Avestan vadÅ¾ra, vajra and orja "slave" from arya, airya "man" (the latter probably via similar circumstances as slave from Slav in many European languages). More recently, Swedish has been a prolific source of borrowings, and also, the Swedish language acted as a proxy for European words, especially those relating to government. Present-day Finland belonged to the kingdom of Sweden from the 12th century and was ceded to Russia in 1809, becoming an autonomous Grand Duchy. Swedish was retained as the official language and language of the upper class even after this. When Finnish was accepted as an official language, it gained only legal "equal status" with Swedish, which persists even today. It is still the case today, though only about 5.5% of Finnish nationals, the Swedish-speaking Finns, have Swedish as their mother tongue. During the period of autonomy, Russian did not gain much ground as a language of the people or the government. Nevertheless, quite a few words were subsequently acquired from Russian (especially in older Helsinki slang) but not to the same extent as with Swedish. In all these cases, borrowing has been partly a result of geographical proximity. Especially words dealing with administrative or modern culture came to Finnish from Swedish, sometimes reflecting the oldest Swedish form of the word (lag - laki, 'law'; lÃ¤n - lÃ¤Ã¤ni, 'province'; bisp - piispa, 'bishop'; jordpÃ¤ron - peruna, 'potato'), and many more survive as informal synonyms in spoken or dialectal Finnish (e.g. likka, from Swedish flicka, 'girl', usually tyttÃ¶ in Finnish). Typical Russian loanwords are old or very old, thus hard to recognize as such, and concern everyday concepts, e.g. papu "bean", sini "(n.) blue" and pappi "priest". Notably, a few religious words such as Raamattu ("Bible") are borrowed from Russian, which indicates language contact preceding the Swedish era. This is mainly believed to be result of trade with Novgorod from the 9th century on and the Orthodox converting in the 13th century. Most recently, and with increasing impact, English has been the source of new loanwords in Finnish. Unlike previous "geographical" borrowing, the influence of English is largely "cultural" and reaches Finland by many routes including: international business; music; film and TV (foreign films and programmes, excluding ones intended for a very young audience, are shown subtitled); literature; and, of course, the Web this is now probably the most important source of all non-face-to-face exposure to English. The importance of English as the language of global commerce has led many non-English companies, including Finland's Nokia, to adopt English as their official operating language. Recently, it has been observed that English borrowings are also ousting previous borrowings, for example the switch from treffailla "to date" (from Swedish, trÃ¤ffa) to deittailla from English "to go for a date". Calques from English are also found, e.g. kovalevy (hard disk). Grammatical calques are also found, for example, the replacement of the impersonal (passiivi) with the English-style generic you, e. g. sÃ¤ et voi "you cannot", instead of ei voi "one cannot". However, this does not mean that Finnish is threatened by English. Borrowing is normal language evolution, and neologisms are coined actively not only by the government, but also by the media. Moreover, Finnish and English have a considerably different grammar, phonology and phonotactics, discouraging direct borrowing. English loan words in Finnish slang include for example pleikkari "PlayStation", hodari "hot dog", and hedari "headache", "headshot" or "headbutt". Often these loanwords are distinctly identified as slang or jargon, rarely being used in a negative mood or in formal language. Since English and Finnish grammar, pronunciation and phonetics differ considerably, most loan words are inevitably sooner or later calqued â translated into native Finnish â retaining the semantic meaning. Some modern terms have been synthesised rather than borrowed, for example: :puhelin "telephone" (literally: "chatter" + instrument suffix "-in" to make "an instrument for chattering") :tietokone "computer" (literally: "knowledge machine") :levyke "diskette" (from levy "disc" + a diminutive -ke) :sÃ¤hkÃ¶posti "email" (literally: "electrical mail") :linja-auto "bus" (literally: route-car) Neologisms are actively generated by the Language Planning Office and the media. They are widely adopted. One would actually give an old-fashioned or rustic impression using forms such as telefooni or kompuutteri when the neologism is widely adopted. The first page of Abckiria (1543), the first book written in the Finnish language. The spelling of Finnish in the book had many inconsistencies: for example, the k sound could be represented by c, k or even g; the long u and the long i were represented by w and ij respectively, and Ã¤ was represented by e. Finnish is written with the Swedish variant of the Latin alphabet that includes the distinct characters Ã and Ã, and also several characters not used in Finnish (including for example C, Q, Ã). The Finnish orthography built upon the phoneme principle: each phoneme (meaningful sound) of the language is represented by exactly one grapheme (independent letter), and each grapheme represents almost exactly one phoneme. This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell, and facilitates learning to read and write. The rule of thumb for Finnish orthography is: write as you read, read as you write. However, morphemes retain their spelling despite sandhi. Some orthographical notes: Long vowels and consonants are represented by double occurrences of the relevant graphemes. This causes no confusion, and permits these sounds to be written without having to nearly double the size of the alphabet to accommodate separate graphemes for long sounds. The grapheme h occurring before a consonant sounds slightly harder (initially breathy voiced, then voiceless) than when occurring before a vowel. Sandhi is not transcribed; the spelling of morphemes is immutable, e.g. tulen+pa . Some consonants (v, j, d) and all consonants occurring in (always medial) clusters do not have distinctive length, and consequently, their allophonic variation is not indicated in spelling, e.g. rajaan /rajaan/ (I limit) vs. raijaan /raijjaan/ (I haul). Pre-1900s texts and personal names use w for v. Both correspond to the same phoneme, the labiodental approximant , a v without the fricative ("hissing") quality of the English v. The letters Ã¤ [Ã¦] and Ã¶ [Ã¸], although written as umlauted a and o, do not represent phonological umlauts, and they are considered independent graphemes; the letter shapes have been copied from Swedish. An appropriate parallel from the Latin alphabet are the characters C and G (uppercase), which historically have a closer kinship than many other characters (G is a derivation of C) but are considered distinct letters, and changing one for the other will change meanings. Although Finnish is almost completely written as it is spoken, there are a few differences: The n in nk is a velar nasal, as in English. As an exception to the phonetic principle, there is no g in ng, which is a long velar nasal as in English singalong. * The gemination between words is not marked in writing. * The double consonant in clitic is marked as a single consonant. * Only comparative and superlative adjectives the letter m is used like in speech in word like parempi, but in other similar cases the letter n is used, like in onpa * The /j/ after the letter i is very weak or there is no /j/ at all, but in writing it is used, example: urheilija. Indeed the j is not used in writing words with consonant gradation (like aion and some other (like lÃ¤ksiÃ¤iset)) * In speech there is no difference between the use of /i/ in words (like ajoittaa, but ehdottaa, but in writing there are quite simple rules: The i is written in words that consist two syllables and end in a or Ã¤ (sanoittaa), and in words that are old-stylish (innoittaa). The i is not written in words that consist two syllables and end in o or Ã¶ like (erottaa), words which do not have clear proto-word (hajottaa), and in words that are descriptive (hÃ¤Ã¤mÃ¶ttÃ¤Ã¤) or workaday by their style (rehottaa) Graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are sometimes converted in two ways, a and o, respectively and, ae and oe respectively. Finnish graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are not umlauts like in German; conversion to ae and oe in Finnish language is less correct than in German language. Conversion to a and o is more common and almost universally used in email-addresses. Conversion ae and oe is rare but formally used in passports and equivalent situations. both conversion rules have minimal pairs. The sounds Å¡ and Å¾ are not a part of Finnish language itself and have been introduced somewhat artificially by a government regulation. Although they occur in some rare loanwords, their principal use is in the transcription of foreign names. For technical reasons or convenience, the graphemes sh and zh are often used in quickly or less carefully written texts instead of Å¡ and Å¾. This is a deviation from the phonetic principle, and as such is liable to cause confusion, but the damage is minimal as the transcribed words are foreign in any case. Finnish does not use the sounds z, Å¡ or Å¾, but for the sake of exactitude, they can be included in spelling. (The recommendation cites the Russian play Hovanshtshina as an example.) Many speakers pronounce all of them s, or distinguish only between s and Å¡, because Finnish has no voiced sibilants. The language may be identified by its distinctive lack of the letters b, c, f, q, w, x, z and Ã¥. VÃ¤inÃ¶ Linna: The Unknown Soldier; these words were also inscribed in the 20 mk note. (Translation: "The benevolent sun watched them. By no means was it angry at them. Perhaps it even felt a kind of compassion towards them. Jolly good brothers.") Sample sound of "HyvÃ¤Ã¤ huomenta" (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) huomenta â Good morning (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) pÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (literally "Good day") (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltapÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltaa â Good evening (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) yÃ¶tÃ¤ / ÃitÃ¤ â Good night Terve! / Moro! â Hello! Hei! / Moi! â Hi! Heippa! / Moikka! / Hei hei! / Moi moi! â Bye! NÃ¤hdÃ¤Ã¤n â See you later (literally "will be seen") NÃ¤kemi(si)in / HyvÃ¤sti â Goodbye Hauska tutustua! â Nice to meet you Kiitos â Thank you Kiitos, samoin â Likewise MitÃ¤ kuuluu? â How are you / How you doing? (Not used among strangers.) (literally "What is heard?") Kiitos hyvÃ¤Ã¤ â I'm fine, thank you Tervetuloa! â Welcome! Tietosanakirja, 11 volumes, 1909-1922, Finnish encyclopedia. * kyllÃ¤ â yes * joo â yes (informal) * ei â no * en â I will not / I do not * minÃ¤, sinÃ¤, hÃ¤n(se) â I, you, he/she(it) * me, te, he(ne) â we, you (two or more), they * (minÃ¤) olen â I am * (sinÃ¤) olet â you are * (minÃ¤) en ole - I am not * (sinÃ¤) et ole - You are not * yksi, kaksi, kolme â one, two, three * neljÃ¤, viisi, kuusi â four, five, six * seitsemÃ¤n, kahdeksan â seven, eight * yhdeksÃ¤n, kymmenen â nine, ten * yksitoista, kaksitoista, kolmetoista â eleven, twelve, thirteen * sata, tuhat, miljoona â hundred, thousand, million * (minÃ¤) rakastan sinua â I love you * anteeksi â forgive me, excuse me, sorry * voitko auttaa â can you help * apua! - help! * voisit(te)ko auttaa â could you help * missÃ¤ on ... ? â where is ...? * olen pahoillani â I'm sorry (apology) * otan osaa â My condolences * onnea â good luck * totta kai/tietysti/toki â of course * pieni hetki, pikku hetki, hetkinen â one moment please! * odota â wait * Suomi â Finland * suomi/suomen kieli â Finnish language * suomalainen â (noun) Finn; (adjective) Finnish * En ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤ â I don't understand * (MinÃ¤) ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤n â I understand * Â¹YmmÃ¤rrÃ¤t(te)kÃ¶ suomea? â Do you understand Finnish? * Â¹Puhut(te)ko englantia? â Do you speak English? * Olen englantilainen / amerikkalainen / kanadalainen / australialainen / uusiseelantilainen / irlantilainen / skotlantilainen / walesilainen / ranskalainen / saksalainen / kiinalainen / japanilainen â I am English / American / Canadian / Australian / New Zealander / Irish / Scottish / Welsh / French / German / Chinese / Japanese * Â¹Olet(te)ko englantilainen? â Are you English? * MissÃ¤ (sinÃ¤) asut/Â¹MissÃ¤ (te) asutte? â Where do you live? Â¹ -te is added to make the sentence formal (T-V distinction). Otherwise, without the added "-te", it is informal. It is also added when talking to more than one person. The transition from second-person singular to second-person plural (teitittely) is a politeness pattern, advised by many "good manners guides". Elderly people, especially, expect it from strangers, whereas the younger might feel it to be too formal to the point of coldness. However, a learner of the language should not be excessively concerned about it. Omitting it is never offensive, but one should keep in mind that on formal occasions this custom may make a good impression. * Finnish alphabet * Finnish grammar * Spoken Finnish * Finland's language strife * Karelian language * Estonian language * Finnish name * Finnish cultural and academic institutes * Finnish language on Ethnologue * The Finnish language --- a list of resources * Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish * Proto-Uralic to Finnish (in IPA mostly migrated from X-SAMPA) * English-Finnish-English Dictionary * Collection of Finnish bilingual dictionaries * Finnish Etymological Dictionary by Andras Rajki * English-Finnish and Russian-Finnish Dictionary * English-Finnish vocabulary quizzes * The 2 253 possible forms of the Finnish noun kauppa 'shop' * Discussion about the Finnish Language To Do This section lists the topics which need to be written or expanded (there are headings for all of these): * This page: History: The history of the language, especially its written form and its official status Derivative suffixes ** External links * Grammar page: Illative formation Noun plurals Noun stem types Adjectives, including comparison Postpositions and prepositions 5th infinitive Imperfect indicative for typeV and VI verbs Present participles, active and passive Past participle, passive Agent participle Passive, 2nd person imperatives 3rd person imperatives 1st person plural imperatives Ordinal numbers ** Names of numbers * Spoken language page: **important regional variations -->
Finnish_language	Who wrote the first novel in Finnish?	The first novel in Finnish was published by Aleksis Kivi.	data/set5/a5	Finnish_language Finnish ( , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% Tilastokeskus - VÃ¤estÃ¶ ) and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and MeÃ¤nkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a Finnish dialect spoken in Northern Norway, is an official minority language in Norway. Finnish is the eponymous member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects the forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence. Finnish is a member of the Baltic-Finnic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of languages which in turn is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The Baltic-Finnic subgroup also includes Estonian and other minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with the Uralic languages in several respects including: Shared morphology: :case suffixes such as genitive -n, partitive -(t)a / -(t)Ã¤ ( Virtual Finland: Where do Finns come from?. According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Finnish is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Defense Language Institute Areas in Southern Sweden with a Finnish-speaking population (2005) Finnish is spoken by about six million people who reside mainly in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Canada, and the United States. The majority of the population of Finland, 91.51% , speak Finnish as their first language. The remainder speak Swedish (5.5%), Sami (Northern, Inari, Skolt) and other languages. It has achieved some popularity as a second language in Estonia. Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish, spoken by 5.49% of the population Statistikcentralen - Befolkning ) and an official language of the European Union. It enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden. It is also one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rÃ¤tt att anvÃ¤nda sitt eget sprÃ¥k i annat nordiskt land, Nordic Council website. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention, Nordic news, February 22, 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. According to recent estimations, Proto-Uralic language arrived in Finland around 1900 BCE, soon to be developed into Proto-Finnic. The Balto-Finnic languages evolved from the Proto-Finnic language after SÃ¡mi was separated from it around 1500-1000 BCE. Current research indicates there were three or more Proto-Finnic dialects. The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued to influence each other. Therefore, the Eastern Finnish dialects are genetically Eastern Proto-Finnic, with many Eastern features, and the Southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences. Finland was annexed to Catholic Sweden in the Middle Ages. Prior to this, Finnish was an oral language. Even after, the language of larger-scale business was Middle Low German, the language of administration Swedish, and religious activities were held in Latin, leaving few possibilities for Finnish-speakers to use their mother tongue in situations other than daily chores. The first known written example of Finnish comes from this era and was found in a German travel journal dating back to c.1450: Mynna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emyna dayda (Modern Finnish: "MinÃ¤ tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltÃ¤, [mutta] en minÃ¤ taida"; English: "I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I cannot"). According to the travel journal, a Finnish bishop, whose name is unknown, was behind the above quotation. Mikael Agricola, a 19th century drawing by Albert Edelfelt The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola, a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his orthography on Swedish, German, and Latin. His ultimate plan was to translate the Bible, but first he had to define rules on which the Finnish standard language still relies, particularly with respect to spelling. He also invented single-handedly many words such as armo meaning both "mercy" and "grace" (as in "from grace alone, not out of good works...") and vanhurskas "righteous". More than fifty percent of these words are still in use. Agricola's written language was based on western dialects of Finnish, and his intention was that each phoneme should correspond to one letter. Yet, Agricola was confronted with many problems in this endeavor and failed to achieve uniformity. This is why he might use different signs for the same phonemes depending on the situation. For example he used dh or d to represent the voiced dental fricative (English th in this) and tz or z to represent the geminate unvoiced dental fricative (the th in thin). Additionally, Agricola might use gh or g to represent the voiced velar fricative and either ch, c or h for /h/. For example he wrote techtin against modern spelling tehtiin. Later others revised Agricola's work, striving for a more phonemic system. Along the way, Finnish lost some of its phonemes. The sounds and disappeared from the standard language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. Elsewhere, traces of these phonemes persist as their disappearance gave Finnish dialects their distinct qualities. For example, became ht or tt (e.g. meÃ¾Ã¾Ã¤ â mehtÃ¤, mettÃ¤) in the eastern dialects and in some western dialects. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost phonemes is thus: * became * became * became but only if the voiced velar fricative appeared originally between high labial vowels, otherwise lost entirely. Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon character (:) to separate the stem of the word and its grammatical ending in some cases (such as after abbreviations), where some other alphabetic writing systems would use an apostrophe. Suffixes are required for correct grammar, so this is often applied, e.g. EU:ssa "in the EU". Elias LÃ¶nnrot as depicted in a 19th century caricature LÃ¶nnrot made several journeys to Karelia and Eastern Finland to collect folklore, from which he compiled the Kalevala. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress the need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a full-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become a language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias LÃ¶nnrot. His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly crucial. In addition to compiling the Kalevala, he acted as an arbitrator in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that the western dialects Agricola had preferred preserved their preeminent role, while many originally dialectical words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish-speaker) was Seven Brothers, published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. Map of Finnish dialects The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, the Western dialects and the Eastern dialects. The dialects are almost entirely mutually intelligible and distinguished from each other by only minor changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm. For the most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology, grammar and vocabulary. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in Rauma dialect and the Eastern exessive case. The classification of closely related dialects spoken outside of Finland is a politically sensitive issue that has been controversial since Finland's independence in 1917. This concerns specifically the Karelian language in Russia and MeÃ¤nkieli in Sweden, the speakers of which are often considered oppressed minorities. Karelian is different enough from standard Finnish to have its own orthography. MeÃ¤nkieli is a northern dialect entirely intelligible to speakers of any other Finnish dialect, which achieved its status as an official minority language in Sweden for historical and political reasons regardless of the fact that Finnish is an official minority language in Sweden, too. The South-West dialects (lounaismurteet) are spoken in Finland Proper and Satakunta. Their typical feature is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects (hÃ¤mÃ¤lÃ¤ismurteet) are spoken in Tavastia. They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels (tie â tiÃ¤, miekka â miakka, kuolisi â kualis). The Southern Ostrobothnian dialects (etelÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia. Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of 'd' as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/. The Middle and North Ostrobothnia dialects (keski- ja pohjoispohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia. The Far-Northern dialects (perÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Lapland. The dialects spoken in the western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old 'h' sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One of the Far-Northern dialects, MeÃ¤nkieli, which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border, is taught in some Swedish schools as a distinct standardized language. The speakers of MeÃ¤nkieli became politically separated from the other Finns when Finland was annexed to Russia in 1809. The categorization of MeÃ¤nkieli as a separate language is controversial among the Finns, who see no linguistic criteria, only political reasons, for treating MeÃ¤nkieli differently than other dialects of Finnish. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms, in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects (savolaismurteet) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects spoken now only in Finnish South Karelia. The South-Eastern dialects (kaakkoismurteet) were previously spoken also on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria. The Karelian Isthmus was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most of Ingrian Finns were deported to various parts of Russia and Estonia. Palatalization, a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in Baltic-Finnic languages, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with a 'j', e.g. vesj, cf. standard vesi. The language spoken in the parts of Karelia that have not historically been under Swedish or Finnish rule is usually called the Karelian language, and it is considered to be more distant from standard Finnish than the Eastern dialects. Whether this language of Russian Karelia is a dialect of Finnish or a separate language is a matter of interpretation. However, the term Karelian dialects is often used colloquially to the Finnish South-Eastern dialects. * Western dialects Southern-Western dialects Proper Southern-Western dialects * Northern dialect group Southern dialect group Southern-Western middle dialects *Pori region dialects Ala-Satakunta dialects dialects of Turku highlands Somero region dialects Western Uusimaa dialects Tavastian dialects *YlÃ¤-Satakunta dialects Heart Tavastian dialects Southern Tavastian dialects Southern-Eastern Tavastian dialects *Hollola dialect group Porvoo dialect group Iitti dialect group Southern Botnian dialects Middle and Northern Botnian dialects Middle Botnian dialects Northern Botnian dialects PerÃ¤pohjola dialects *Tornio dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) Kemi dialects KemijÃ¤rvi dialects JÃ¤llivaara dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) *Ruija dialects ("Kven language" in Northern Norway) Eastern dialects Savonian dialects Northern Savonian dialects Southern Savonian dialects Middle dialects of Savonlinna region Eastern Savonian dialects or the dialects of North Karelia Kainuu dialects Central Finland dialects PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne Tavastia dialects Keuruu-EvijÃ¤rvi dialects Savonian dialects of VÃ¤rmland (Sweden) Southern-Eastern dialects Proper Southern-Eastern dialects Middle dialects of Lemi region Middle dialects of Sortavala region (now in Russia) Dialects of Ingria (in Russia) /ref> There are two main varieties of Finnish used throughout the country. One is the "standard language" (yleiskieli), and the other is the "spoken language" (puhekieli). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" (kirjakieli), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on the other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish (Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951â61), with 201,000 entries, was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin (Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja, 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, the Language Office Dictionary (Kielitoimiston sanakirja) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (Iso suomen kielioppi, Hakulinen, Auli et al. (2004): Iso suomen kielioppi. SKS:n toimituksia 950. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. ISBN 951-746-557-2. 1,600 pages 1,600 pages) was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperÃ¤, published in 1992â2000, and a handbook of contemporary language (Nykysuomen kÃ¤sikirja), and a periodic publication, Kielikello. Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The spoken language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The spoken language develops significantly faster, and the grammatical and phonological simplifications include also the most common pronouns and suffixes, which sum up to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language, such as the irregularization of some common verbs by assimilation, e.g. tule- â tuu- (although tule can be used in spoken language as well). Written language certainly still exerts a considerable influence upon the spoken word, due to the fact that illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk like a book" (puhuvat kirjakieltÃ¤), although this is seen as pedantic. More common is the intrusion of typically book-like constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It should also be noted that it is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of the effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsÃ¤ : metsÃ¤n, as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria. In fact, it has arisen from the spelling 'ts' for the dental fricative [Î¸Ë], which has disappeared. In spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ (mettÃ¤ : mettÃ¤n) and Eastern /ht : t/ (mehtÃ¤ : metÃ¤n) has been created: /tt : t/ (mettÃ¤ : metÃ¤n). Yleiskielen ts:n murrevastineet It is notable that neither of these are forms are identifiable as or originate from a specific dialect. The orthography of the informal language follows that of the formal language. However, sometimes sandhi may be transcribed, especially the internal ones, e.g. menenpÃ¤ â menempÃ¤. This never takes place in formal language. : Note that there are noticeable differences between dialects. These examples are mostly from the language as spoken in the capital area (Helsinki dialect or even Stadin slangi). Also note that here the formal language does not mean a language spoken in formal occasions but the standard language which exist practically only in written form. Characteristic features of Finnish (common to other Finno-Ugric languages) are vowel harmony and an agglutinative morphology; due to the extensive use of the latter, words can be quite long. The main stress is always on the first syllable, and it is articulated by adding approximately 100 ms more length to the stressed vowel. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable. There are eight vowels, whose lexical and grammatical role is highly important, and which are unusually strictly controlled, so that there is almost no allophony. Vowels shown in the table below, followed by the IPA symbol when not identical. These are always different phonemes in the initial syllable; for noninitial syllable, see morphophonology below. : 1 Although conventionally and conveniently written with the close-mid symbols , and , they are more accurately described as mid vowels ( , and ). The usual analysis is that Finnish has long and short vowels and consonants as distinct phonemes. However, long vowels may be analyzed as a vowel followed by a chroneme, or also, that sequences of identical vowels are pronounced as "diphthongs". The quality of long vowels mostly overlaps with the quality of short vowels, with the exception of u, which is centralized with respect to uu; long vowels do not morph into diphthongs. There are eighteen phonemic diphthongs; like vowels, diphthongs do not have significant allophony. Finnish has a consonant inventory of small to moderate size, where voicing is mostly not distinctive, and fricatives are scarce. Finnish has relatively few non-coronal consonants. Consonants are as follows, where consonants in parenthesis are found only in a few recent loans. # is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation, and thus occurs only medially, or in non-native words; it is actually more of an alveolar tap rather than a true voiced stop, and the dialectal realization varies wildly; see main article. # The glottal stop can only appear at word boundaries as a result of certain sandhi phenomena, and it is not indicated in spelling: e.g. 'let it be', orthographically anna olla. Moreover, this sound is not used in all dialects. # The short velar nasal is an allophone of in , and the long velar nasal , written ng, is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation (type of lenition) and thus occurs only medially. Almost all consonants have phonemic geminated forms. These are independent, but occur only medially when phonemic. Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e.g. 'rs' in karsta. However, due to a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e.g. strutsi "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward. As a Finno-Ugric language, it is somewhat special in two respects: loss of fricatives and loss of palatalization. An interesting feature of Finnic phonology is the development of labial vowels in non-initial syllables. Proto-Uralic had only 'a' and 'i' and their vowel harmonic allophones in non-initial syllables; modern Finnish allows other vowels in non-initial syllables (they are uncommon, however, compared to 'a', 'Ã¤' and 'i'). Palatalization is characteristic of Finno-Ugric languages, but Finnish has lost it. However, the Eastern dialects and the Karelian language have redeveloped a system of palatalization. For example, the Karelian word d'uuri , with a palatalized , is reflected by juuri in Finnish and Savo dialect vesj is vesi in standard Finnish. Finnish has only two fricatives, namely and . All other fricatives are recognized as foreign, of which Finnish speakers can usually reliably distinguish and . Finnish has several morphophonological processes between grammar ("logic") and phonology ("sounds") that require modification of the forms of words for daily speech. The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation. Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [Â±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [Â±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [Â±back] for the initial syllable. For example, tuote ("product") agglutinates to tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'Ã¤') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'Ã¤' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts. Consonant gradation is a lenition process for P, T and K, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique root tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta â Va, e.g. vanha+ta â vanhaa. Another instance is the imperative, which changes into a glottal stop in the singular but is shown as an overt 'ka' in plural, e.g. mene vs. menkÃ¤Ã¤. The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative-accusative; but there are two object cases: accusative and partitive. The contrast between the two is telic, where the accusative case denotes actions completed as intended (Ammuin hirven "I shot (killed) the elk"), and the partitive case denotes incomplete actions (Ammuin hirveÃ¤ "I shot (at) the elk"). Often this is confused with perfectivity, but the only element of perfectivity that exists in Finnish is that there are some perfective verbs. Transitivity is distinguished by different verbs for transitive and intransitive, e.g. ratkaista "to solve something" vs. ratketa "to solve by itself". There are several frequentative and momentane verb categories. Verbs gain personal suffixes for each person; these suffixes are grammatically more important than pronouns, which are often not used at all in standard Finnish. The infinitive is not the uninflected form but has a suffix -ta or -da; the closest one to an uninflected form is the third person singular indicative. There are four persons, first ("I, we"), second ("you (singular), you (plural)"), third ("s/he, they"). Also, the passive voice (sometimes called impersonal or indefinite) resembles a "fourth person" similar to e.g. English "people say/do/â¦". There are four tenses, namely present, past, perfect and pluperfect; the system mirrors the Germanic system. The future tense is not needed due to context and the telic contrast. For example, luen kirjan "I read a book (completely)" indicates a future, when luen kirjaa "I read a book (not yet complete)" indicates present. Nouns may be suffixed with the markers for the aforementioned accusative case and partitive case, the genitive case, eight different locatives, and a few other cases. The case marker must be added not only to the main noun, but also to its modifiers; e.g. suure+ssa talo+ssa, literally "big-in house-in". Possession is marked with a possessive suffix; separate possessive pronouns are unknown. Pronouns gain suffixes just as nouns do. Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus (1745) by Daniel Juslenius was the first comprehensive dictionary of the Finnish language with 16,000 entries. :See the lists of Finnish words and words of Finnish origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project. Finnish extensively employs regular agglutination. It has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. As an example, take the word kirja "a book", from which one can form derivatives kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet), kirje "a piece of correspondence, a letter", kirjasto "a library", kirjailija "an author", kirjallisuus "literature", kirjoittaa "to write", kirjoittaja "a writer", kirjuri "a scribe, a clerk", kirjallinen "something in written form", kirjata "to write down, register, record", kirjasin "a font", and others. Here are some of the more common such suffixes. Which of each pair is used depends on the word being suffixed in accordance with the rules of vowel harmony. -ja/jÃ¤ : agent (one who does) (e.g. lukea "to read" â lukija "reader") -lainen/lÃ¤inen: inhabitant of (either noun or adjective). Englanti "England" â englantilainen "English person or thing"; VenÃ¤jÃ¤ â venÃ¤lÃ¤inen "Russian person or thing". -sto/stÃ¶: collection of. For example: kirja "a book" â kirjasto "a library"; laiva "a ship" â laivasto "navy, fleet". -in: instrument or tool. For example: kirjata "to book, to file" â kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet); vatkata "to whisk" â vatkain "a whisk, mixer". -uri/yri: an agent or instrument (kaivaa "to dig" â kaivuri "a digging machine"; laiva "a ship" â laivuri "shipper, shipmaster"). -os/Ã¶s: result of some action (tulla "to come" â tulos "result, outcome"; tehdÃ¤ "to do" â teos "a piece of work"). -ton/tÃ¶n: lack of something, "un-", "-less" (onni "happiness" â onneton "unhappy"; koti "home" â koditon "homeless"). -llinen: having (the quality of) something (lapsi "a child" â lapsellinen "childish"; kauppa "a shop, commerce" â kaupallinen "commercial"). -kas/kÃ¤s: similar to -llinen (itse "self" â itsekÃ¤s "selfish"; neuvo "advice" â neuvokas "resourceful"). -va/vÃ¤: doing or having something (taitaa "to be able" â taitava "skillful"; johtaa "to lead" â johtava "leading"). -la/lÃ¤: a place related to the main word (kana "a hen" â kanala "a henhouse"; pappi "a priest" â pappila "a parsonage"). Verbal suffixes are extremely diverse; several frequentatives and momentanes differentiating causative, volitional-unpredictable and anticausative are found, often combined with each other, often denoting indirection. For example, hypÃ¤tÃ¤ "to jump", hyppiÃ¤ "to be jumping", hypeksiÃ¤ "to be jumping wantonly", hypÃ¤yttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump once", hyppyyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump repeatedly" (or "to boss someone around"), hyppyytyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone to cause a third person to jump repeatedly", hyppyytellÃ¤ "to, without aim, make someone jump repeatedly", hypÃ¤htÃ¤Ã¤ "to jump suddenly" (in anticausative meaning), hypellÃ¤ "to jump around repeatedly", hypiskellÃ¤ "to be jumping repeatedly and wantonly", hyppimÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping", hyppelemÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping around". Often the diversity and compactness of this agglutination is illustrated with istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" (from istua, "to sit, to be seated"): istua "to sit down" istun "I sit down" / istahtaa "to sit down for a while" istahdan "I sit down for a while" istahtaisin "I should sit down for a while" istahtaisinko "should I sit down for a while?" istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" Over the course of many centuries, the Finnish language has borrowed a great many words from a wide variety of languages, most from neighboring Indo-European languages. Indeed, some estimates put the core Proto-Uralic vocabulary surviving in Finnish at only around 300 word roots. Due to the different grammatical, phonological and phonotactic structure of the Finnish language, loanwords from Indo-European have been assimilated. In general, the first loan words into Finno-Ugric languages seem to come from very early Indo-European languages, and later mainly from Iranian, Turkic, Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic languages. Furthermore, a certain group of very basic and neutral words exists in Finnish and other Finnic languages that are absent from other Finno-Ugric languages, but without a recognizable etymology from any known language. These words are usually regarded as the last remnant of the Nordic language spoken in Fennoscandia before the arrival of the proto-Finnic language. Words included in this group are e.g. jÃ¤nis (hare), musta (black), mÃ¤ki (hill), saari (island), suo (swamp) and niemi (cape). Also some place names, like PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne and Imatra, are probably before the proto-Finnic era. HÃ¤kkinen, Kaisa. Suomalaisten esihistoria kielitieteen valossa (ISBN 951-717-855-7). Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura 1996. See pages 166 and 173. Often quoted loan examples are kuningas "king" and ruhtinas "prince, high ranking nobleman" from Germanic kuningaz and druhtinaz, but another example is Ã¤iti "mother", from Gothic aiÃ¾ei, which is interesting because borrowing of close-kinship vocabulary is a rare phenomenon. The original Finnish emo occurs only in restricted contexts. There are other close-kinship words that are loaned from Baltic and Germanic languages (morsian "bride", armas "dear"). Examples of the ancient Iranian loans are vasara "hammer" from Avestan vadÅ¾ra, vajra and orja "slave" from arya, airya "man" (the latter probably via similar circumstances as slave from Slav in many European languages). More recently, Swedish has been a prolific source of borrowings, and also, the Swedish language acted as a proxy for European words, especially those relating to government. Present-day Finland belonged to the kingdom of Sweden from the 12th century and was ceded to Russia in 1809, becoming an autonomous Grand Duchy. Swedish was retained as the official language and language of the upper class even after this. When Finnish was accepted as an official language, it gained only legal "equal status" with Swedish, which persists even today. It is still the case today, though only about 5.5% of Finnish nationals, the Swedish-speaking Finns, have Swedish as their mother tongue. During the period of autonomy, Russian did not gain much ground as a language of the people or the government. Nevertheless, quite a few words were subsequently acquired from Russian (especially in older Helsinki slang) but not to the same extent as with Swedish. In all these cases, borrowing has been partly a result of geographical proximity. Especially words dealing with administrative or modern culture came to Finnish from Swedish, sometimes reflecting the oldest Swedish form of the word (lag - laki, 'law'; lÃ¤n - lÃ¤Ã¤ni, 'province'; bisp - piispa, 'bishop'; jordpÃ¤ron - peruna, 'potato'), and many more survive as informal synonyms in spoken or dialectal Finnish (e.g. likka, from Swedish flicka, 'girl', usually tyttÃ¶ in Finnish). Typical Russian loanwords are old or very old, thus hard to recognize as such, and concern everyday concepts, e.g. papu "bean", sini "(n.) blue" and pappi "priest". Notably, a few religious words such as Raamattu ("Bible") are borrowed from Russian, which indicates language contact preceding the Swedish era. This is mainly believed to be result of trade with Novgorod from the 9th century on and the Orthodox converting in the 13th century. Most recently, and with increasing impact, English has been the source of new loanwords in Finnish. Unlike previous "geographical" borrowing, the influence of English is largely "cultural" and reaches Finland by many routes including: international business; music; film and TV (foreign films and programmes, excluding ones intended for a very young audience, are shown subtitled); literature; and, of course, the Web this is now probably the most important source of all non-face-to-face exposure to English. The importance of English as the language of global commerce has led many non-English companies, including Finland's Nokia, to adopt English as their official operating language. Recently, it has been observed that English borrowings are also ousting previous borrowings, for example the switch from treffailla "to date" (from Swedish, trÃ¤ffa) to deittailla from English "to go for a date". Calques from English are also found, e.g. kovalevy (hard disk). Grammatical calques are also found, for example, the replacement of the impersonal (passiivi) with the English-style generic you, e. g. sÃ¤ et voi "you cannot", instead of ei voi "one cannot". However, this does not mean that Finnish is threatened by English. Borrowing is normal language evolution, and neologisms are coined actively not only by the government, but also by the media. Moreover, Finnish and English have a considerably different grammar, phonology and phonotactics, discouraging direct borrowing. English loan words in Finnish slang include for example pleikkari "PlayStation", hodari "hot dog", and hedari "headache", "headshot" or "headbutt". Often these loanwords are distinctly identified as slang or jargon, rarely being used in a negative mood or in formal language. Since English and Finnish grammar, pronunciation and phonetics differ considerably, most loan words are inevitably sooner or later calqued â translated into native Finnish â retaining the semantic meaning. Some modern terms have been synthesised rather than borrowed, for example: :puhelin "telephone" (literally: "chatter" + instrument suffix "-in" to make "an instrument for chattering") :tietokone "computer" (literally: "knowledge machine") :levyke "diskette" (from levy "disc" + a diminutive -ke) :sÃ¤hkÃ¶posti "email" (literally: "electrical mail") :linja-auto "bus" (literally: route-car) Neologisms are actively generated by the Language Planning Office and the media. They are widely adopted. One would actually give an old-fashioned or rustic impression using forms such as telefooni or kompuutteri when the neologism is widely adopted. The first page of Abckiria (1543), the first book written in the Finnish language. The spelling of Finnish in the book had many inconsistencies: for example, the k sound could be represented by c, k or even g; the long u and the long i were represented by w and ij respectively, and Ã¤ was represented by e. Finnish is written with the Swedish variant of the Latin alphabet that includes the distinct characters Ã and Ã, and also several characters not used in Finnish (including for example C, Q, Ã). The Finnish orthography built upon the phoneme principle: each phoneme (meaningful sound) of the language is represented by exactly one grapheme (independent letter), and each grapheme represents almost exactly one phoneme. This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell, and facilitates learning to read and write. The rule of thumb for Finnish orthography is: write as you read, read as you write. However, morphemes retain their spelling despite sandhi. Some orthographical notes: Long vowels and consonants are represented by double occurrences of the relevant graphemes. This causes no confusion, and permits these sounds to be written without having to nearly double the size of the alphabet to accommodate separate graphemes for long sounds. The grapheme h occurring before a consonant sounds slightly harder (initially breathy voiced, then voiceless) than when occurring before a vowel. Sandhi is not transcribed; the spelling of morphemes is immutable, e.g. tulen+pa . Some consonants (v, j, d) and all consonants occurring in (always medial) clusters do not have distinctive length, and consequently, their allophonic variation is not indicated in spelling, e.g. rajaan /rajaan/ (I limit) vs. raijaan /raijjaan/ (I haul). Pre-1900s texts and personal names use w for v. Both correspond to the same phoneme, the labiodental approximant , a v without the fricative ("hissing") quality of the English v. The letters Ã¤ [Ã¦] and Ã¶ [Ã¸], although written as umlauted a and o, do not represent phonological umlauts, and they are considered independent graphemes; the letter shapes have been copied from Swedish. An appropriate parallel from the Latin alphabet are the characters C and G (uppercase), which historically have a closer kinship than many other characters (G is a derivation of C) but are considered distinct letters, and changing one for the other will change meanings. Although Finnish is almost completely written as it is spoken, there are a few differences: The n in nk is a velar nasal, as in English. As an exception to the phonetic principle, there is no g in ng, which is a long velar nasal as in English singalong. * The gemination between words is not marked in writing. * The double consonant in clitic is marked as a single consonant. * Only comparative and superlative adjectives the letter m is used like in speech in word like parempi, but in other similar cases the letter n is used, like in onpa * The /j/ after the letter i is very weak or there is no /j/ at all, but in writing it is used, example: urheilija. Indeed the j is not used in writing words with consonant gradation (like aion and some other (like lÃ¤ksiÃ¤iset)) * In speech there is no difference between the use of /i/ in words (like ajoittaa, but ehdottaa, but in writing there are quite simple rules: The i is written in words that consist two syllables and end in a or Ã¤ (sanoittaa), and in words that are old-stylish (innoittaa). The i is not written in words that consist two syllables and end in o or Ã¶ like (erottaa), words which do not have clear proto-word (hajottaa), and in words that are descriptive (hÃ¤Ã¤mÃ¶ttÃ¤Ã¤) or workaday by their style (rehottaa) Graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are sometimes converted in two ways, a and o, respectively and, ae and oe respectively. Finnish graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are not umlauts like in German; conversion to ae and oe in Finnish language is less correct than in German language. Conversion to a and o is more common and almost universally used in email-addresses. Conversion ae and oe is rare but formally used in passports and equivalent situations. both conversion rules have minimal pairs. The sounds Å¡ and Å¾ are not a part of Finnish language itself and have been introduced somewhat artificially by a government regulation. Although they occur in some rare loanwords, their principal use is in the transcription of foreign names. For technical reasons or convenience, the graphemes sh and zh are often used in quickly or less carefully written texts instead of Å¡ and Å¾. This is a deviation from the phonetic principle, and as such is liable to cause confusion, but the damage is minimal as the transcribed words are foreign in any case. Finnish does not use the sounds z, Å¡ or Å¾, but for the sake of exactitude, they can be included in spelling. (The recommendation cites the Russian play Hovanshtshina as an example.) Many speakers pronounce all of them s, or distinguish only between s and Å¡, because Finnish has no voiced sibilants. The language may be identified by its distinctive lack of the letters b, c, f, q, w, x, z and Ã¥. VÃ¤inÃ¶ Linna: The Unknown Soldier; these words were also inscribed in the 20 mk note. (Translation: "The benevolent sun watched them. By no means was it angry at them. Perhaps it even felt a kind of compassion towards them. Jolly good brothers.") Sample sound of "HyvÃ¤Ã¤ huomenta" (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) huomenta â Good morning (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) pÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (literally "Good day") (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltapÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltaa â Good evening (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) yÃ¶tÃ¤ / ÃitÃ¤ â Good night Terve! / Moro! â Hello! Hei! / Moi! â Hi! Heippa! / Moikka! / Hei hei! / Moi moi! â Bye! NÃ¤hdÃ¤Ã¤n â See you later (literally "will be seen") NÃ¤kemi(si)in / HyvÃ¤sti â Goodbye Hauska tutustua! â Nice to meet you Kiitos â Thank you Kiitos, samoin â Likewise MitÃ¤ kuuluu? â How are you / How you doing? (Not used among strangers.) (literally "What is heard?") Kiitos hyvÃ¤Ã¤ â I'm fine, thank you Tervetuloa! â Welcome! Tietosanakirja, 11 volumes, 1909-1922, Finnish encyclopedia. * kyllÃ¤ â yes * joo â yes (informal) * ei â no * en â I will not / I do not * minÃ¤, sinÃ¤, hÃ¤n(se) â I, you, he/she(it) * me, te, he(ne) â we, you (two or more), they * (minÃ¤) olen â I am * (sinÃ¤) olet â you are * (minÃ¤) en ole - I am not * (sinÃ¤) et ole - You are not * yksi, kaksi, kolme â one, two, three * neljÃ¤, viisi, kuusi â four, five, six * seitsemÃ¤n, kahdeksan â seven, eight * yhdeksÃ¤n, kymmenen â nine, ten * yksitoista, kaksitoista, kolmetoista â eleven, twelve, thirteen * sata, tuhat, miljoona â hundred, thousand, million * (minÃ¤) rakastan sinua â I love you * anteeksi â forgive me, excuse me, sorry * voitko auttaa â can you help * apua! - help! * voisit(te)ko auttaa â could you help * missÃ¤ on ... ? â where is ...? * olen pahoillani â I'm sorry (apology) * otan osaa â My condolences * onnea â good luck * totta kai/tietysti/toki â of course * pieni hetki, pikku hetki, hetkinen â one moment please! * odota â wait * Suomi â Finland * suomi/suomen kieli â Finnish language * suomalainen â (noun) Finn; (adjective) Finnish * En ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤ â I don't understand * (MinÃ¤) ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤n â I understand * Â¹YmmÃ¤rrÃ¤t(te)kÃ¶ suomea? â Do you understand Finnish? * Â¹Puhut(te)ko englantia? â Do you speak English? * Olen englantilainen / amerikkalainen / kanadalainen / australialainen / uusiseelantilainen / irlantilainen / skotlantilainen / walesilainen / ranskalainen / saksalainen / kiinalainen / japanilainen â I am English / American / Canadian / Australian / New Zealander / Irish / Scottish / Welsh / French / German / Chinese / Japanese * Â¹Olet(te)ko englantilainen? â Are you English? * MissÃ¤ (sinÃ¤) asut/Â¹MissÃ¤ (te) asutte? â Where do you live? Â¹ -te is added to make the sentence formal (T-V distinction). Otherwise, without the added "-te", it is informal. It is also added when talking to more than one person. The transition from second-person singular to second-person plural (teitittely) is a politeness pattern, advised by many "good manners guides". Elderly people, especially, expect it from strangers, whereas the younger might feel it to be too formal to the point of coldness. However, a learner of the language should not be excessively concerned about it. Omitting it is never offensive, but one should keep in mind that on formal occasions this custom may make a good impression. * Finnish alphabet * Finnish grammar * Spoken Finnish * Finland's language strife * Karelian language * Estonian language * Finnish name * Finnish cultural and academic institutes * Finnish language on Ethnologue * The Finnish language --- a list of resources * Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish * Proto-Uralic to Finnish (in IPA mostly migrated from X-SAMPA) * English-Finnish-English Dictionary * Collection of Finnish bilingual dictionaries * Finnish Etymological Dictionary by Andras Rajki * English-Finnish and Russian-Finnish Dictionary * English-Finnish vocabulary quizzes * The 2 253 possible forms of the Finnish noun kauppa 'shop' * Discussion about the Finnish Language To Do This section lists the topics which need to be written or expanded (there are headings for all of these): * This page: History: The history of the language, especially its written form and its official status Derivative suffixes ** External links * Grammar page: Illative formation Noun plurals Noun stem types Adjectives, including comparison Postpositions and prepositions 5th infinitive Imperfect indicative for typeV and VI verbs Present participles, active and passive Past participle, passive Agent participle Passive, 2nd person imperatives 3rd person imperatives 1st person plural imperatives Ordinal numbers ** Names of numbers * Spoken language page: **important regional variations -->
Finnish_language	What book defined the official Finnish language?	The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish	data/set5/a5	Finnish_language Finnish ( , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% Tilastokeskus - VÃ¤estÃ¶ ) and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and MeÃ¤nkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a Finnish dialect spoken in Northern Norway, is an official minority language in Norway. Finnish is the eponymous member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects the forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence. Finnish is a member of the Baltic-Finnic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of languages which in turn is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The Baltic-Finnic subgroup also includes Estonian and other minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with the Uralic languages in several respects including: Shared morphology: :case suffixes such as genitive -n, partitive -(t)a / -(t)Ã¤ ( Virtual Finland: Where do Finns come from?. According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Finnish is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Defense Language Institute Areas in Southern Sweden with a Finnish-speaking population (2005) Finnish is spoken by about six million people who reside mainly in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Canada, and the United States. The majority of the population of Finland, 91.51% , speak Finnish as their first language. The remainder speak Swedish (5.5%), Sami (Northern, Inari, Skolt) and other languages. It has achieved some popularity as a second language in Estonia. Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish, spoken by 5.49% of the population Statistikcentralen - Befolkning ) and an official language of the European Union. It enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden. It is also one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rÃ¤tt att anvÃ¤nda sitt eget sprÃ¥k i annat nordiskt land, Nordic Council website. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention, Nordic news, February 22, 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. According to recent estimations, Proto-Uralic language arrived in Finland around 1900 BCE, soon to be developed into Proto-Finnic. The Balto-Finnic languages evolved from the Proto-Finnic language after SÃ¡mi was separated from it around 1500-1000 BCE. Current research indicates there were three or more Proto-Finnic dialects. The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued to influence each other. Therefore, the Eastern Finnish dialects are genetically Eastern Proto-Finnic, with many Eastern features, and the Southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences. Finland was annexed to Catholic Sweden in the Middle Ages. Prior to this, Finnish was an oral language. Even after, the language of larger-scale business was Middle Low German, the language of administration Swedish, and religious activities were held in Latin, leaving few possibilities for Finnish-speakers to use their mother tongue in situations other than daily chores. The first known written example of Finnish comes from this era and was found in a German travel journal dating back to c.1450: Mynna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emyna dayda (Modern Finnish: "MinÃ¤ tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltÃ¤, [mutta] en minÃ¤ taida"; English: "I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I cannot"). According to the travel journal, a Finnish bishop, whose name is unknown, was behind the above quotation. Mikael Agricola, a 19th century drawing by Albert Edelfelt The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola, a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his orthography on Swedish, German, and Latin. His ultimate plan was to translate the Bible, but first he had to define rules on which the Finnish standard language still relies, particularly with respect to spelling. He also invented single-handedly many words such as armo meaning both "mercy" and "grace" (as in "from grace alone, not out of good works...") and vanhurskas "righteous". More than fifty percent of these words are still in use. Agricola's written language was based on western dialects of Finnish, and his intention was that each phoneme should correspond to one letter. Yet, Agricola was confronted with many problems in this endeavor and failed to achieve uniformity. This is why he might use different signs for the same phonemes depending on the situation. For example he used dh or d to represent the voiced dental fricative (English th in this) and tz or z to represent the geminate unvoiced dental fricative (the th in thin). Additionally, Agricola might use gh or g to represent the voiced velar fricative and either ch, c or h for /h/. For example he wrote techtin against modern spelling tehtiin. Later others revised Agricola's work, striving for a more phonemic system. Along the way, Finnish lost some of its phonemes. The sounds and disappeared from the standard language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. Elsewhere, traces of these phonemes persist as their disappearance gave Finnish dialects their distinct qualities. For example, became ht or tt (e.g. meÃ¾Ã¾Ã¤ â mehtÃ¤, mettÃ¤) in the eastern dialects and in some western dialects. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost phonemes is thus: * became * became * became but only if the voiced velar fricative appeared originally between high labial vowels, otherwise lost entirely. Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon character (:) to separate the stem of the word and its grammatical ending in some cases (such as after abbreviations), where some other alphabetic writing systems would use an apostrophe. Suffixes are required for correct grammar, so this is often applied, e.g. EU:ssa "in the EU". Elias LÃ¶nnrot as depicted in a 19th century caricature LÃ¶nnrot made several journeys to Karelia and Eastern Finland to collect folklore, from which he compiled the Kalevala. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress the need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a full-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become a language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias LÃ¶nnrot. His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly crucial. In addition to compiling the Kalevala, he acted as an arbitrator in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that the western dialects Agricola had preferred preserved their preeminent role, while many originally dialectical words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish-speaker) was Seven Brothers, published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. Map of Finnish dialects The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, the Western dialects and the Eastern dialects. The dialects are almost entirely mutually intelligible and distinguished from each other by only minor changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm. For the most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology, grammar and vocabulary. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in Rauma dialect and the Eastern exessive case. The classification of closely related dialects spoken outside of Finland is a politically sensitive issue that has been controversial since Finland's independence in 1917. This concerns specifically the Karelian language in Russia and MeÃ¤nkieli in Sweden, the speakers of which are often considered oppressed minorities. Karelian is different enough from standard Finnish to have its own orthography. MeÃ¤nkieli is a northern dialect entirely intelligible to speakers of any other Finnish dialect, which achieved its status as an official minority language in Sweden for historical and political reasons regardless of the fact that Finnish is an official minority language in Sweden, too. The South-West dialects (lounaismurteet) are spoken in Finland Proper and Satakunta. Their typical feature is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects (hÃ¤mÃ¤lÃ¤ismurteet) are spoken in Tavastia. They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels (tie â tiÃ¤, miekka â miakka, kuolisi â kualis). The Southern Ostrobothnian dialects (etelÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia. Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of 'd' as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/. The Middle and North Ostrobothnia dialects (keski- ja pohjoispohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia. The Far-Northern dialects (perÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Lapland. The dialects spoken in the western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old 'h' sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One of the Far-Northern dialects, MeÃ¤nkieli, which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border, is taught in some Swedish schools as a distinct standardized language. The speakers of MeÃ¤nkieli became politically separated from the other Finns when Finland was annexed to Russia in 1809. The categorization of MeÃ¤nkieli as a separate language is controversial among the Finns, who see no linguistic criteria, only political reasons, for treating MeÃ¤nkieli differently than other dialects of Finnish. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms, in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects (savolaismurteet) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects spoken now only in Finnish South Karelia. The South-Eastern dialects (kaakkoismurteet) were previously spoken also on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria. The Karelian Isthmus was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most of Ingrian Finns were deported to various parts of Russia and Estonia. Palatalization, a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in Baltic-Finnic languages, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with a 'j', e.g. vesj, cf. standard vesi. The language spoken in the parts of Karelia that have not historically been under Swedish or Finnish rule is usually called the Karelian language, and it is considered to be more distant from standard Finnish than the Eastern dialects. Whether this language of Russian Karelia is a dialect of Finnish or a separate language is a matter of interpretation. However, the term Karelian dialects is often used colloquially to the Finnish South-Eastern dialects. * Western dialects Southern-Western dialects Proper Southern-Western dialects * Northern dialect group Southern dialect group Southern-Western middle dialects *Pori region dialects Ala-Satakunta dialects dialects of Turku highlands Somero region dialects Western Uusimaa dialects Tavastian dialects *YlÃ¤-Satakunta dialects Heart Tavastian dialects Southern Tavastian dialects Southern-Eastern Tavastian dialects *Hollola dialect group Porvoo dialect group Iitti dialect group Southern Botnian dialects Middle and Northern Botnian dialects Middle Botnian dialects Northern Botnian dialects PerÃ¤pohjola dialects *Tornio dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) Kemi dialects KemijÃ¤rvi dialects JÃ¤llivaara dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) *Ruija dialects ("Kven language" in Northern Norway) Eastern dialects Savonian dialects Northern Savonian dialects Southern Savonian dialects Middle dialects of Savonlinna region Eastern Savonian dialects or the dialects of North Karelia Kainuu dialects Central Finland dialects PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne Tavastia dialects Keuruu-EvijÃ¤rvi dialects Savonian dialects of VÃ¤rmland (Sweden) Southern-Eastern dialects Proper Southern-Eastern dialects Middle dialects of Lemi region Middle dialects of Sortavala region (now in Russia) Dialects of Ingria (in Russia) /ref> There are two main varieties of Finnish used throughout the country. One is the "standard language" (yleiskieli), and the other is the "spoken language" (puhekieli). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" (kirjakieli), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on the other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish (Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951â61), with 201,000 entries, was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin (Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja, 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, the Language Office Dictionary (Kielitoimiston sanakirja) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (Iso suomen kielioppi, Hakulinen, Auli et al. (2004): Iso suomen kielioppi. SKS:n toimituksia 950. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. ISBN 951-746-557-2. 1,600 pages 1,600 pages) was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperÃ¤, published in 1992â2000, and a handbook of contemporary language (Nykysuomen kÃ¤sikirja), and a periodic publication, Kielikello. Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The spoken language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The spoken language develops significantly faster, and the grammatical and phonological simplifications include also the most common pronouns and suffixes, which sum up to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language, such as the irregularization of some common verbs by assimilation, e.g. tule- â tuu- (although tule can be used in spoken language as well). Written language certainly still exerts a considerable influence upon the spoken word, due to the fact that illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk like a book" (puhuvat kirjakieltÃ¤), although this is seen as pedantic. More common is the intrusion of typically book-like constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It should also be noted that it is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of the effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsÃ¤ : metsÃ¤n, as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria. In fact, it has arisen from the spelling 'ts' for the dental fricative [Î¸Ë], which has disappeared. In spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ (mettÃ¤ : mettÃ¤n) and Eastern /ht : t/ (mehtÃ¤ : metÃ¤n) has been created: /tt : t/ (mettÃ¤ : metÃ¤n). Yleiskielen ts:n murrevastineet It is notable that neither of these are forms are identifiable as or originate from a specific dialect. The orthography of the informal language follows that of the formal language. However, sometimes sandhi may be transcribed, especially the internal ones, e.g. menenpÃ¤ â menempÃ¤. This never takes place in formal language. : Note that there are noticeable differences between dialects. These examples are mostly from the language as spoken in the capital area (Helsinki dialect or even Stadin slangi). Also note that here the formal language does not mean a language spoken in formal occasions but the standard language which exist practically only in written form. Characteristic features of Finnish (common to other Finno-Ugric languages) are vowel harmony and an agglutinative morphology; due to the extensive use of the latter, words can be quite long. The main stress is always on the first syllable, and it is articulated by adding approximately 100 ms more length to the stressed vowel. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable. There are eight vowels, whose lexical and grammatical role is highly important, and which are unusually strictly controlled, so that there is almost no allophony. Vowels shown in the table below, followed by the IPA symbol when not identical. These are always different phonemes in the initial syllable; for noninitial syllable, see morphophonology below. : 1 Although conventionally and conveniently written with the close-mid symbols , and , they are more accurately described as mid vowels ( , and ). The usual analysis is that Finnish has long and short vowels and consonants as distinct phonemes. However, long vowels may be analyzed as a vowel followed by a chroneme, or also, that sequences of identical vowels are pronounced as "diphthongs". The quality of long vowels mostly overlaps with the quality of short vowels, with the exception of u, which is centralized with respect to uu; long vowels do not morph into diphthongs. There are eighteen phonemic diphthongs; like vowels, diphthongs do not have significant allophony. Finnish has a consonant inventory of small to moderate size, where voicing is mostly not distinctive, and fricatives are scarce. Finnish has relatively few non-coronal consonants. Consonants are as follows, where consonants in parenthesis are found only in a few recent loans. # is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation, and thus occurs only medially, or in non-native words; it is actually more of an alveolar tap rather than a true voiced stop, and the dialectal realization varies wildly; see main article. # The glottal stop can only appear at word boundaries as a result of certain sandhi phenomena, and it is not indicated in spelling: e.g. 'let it be', orthographically anna olla. Moreover, this sound is not used in all dialects. # The short velar nasal is an allophone of in , and the long velar nasal , written ng, is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation (type of lenition) and thus occurs only medially. Almost all consonants have phonemic geminated forms. These are independent, but occur only medially when phonemic. Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e.g. 'rs' in karsta. However, due to a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e.g. strutsi "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward. As a Finno-Ugric language, it is somewhat special in two respects: loss of fricatives and loss of palatalization. An interesting feature of Finnic phonology is the development of labial vowels in non-initial syllables. Proto-Uralic had only 'a' and 'i' and their vowel harmonic allophones in non-initial syllables; modern Finnish allows other vowels in non-initial syllables (they are uncommon, however, compared to 'a', 'Ã¤' and 'i'). Palatalization is characteristic of Finno-Ugric languages, but Finnish has lost it. However, the Eastern dialects and the Karelian language have redeveloped a system of palatalization. For example, the Karelian word d'uuri , with a palatalized , is reflected by juuri in Finnish and Savo dialect vesj is vesi in standard Finnish. Finnish has only two fricatives, namely and . All other fricatives are recognized as foreign, of which Finnish speakers can usually reliably distinguish and . Finnish has several morphophonological processes between grammar ("logic") and phonology ("sounds") that require modification of the forms of words for daily speech. The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation. Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [Â±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [Â±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [Â±back] for the initial syllable. For example, tuote ("product") agglutinates to tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'Ã¤') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'Ã¤' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts. Consonant gradation is a lenition process for P, T and K, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique root tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta â Va, e.g. vanha+ta â vanhaa. Another instance is the imperative, which changes into a glottal stop in the singular but is shown as an overt 'ka' in plural, e.g. mene vs. menkÃ¤Ã¤. The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative-accusative; but there are two object cases: accusative and partitive. The contrast between the two is telic, where the accusative case denotes actions completed as intended (Ammuin hirven "I shot (killed) the elk"), and the partitive case denotes incomplete actions (Ammuin hirveÃ¤ "I shot (at) the elk"). Often this is confused with perfectivity, but the only element of perfectivity that exists in Finnish is that there are some perfective verbs. Transitivity is distinguished by different verbs for transitive and intransitive, e.g. ratkaista "to solve something" vs. ratketa "to solve by itself". There are several frequentative and momentane verb categories. Verbs gain personal suffixes for each person; these suffixes are grammatically more important than pronouns, which are often not used at all in standard Finnish. The infinitive is not the uninflected form but has a suffix -ta or -da; the closest one to an uninflected form is the third person singular indicative. There are four persons, first ("I, we"), second ("you (singular), you (plural)"), third ("s/he, they"). Also, the passive voice (sometimes called impersonal or indefinite) resembles a "fourth person" similar to e.g. English "people say/do/â¦". There are four tenses, namely present, past, perfect and pluperfect; the system mirrors the Germanic system. The future tense is not needed due to context and the telic contrast. For example, luen kirjan "I read a book (completely)" indicates a future, when luen kirjaa "I read a book (not yet complete)" indicates present. Nouns may be suffixed with the markers for the aforementioned accusative case and partitive case, the genitive case, eight different locatives, and a few other cases. The case marker must be added not only to the main noun, but also to its modifiers; e.g. suure+ssa talo+ssa, literally "big-in house-in". Possession is marked with a possessive suffix; separate possessive pronouns are unknown. Pronouns gain suffixes just as nouns do. Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus (1745) by Daniel Juslenius was the first comprehensive dictionary of the Finnish language with 16,000 entries. :See the lists of Finnish words and words of Finnish origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project. Finnish extensively employs regular agglutination. It has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. As an example, take the word kirja "a book", from which one can form derivatives kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet), kirje "a piece of correspondence, a letter", kirjasto "a library", kirjailija "an author", kirjallisuus "literature", kirjoittaa "to write", kirjoittaja "a writer", kirjuri "a scribe, a clerk", kirjallinen "something in written form", kirjata "to write down, register, record", kirjasin "a font", and others. Here are some of the more common such suffixes. Which of each pair is used depends on the word being suffixed in accordance with the rules of vowel harmony. -ja/jÃ¤ : agent (one who does) (e.g. lukea "to read" â lukija "reader") -lainen/lÃ¤inen: inhabitant of (either noun or adjective). Englanti "England" â englantilainen "English person or thing"; VenÃ¤jÃ¤ â venÃ¤lÃ¤inen "Russian person or thing". -sto/stÃ¶: collection of. For example: kirja "a book" â kirjasto "a library"; laiva "a ship" â laivasto "navy, fleet". -in: instrument or tool. For example: kirjata "to book, to file" â kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet); vatkata "to whisk" â vatkain "a whisk, mixer". -uri/yri: an agent or instrument (kaivaa "to dig" â kaivuri "a digging machine"; laiva "a ship" â laivuri "shipper, shipmaster"). -os/Ã¶s: result of some action (tulla "to come" â tulos "result, outcome"; tehdÃ¤ "to do" â teos "a piece of work"). -ton/tÃ¶n: lack of something, "un-", "-less" (onni "happiness" â onneton "unhappy"; koti "home" â koditon "homeless"). -llinen: having (the quality of) something (lapsi "a child" â lapsellinen "childish"; kauppa "a shop, commerce" â kaupallinen "commercial"). -kas/kÃ¤s: similar to -llinen (itse "self" â itsekÃ¤s "selfish"; neuvo "advice" â neuvokas "resourceful"). -va/vÃ¤: doing or having something (taitaa "to be able" â taitava "skillful"; johtaa "to lead" â johtava "leading"). -la/lÃ¤: a place related to the main word (kana "a hen" â kanala "a henhouse"; pappi "a priest" â pappila "a parsonage"). Verbal suffixes are extremely diverse; several frequentatives and momentanes differentiating causative, volitional-unpredictable and anticausative are found, often combined with each other, often denoting indirection. For example, hypÃ¤tÃ¤ "to jump", hyppiÃ¤ "to be jumping", hypeksiÃ¤ "to be jumping wantonly", hypÃ¤yttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump once", hyppyyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump repeatedly" (or "to boss someone around"), hyppyytyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone to cause a third person to jump repeatedly", hyppyytellÃ¤ "to, without aim, make someone jump repeatedly", hypÃ¤htÃ¤Ã¤ "to jump suddenly" (in anticausative meaning), hypellÃ¤ "to jump around repeatedly", hypiskellÃ¤ "to be jumping repeatedly and wantonly", hyppimÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping", hyppelemÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping around". Often the diversity and compactness of this agglutination is illustrated with istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" (from istua, "to sit, to be seated"): istua "to sit down" istun "I sit down" / istahtaa "to sit down for a while" istahdan "I sit down for a while" istahtaisin "I should sit down for a while" istahtaisinko "should I sit down for a while?" istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" Over the course of many centuries, the Finnish language has borrowed a great many words from a wide variety of languages, most from neighboring Indo-European languages. Indeed, some estimates put the core Proto-Uralic vocabulary surviving in Finnish at only around 300 word roots. Due to the different grammatical, phonological and phonotactic structure of the Finnish language, loanwords from Indo-European have been assimilated. In general, the first loan words into Finno-Ugric languages seem to come from very early Indo-European languages, and later mainly from Iranian, Turkic, Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic languages. Furthermore, a certain group of very basic and neutral words exists in Finnish and other Finnic languages that are absent from other Finno-Ugric languages, but without a recognizable etymology from any known language. These words are usually regarded as the last remnant of the Nordic language spoken in Fennoscandia before the arrival of the proto-Finnic language. Words included in this group are e.g. jÃ¤nis (hare), musta (black), mÃ¤ki (hill), saari (island), suo (swamp) and niemi (cape). Also some place names, like PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne and Imatra, are probably before the proto-Finnic era. HÃ¤kkinen, Kaisa. Suomalaisten esihistoria kielitieteen valossa (ISBN 951-717-855-7). Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura 1996. See pages 166 and 173. Often quoted loan examples are kuningas "king" and ruhtinas "prince, high ranking nobleman" from Germanic kuningaz and druhtinaz, but another example is Ã¤iti "mother", from Gothic aiÃ¾ei, which is interesting because borrowing of close-kinship vocabulary is a rare phenomenon. The original Finnish emo occurs only in restricted contexts. There are other close-kinship words that are loaned from Baltic and Germanic languages (morsian "bride", armas "dear"). Examples of the ancient Iranian loans are vasara "hammer" from Avestan vadÅ¾ra, vajra and orja "slave" from arya, airya "man" (the latter probably via similar circumstances as slave from Slav in many European languages). More recently, Swedish has been a prolific source of borrowings, and also, the Swedish language acted as a proxy for European words, especially those relating to government. Present-day Finland belonged to the kingdom of Sweden from the 12th century and was ceded to Russia in 1809, becoming an autonomous Grand Duchy. Swedish was retained as the official language and language of the upper class even after this. When Finnish was accepted as an official language, it gained only legal "equal status" with Swedish, which persists even today. It is still the case today, though only about 5.5% of Finnish nationals, the Swedish-speaking Finns, have Swedish as their mother tongue. During the period of autonomy, Russian did not gain much ground as a language of the people or the government. Nevertheless, quite a few words were subsequently acquired from Russian (especially in older Helsinki slang) but not to the same extent as with Swedish. In all these cases, borrowing has been partly a result of geographical proximity. Especially words dealing with administrative or modern culture came to Finnish from Swedish, sometimes reflecting the oldest Swedish form of the word (lag - laki, 'law'; lÃ¤n - lÃ¤Ã¤ni, 'province'; bisp - piispa, 'bishop'; jordpÃ¤ron - peruna, 'potato'), and many more survive as informal synonyms in spoken or dialectal Finnish (e.g. likka, from Swedish flicka, 'girl', usually tyttÃ¶ in Finnish). Typical Russian loanwords are old or very old, thus hard to recognize as such, and concern everyday concepts, e.g. papu "bean", sini "(n.) blue" and pappi "priest". Notably, a few religious words such as Raamattu ("Bible") are borrowed from Russian, which indicates language contact preceding the Swedish era. This is mainly believed to be result of trade with Novgorod from the 9th century on and the Orthodox converting in the 13th century. Most recently, and with increasing impact, English has been the source of new loanwords in Finnish. Unlike previous "geographical" borrowing, the influence of English is largely "cultural" and reaches Finland by many routes including: international business; music; film and TV (foreign films and programmes, excluding ones intended for a very young audience, are shown subtitled); literature; and, of course, the Web this is now probably the most important source of all non-face-to-face exposure to English. The importance of English as the language of global commerce has led many non-English companies, including Finland's Nokia, to adopt English as their official operating language. Recently, it has been observed that English borrowings are also ousting previous borrowings, for example the switch from treffailla "to date" (from Swedish, trÃ¤ffa) to deittailla from English "to go for a date". Calques from English are also found, e.g. kovalevy (hard disk). Grammatical calques are also found, for example, the replacement of the impersonal (passiivi) with the English-style generic you, e. g. sÃ¤ et voi "you cannot", instead of ei voi "one cannot". However, this does not mean that Finnish is threatened by English. Borrowing is normal language evolution, and neologisms are coined actively not only by the government, but also by the media. Moreover, Finnish and English have a considerably different grammar, phonology and phonotactics, discouraging direct borrowing. English loan words in Finnish slang include for example pleikkari "PlayStation", hodari "hot dog", and hedari "headache", "headshot" or "headbutt". Often these loanwords are distinctly identified as slang or jargon, rarely being used in a negative mood or in formal language. Since English and Finnish grammar, pronunciation and phonetics differ considerably, most loan words are inevitably sooner or later calqued â translated into native Finnish â retaining the semantic meaning. Some modern terms have been synthesised rather than borrowed, for example: :puhelin "telephone" (literally: "chatter" + instrument suffix "-in" to make "an instrument for chattering") :tietokone "computer" (literally: "knowledge machine") :levyke "diskette" (from levy "disc" + a diminutive -ke) :sÃ¤hkÃ¶posti "email" (literally: "electrical mail") :linja-auto "bus" (literally: route-car) Neologisms are actively generated by the Language Planning Office and the media. They are widely adopted. One would actually give an old-fashioned or rustic impression using forms such as telefooni or kompuutteri when the neologism is widely adopted. The first page of Abckiria (1543), the first book written in the Finnish language. The spelling of Finnish in the book had many inconsistencies: for example, the k sound could be represented by c, k or even g; the long u and the long i were represented by w and ij respectively, and Ã¤ was represented by e. Finnish is written with the Swedish variant of the Latin alphabet that includes the distinct characters Ã and Ã, and also several characters not used in Finnish (including for example C, Q, Ã). The Finnish orthography built upon the phoneme principle: each phoneme (meaningful sound) of the language is represented by exactly one grapheme (independent letter), and each grapheme represents almost exactly one phoneme. This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell, and facilitates learning to read and write. The rule of thumb for Finnish orthography is: write as you read, read as you write. However, morphemes retain their spelling despite sandhi. Some orthographical notes: Long vowels and consonants are represented by double occurrences of the relevant graphemes. This causes no confusion, and permits these sounds to be written without having to nearly double the size of the alphabet to accommodate separate graphemes for long sounds. The grapheme h occurring before a consonant sounds slightly harder (initially breathy voiced, then voiceless) than when occurring before a vowel. Sandhi is not transcribed; the spelling of morphemes is immutable, e.g. tulen+pa . Some consonants (v, j, d) and all consonants occurring in (always medial) clusters do not have distinctive length, and consequently, their allophonic variation is not indicated in spelling, e.g. rajaan /rajaan/ (I limit) vs. raijaan /raijjaan/ (I haul). Pre-1900s texts and personal names use w for v. Both correspond to the same phoneme, the labiodental approximant , a v without the fricative ("hissing") quality of the English v. The letters Ã¤ [Ã¦] and Ã¶ [Ã¸], although written as umlauted a and o, do not represent phonological umlauts, and they are considered independent graphemes; the letter shapes have been copied from Swedish. An appropriate parallel from the Latin alphabet are the characters C and G (uppercase), which historically have a closer kinship than many other characters (G is a derivation of C) but are considered distinct letters, and changing one for the other will change meanings. Although Finnish is almost completely written as it is spoken, there are a few differences: The n in nk is a velar nasal, as in English. As an exception to the phonetic principle, there is no g in ng, which is a long velar nasal as in English singalong. * The gemination between words is not marked in writing. * The double consonant in clitic is marked as a single consonant. * Only comparative and superlative adjectives the letter m is used like in speech in word like parempi, but in other similar cases the letter n is used, like in onpa * The /j/ after the letter i is very weak or there is no /j/ at all, but in writing it is used, example: urheilija. Indeed the j is not used in writing words with consonant gradation (like aion and some other (like lÃ¤ksiÃ¤iset)) * In speech there is no difference between the use of /i/ in words (like ajoittaa, but ehdottaa, but in writing there are quite simple rules: The i is written in words that consist two syllables and end in a or Ã¤ (sanoittaa), and in words that are old-stylish (innoittaa). The i is not written in words that consist two syllables and end in o or Ã¶ like (erottaa), words which do not have clear proto-word (hajottaa), and in words that are descriptive (hÃ¤Ã¤mÃ¶ttÃ¤Ã¤) or workaday by their style (rehottaa) Graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are sometimes converted in two ways, a and o, respectively and, ae and oe respectively. Finnish graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are not umlauts like in German; conversion to ae and oe in Finnish language is less correct than in German language. Conversion to a and o is more common and almost universally used in email-addresses. Conversion ae and oe is rare but formally used in passports and equivalent situations. both conversion rules have minimal pairs. The sounds Å¡ and Å¾ are not a part of Finnish language itself and have been introduced somewhat artificially by a government regulation. Although they occur in some rare loanwords, their principal use is in the transcription of foreign names. For technical reasons or convenience, the graphemes sh and zh are often used in quickly or less carefully written texts instead of Å¡ and Å¾. This is a deviation from the phonetic principle, and as such is liable to cause confusion, but the damage is minimal as the transcribed words are foreign in any case. Finnish does not use the sounds z, Å¡ or Å¾, but for the sake of exactitude, they can be included in spelling. (The recommendation cites the Russian play Hovanshtshina as an example.) Many speakers pronounce all of them s, or distinguish only between s and Å¡, because Finnish has no voiced sibilants. The language may be identified by its distinctive lack of the letters b, c, f, q, w, x, z and Ã¥. VÃ¤inÃ¶ Linna: The Unknown Soldier; these words were also inscribed in the 20 mk note. (Translation: "The benevolent sun watched them. By no means was it angry at them. Perhaps it even felt a kind of compassion towards them. Jolly good brothers.") Sample sound of "HyvÃ¤Ã¤ huomenta" (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) huomenta â Good morning (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) pÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (literally "Good day") (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltapÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltaa â Good evening (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) yÃ¶tÃ¤ / ÃitÃ¤ â Good night Terve! / Moro! â Hello! Hei! / Moi! â Hi! Heippa! / Moikka! / Hei hei! / Moi moi! â Bye! NÃ¤hdÃ¤Ã¤n â See you later (literally "will be seen") NÃ¤kemi(si)in / HyvÃ¤sti â Goodbye Hauska tutustua! â Nice to meet you Kiitos â Thank you Kiitos, samoin â Likewise MitÃ¤ kuuluu? â How are you / How you doing? (Not used among strangers.) (literally "What is heard?") Kiitos hyvÃ¤Ã¤ â I'm fine, thank you Tervetuloa! â Welcome! Tietosanakirja, 11 volumes, 1909-1922, Finnish encyclopedia. * kyllÃ¤ â yes * joo â yes (informal) * ei â no * en â I will not / I do not * minÃ¤, sinÃ¤, hÃ¤n(se) â I, you, he/she(it) * me, te, he(ne) â we, you (two or more), they * (minÃ¤) olen â I am * (sinÃ¤) olet â you are * (minÃ¤) en ole - I am not * (sinÃ¤) et ole - You are not * yksi, kaksi, kolme â one, two, three * neljÃ¤, viisi, kuusi â four, five, six * seitsemÃ¤n, kahdeksan â seven, eight * yhdeksÃ¤n, kymmenen â nine, ten * yksitoista, kaksitoista, kolmetoista â eleven, twelve, thirteen * sata, tuhat, miljoona â hundred, thousand, million * (minÃ¤) rakastan sinua â I love you * anteeksi â forgive me, excuse me, sorry * voitko auttaa â can you help * apua! - help! * voisit(te)ko auttaa â could you help * missÃ¤ on ... ? â where is ...? * olen pahoillani â I'm sorry (apology) * otan osaa â My condolences * onnea â good luck * totta kai/tietysti/toki â of course * pieni hetki, pikku hetki, hetkinen â one moment please! * odota â wait * Suomi â Finland * suomi/suomen kieli â Finnish language * suomalainen â (noun) Finn; (adjective) Finnish * En ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤ â I don't understand * (MinÃ¤) ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤n â I understand * Â¹YmmÃ¤rrÃ¤t(te)kÃ¶ suomea? â Do you understand Finnish? * Â¹Puhut(te)ko englantia? â Do you speak English? * Olen englantilainen / amerikkalainen / kanadalainen / australialainen / uusiseelantilainen / irlantilainen / skotlantilainen / walesilainen / ranskalainen / saksalainen / kiinalainen / japanilainen â I am English / American / Canadian / Australian / New Zealander / Irish / Scottish / Welsh / French / German / Chinese / Japanese * Â¹Olet(te)ko englantilainen? â Are you English? * MissÃ¤ (sinÃ¤) asut/Â¹MissÃ¤ (te) asutte? â Where do you live? Â¹ -te is added to make the sentence formal (T-V distinction). Otherwise, without the added "-te", it is informal. It is also added when talking to more than one person. The transition from second-person singular to second-person plural (teitittely) is a politeness pattern, advised by many "good manners guides". Elderly people, especially, expect it from strangers, whereas the younger might feel it to be too formal to the point of coldness. However, a learner of the language should not be excessively concerned about it. Omitting it is never offensive, but one should keep in mind that on formal occasions this custom may make a good impression. * Finnish alphabet * Finnish grammar * Spoken Finnish * Finland's language strife * Karelian language * Estonian language * Finnish name * Finnish cultural and academic institutes * Finnish language on Ethnologue * The Finnish language --- a list of resources * Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish * Proto-Uralic to Finnish (in IPA mostly migrated from X-SAMPA) * English-Finnish-English Dictionary * Collection of Finnish bilingual dictionaries * Finnish Etymological Dictionary by Andras Rajki * English-Finnish and Russian-Finnish Dictionary * English-Finnish vocabulary quizzes * The 2 253 possible forms of the Finnish noun kauppa 'shop' * Discussion about the Finnish Language To Do This section lists the topics which need to be written or expanded (there are headings for all of these): * This page: History: The history of the language, especially its written form and its official status Derivative suffixes ** External links * Grammar page: Illative formation Noun plurals Noun stem types Adjectives, including comparison Postpositions and prepositions 5th infinitive Imperfect indicative for typeV and VI verbs Present participles, active and passive Past participle, passive Agent participle Passive, 2nd person imperatives 3rd person imperatives 1st person plural imperatives Ordinal numbers ** Names of numbers * Spoken language page: **important regional variations -->
Finnish_language	What book defined the official Finnish language?	The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish defined the official Finnish language.	data/set5/a5	Finnish_language Finnish ( , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% Tilastokeskus - VÃ¤estÃ¶ ) and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and MeÃ¤nkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a Finnish dialect spoken in Northern Norway, is an official minority language in Norway. Finnish is the eponymous member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects the forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence. Finnish is a member of the Baltic-Finnic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of languages which in turn is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The Baltic-Finnic subgroup also includes Estonian and other minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with the Uralic languages in several respects including: Shared morphology: :case suffixes such as genitive -n, partitive -(t)a / -(t)Ã¤ ( Virtual Finland: Where do Finns come from?. According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Finnish is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Defense Language Institute Areas in Southern Sweden with a Finnish-speaking population (2005) Finnish is spoken by about six million people who reside mainly in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Canada, and the United States. The majority of the population of Finland, 91.51% , speak Finnish as their first language. The remainder speak Swedish (5.5%), Sami (Northern, Inari, Skolt) and other languages. It has achieved some popularity as a second language in Estonia. Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish, spoken by 5.49% of the population Statistikcentralen - Befolkning ) and an official language of the European Union. It enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden. It is also one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rÃ¤tt att anvÃ¤nda sitt eget sprÃ¥k i annat nordiskt land, Nordic Council website. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention, Nordic news, February 22, 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. According to recent estimations, Proto-Uralic language arrived in Finland around 1900 BCE, soon to be developed into Proto-Finnic. The Balto-Finnic languages evolved from the Proto-Finnic language after SÃ¡mi was separated from it around 1500-1000 BCE. Current research indicates there were three or more Proto-Finnic dialects. The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued to influence each other. Therefore, the Eastern Finnish dialects are genetically Eastern Proto-Finnic, with many Eastern features, and the Southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences. Finland was annexed to Catholic Sweden in the Middle Ages. Prior to this, Finnish was an oral language. Even after, the language of larger-scale business was Middle Low German, the language of administration Swedish, and religious activities were held in Latin, leaving few possibilities for Finnish-speakers to use their mother tongue in situations other than daily chores. The first known written example of Finnish comes from this era and was found in a German travel journal dating back to c.1450: Mynna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emyna dayda (Modern Finnish: "MinÃ¤ tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltÃ¤, [mutta] en minÃ¤ taida"; English: "I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I cannot"). According to the travel journal, a Finnish bishop, whose name is unknown, was behind the above quotation. Mikael Agricola, a 19th century drawing by Albert Edelfelt The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola, a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his orthography on Swedish, German, and Latin. His ultimate plan was to translate the Bible, but first he had to define rules on which the Finnish standard language still relies, particularly with respect to spelling. He also invented single-handedly many words such as armo meaning both "mercy" and "grace" (as in "from grace alone, not out of good works...") and vanhurskas "righteous". More than fifty percent of these words are still in use. Agricola's written language was based on western dialects of Finnish, and his intention was that each phoneme should correspond to one letter. Yet, Agricola was confronted with many problems in this endeavor and failed to achieve uniformity. This is why he might use different signs for the same phonemes depending on the situation. For example he used dh or d to represent the voiced dental fricative (English th in this) and tz or z to represent the geminate unvoiced dental fricative (the th in thin). Additionally, Agricola might use gh or g to represent the voiced velar fricative and either ch, c or h for /h/. For example he wrote techtin against modern spelling tehtiin. Later others revised Agricola's work, striving for a more phonemic system. Along the way, Finnish lost some of its phonemes. The sounds and disappeared from the standard language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. Elsewhere, traces of these phonemes persist as their disappearance gave Finnish dialects their distinct qualities. For example, became ht or tt (e.g. meÃ¾Ã¾Ã¤ â mehtÃ¤, mettÃ¤) in the eastern dialects and in some western dialects. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost phonemes is thus: * became * became * became but only if the voiced velar fricative appeared originally between high labial vowels, otherwise lost entirely. Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon character (:) to separate the stem of the word and its grammatical ending in some cases (such as after abbreviations), where some other alphabetic writing systems would use an apostrophe. Suffixes are required for correct grammar, so this is often applied, e.g. EU:ssa "in the EU". Elias LÃ¶nnrot as depicted in a 19th century caricature LÃ¶nnrot made several journeys to Karelia and Eastern Finland to collect folklore, from which he compiled the Kalevala. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress the need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a full-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become a language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias LÃ¶nnrot. His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly crucial. In addition to compiling the Kalevala, he acted as an arbitrator in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that the western dialects Agricola had preferred preserved their preeminent role, while many originally dialectical words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish-speaker) was Seven Brothers, published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. Map of Finnish dialects The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, the Western dialects and the Eastern dialects. The dialects are almost entirely mutually intelligible and distinguished from each other by only minor changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm. For the most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology, grammar and vocabulary. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in Rauma dialect and the Eastern exessive case. The classification of closely related dialects spoken outside of Finland is a politically sensitive issue that has been controversial since Finland's independence in 1917. This concerns specifically the Karelian language in Russia and MeÃ¤nkieli in Sweden, the speakers of which are often considered oppressed minorities. Karelian is different enough from standard Finnish to have its own orthography. MeÃ¤nkieli is a northern dialect entirely intelligible to speakers of any other Finnish dialect, which achieved its status as an official minority language in Sweden for historical and political reasons regardless of the fact that Finnish is an official minority language in Sweden, too. The South-West dialects (lounaismurteet) are spoken in Finland Proper and Satakunta. Their typical feature is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects (hÃ¤mÃ¤lÃ¤ismurteet) are spoken in Tavastia. They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels (tie â tiÃ¤, miekka â miakka, kuolisi â kualis). The Southern Ostrobothnian dialects (etelÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia. Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of 'd' as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/. The Middle and North Ostrobothnia dialects (keski- ja pohjoispohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia. The Far-Northern dialects (perÃ¤pohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Lapland. The dialects spoken in the western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old 'h' sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One of the Far-Northern dialects, MeÃ¤nkieli, which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border, is taught in some Swedish schools as a distinct standardized language. The speakers of MeÃ¤nkieli became politically separated from the other Finns when Finland was annexed to Russia in 1809. The categorization of MeÃ¤nkieli as a separate language is controversial among the Finns, who see no linguistic criteria, only political reasons, for treating MeÃ¤nkieli differently than other dialects of Finnish. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms, in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects (savolaismurteet) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects spoken now only in Finnish South Karelia. The South-Eastern dialects (kaakkoismurteet) were previously spoken also on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria. The Karelian Isthmus was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most of Ingrian Finns were deported to various parts of Russia and Estonia. Palatalization, a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in Baltic-Finnic languages, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with a 'j', e.g. vesj, cf. standard vesi. The language spoken in the parts of Karelia that have not historically been under Swedish or Finnish rule is usually called the Karelian language, and it is considered to be more distant from standard Finnish than the Eastern dialects. Whether this language of Russian Karelia is a dialect of Finnish or a separate language is a matter of interpretation. However, the term Karelian dialects is often used colloquially to the Finnish South-Eastern dialects. * Western dialects Southern-Western dialects Proper Southern-Western dialects * Northern dialect group Southern dialect group Southern-Western middle dialects *Pori region dialects Ala-Satakunta dialects dialects of Turku highlands Somero region dialects Western Uusimaa dialects Tavastian dialects *YlÃ¤-Satakunta dialects Heart Tavastian dialects Southern Tavastian dialects Southern-Eastern Tavastian dialects *Hollola dialect group Porvoo dialect group Iitti dialect group Southern Botnian dialects Middle and Northern Botnian dialects Middle Botnian dialects Northern Botnian dialects PerÃ¤pohjola dialects *Tornio dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) Kemi dialects KemijÃ¤rvi dialects JÃ¤llivaara dialects ("MeÃ¤nkieli" in Sweden) *Ruija dialects ("Kven language" in Northern Norway) Eastern dialects Savonian dialects Northern Savonian dialects Southern Savonian dialects Middle dialects of Savonlinna region Eastern Savonian dialects or the dialects of North Karelia Kainuu dialects Central Finland dialects PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne Tavastia dialects Keuruu-EvijÃ¤rvi dialects Savonian dialects of VÃ¤rmland (Sweden) Southern-Eastern dialects Proper Southern-Eastern dialects Middle dialects of Lemi region Middle dialects of Sortavala region (now in Russia) Dialects of Ingria (in Russia) /ref> There are two main varieties of Finnish used throughout the country. One is the "standard language" (yleiskieli), and the other is the "spoken language" (puhekieli). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" (kirjakieli), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on the other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish (Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951â61), with 201,000 entries, was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin (Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja, 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, the Language Office Dictionary (Kielitoimiston sanakirja) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (Iso suomen kielioppi, Hakulinen, Auli et al. (2004): Iso suomen kielioppi. SKS:n toimituksia 950. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. ISBN 951-746-557-2. 1,600 pages 1,600 pages) was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperÃ¤, published in 1992â2000, and a handbook of contemporary language (Nykysuomen kÃ¤sikirja), and a periodic publication, Kielikello. Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The spoken language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The spoken language develops significantly faster, and the grammatical and phonological simplifications include also the most common pronouns and suffixes, which sum up to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language, such as the irregularization of some common verbs by assimilation, e.g. tule- â tuu- (although tule can be used in spoken language as well). Written language certainly still exerts a considerable influence upon the spoken word, due to the fact that illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk like a book" (puhuvat kirjakieltÃ¤), although this is seen as pedantic. More common is the intrusion of typically book-like constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It should also be noted that it is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of the effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsÃ¤ : metsÃ¤n, as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria. In fact, it has arisen from the spelling 'ts' for the dental fricative [Î¸Ë], which has disappeared. In spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ (mettÃ¤ : mettÃ¤n) and Eastern /ht : t/ (mehtÃ¤ : metÃ¤n) has been created: /tt : t/ (mettÃ¤ : metÃ¤n). Yleiskielen ts:n murrevastineet It is notable that neither of these are forms are identifiable as or originate from a specific dialect. The orthography of the informal language follows that of the formal language. However, sometimes sandhi may be transcribed, especially the internal ones, e.g. menenpÃ¤ â menempÃ¤. This never takes place in formal language. : Note that there are noticeable differences between dialects. These examples are mostly from the language as spoken in the capital area (Helsinki dialect or even Stadin slangi). Also note that here the formal language does not mean a language spoken in formal occasions but the standard language which exist practically only in written form. Characteristic features of Finnish (common to other Finno-Ugric languages) are vowel harmony and an agglutinative morphology; due to the extensive use of the latter, words can be quite long. The main stress is always on the first syllable, and it is articulated by adding approximately 100 ms more length to the stressed vowel. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable. There are eight vowels, whose lexical and grammatical role is highly important, and which are unusually strictly controlled, so that there is almost no allophony. Vowels shown in the table below, followed by the IPA symbol when not identical. These are always different phonemes in the initial syllable; for noninitial syllable, see morphophonology below. : 1 Although conventionally and conveniently written with the close-mid symbols , and , they are more accurately described as mid vowels ( , and ). The usual analysis is that Finnish has long and short vowels and consonants as distinct phonemes. However, long vowels may be analyzed as a vowel followed by a chroneme, or also, that sequences of identical vowels are pronounced as "diphthongs". The quality of long vowels mostly overlaps with the quality of short vowels, with the exception of u, which is centralized with respect to uu; long vowels do not morph into diphthongs. There are eighteen phonemic diphthongs; like vowels, diphthongs do not have significant allophony. Finnish has a consonant inventory of small to moderate size, where voicing is mostly not distinctive, and fricatives are scarce. Finnish has relatively few non-coronal consonants. Consonants are as follows, where consonants in parenthesis are found only in a few recent loans. # is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation, and thus occurs only medially, or in non-native words; it is actually more of an alveolar tap rather than a true voiced stop, and the dialectal realization varies wildly; see main article. # The glottal stop can only appear at word boundaries as a result of certain sandhi phenomena, and it is not indicated in spelling: e.g. 'let it be', orthographically anna olla. Moreover, this sound is not used in all dialects. # The short velar nasal is an allophone of in , and the long velar nasal , written ng, is the equivalent of under weakening consonant gradation (type of lenition) and thus occurs only medially. Almost all consonants have phonemic geminated forms. These are independent, but occur only medially when phonemic. Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e.g. 'rs' in karsta. However, due to a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e.g. strutsi "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward. As a Finno-Ugric language, it is somewhat special in two respects: loss of fricatives and loss of palatalization. An interesting feature of Finnic phonology is the development of labial vowels in non-initial syllables. Proto-Uralic had only 'a' and 'i' and their vowel harmonic allophones in non-initial syllables; modern Finnish allows other vowels in non-initial syllables (they are uncommon, however, compared to 'a', 'Ã¤' and 'i'). Palatalization is characteristic of Finno-Ugric languages, but Finnish has lost it. However, the Eastern dialects and the Karelian language have redeveloped a system of palatalization. For example, the Karelian word d'uuri , with a palatalized , is reflected by juuri in Finnish and Savo dialect vesj is vesi in standard Finnish. Finnish has only two fricatives, namely and . All other fricatives are recognized as foreign, of which Finnish speakers can usually reliably distinguish and . Finnish has several morphophonological processes between grammar ("logic") and phonology ("sounds") that require modification of the forms of words for daily speech. The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation. Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [Â±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [Â±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [Â±back] for the initial syllable. For example, tuote ("product") agglutinates to tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'Ã¤') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'Ã¤' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts. Consonant gradation is a lenition process for P, T and K, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique root tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta â Va, e.g. vanha+ta â vanhaa. Another instance is the imperative, which changes into a glottal stop in the singular but is shown as an overt 'ka' in plural, e.g. mene vs. menkÃ¤Ã¤. The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative-accusative; but there are two object cases: accusative and partitive. The contrast between the two is telic, where the accusative case denotes actions completed as intended (Ammuin hirven "I shot (killed) the elk"), and the partitive case denotes incomplete actions (Ammuin hirveÃ¤ "I shot (at) the elk"). Often this is confused with perfectivity, but the only element of perfectivity that exists in Finnish is that there are some perfective verbs. Transitivity is distinguished by different verbs for transitive and intransitive, e.g. ratkaista "to solve something" vs. ratketa "to solve by itself". There are several frequentative and momentane verb categories. Verbs gain personal suffixes for each person; these suffixes are grammatically more important than pronouns, which are often not used at all in standard Finnish. The infinitive is not the uninflected form but has a suffix -ta or -da; the closest one to an uninflected form is the third person singular indicative. There are four persons, first ("I, we"), second ("you (singular), you (plural)"), third ("s/he, they"). Also, the passive voice (sometimes called impersonal or indefinite) resembles a "fourth person" similar to e.g. English "people say/do/â¦". There are four tenses, namely present, past, perfect and pluperfect; the system mirrors the Germanic system. The future tense is not needed due to context and the telic contrast. For example, luen kirjan "I read a book (completely)" indicates a future, when luen kirjaa "I read a book (not yet complete)" indicates present. Nouns may be suffixed with the markers for the aforementioned accusative case and partitive case, the genitive case, eight different locatives, and a few other cases. The case marker must be added not only to the main noun, but also to its modifiers; e.g. suure+ssa talo+ssa, literally "big-in house-in". Possession is marked with a possessive suffix; separate possessive pronouns are unknown. Pronouns gain suffixes just as nouns do. Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus (1745) by Daniel Juslenius was the first comprehensive dictionary of the Finnish language with 16,000 entries. :See the lists of Finnish words and words of Finnish origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project. Finnish extensively employs regular agglutination. It has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. As an example, take the word kirja "a book", from which one can form derivatives kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet), kirje "a piece of correspondence, a letter", kirjasto "a library", kirjailija "an author", kirjallisuus "literature", kirjoittaa "to write", kirjoittaja "a writer", kirjuri "a scribe, a clerk", kirjallinen "something in written form", kirjata "to write down, register, record", kirjasin "a font", and others. Here are some of the more common such suffixes. Which of each pair is used depends on the word being suffixed in accordance with the rules of vowel harmony. -ja/jÃ¤ : agent (one who does) (e.g. lukea "to read" â lukija "reader") -lainen/lÃ¤inen: inhabitant of (either noun or adjective). Englanti "England" â englantilainen "English person or thing"; VenÃ¤jÃ¤ â venÃ¤lÃ¤inen "Russian person or thing". -sto/stÃ¶: collection of. For example: kirja "a book" â kirjasto "a library"; laiva "a ship" â laivasto "navy, fleet". -in: instrument or tool. For example: kirjata "to book, to file" â kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet); vatkata "to whisk" â vatkain "a whisk, mixer". -uri/yri: an agent or instrument (kaivaa "to dig" â kaivuri "a digging machine"; laiva "a ship" â laivuri "shipper, shipmaster"). -os/Ã¶s: result of some action (tulla "to come" â tulos "result, outcome"; tehdÃ¤ "to do" â teos "a piece of work"). -ton/tÃ¶n: lack of something, "un-", "-less" (onni "happiness" â onneton "unhappy"; koti "home" â koditon "homeless"). -llinen: having (the quality of) something (lapsi "a child" â lapsellinen "childish"; kauppa "a shop, commerce" â kaupallinen "commercial"). -kas/kÃ¤s: similar to -llinen (itse "self" â itsekÃ¤s "selfish"; neuvo "advice" â neuvokas "resourceful"). -va/vÃ¤: doing or having something (taitaa "to be able" â taitava "skillful"; johtaa "to lead" â johtava "leading"). -la/lÃ¤: a place related to the main word (kana "a hen" â kanala "a henhouse"; pappi "a priest" â pappila "a parsonage"). Verbal suffixes are extremely diverse; several frequentatives and momentanes differentiating causative, volitional-unpredictable and anticausative are found, often combined with each other, often denoting indirection. For example, hypÃ¤tÃ¤ "to jump", hyppiÃ¤ "to be jumping", hypeksiÃ¤ "to be jumping wantonly", hypÃ¤yttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump once", hyppyyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone jump repeatedly" (or "to boss someone around"), hyppyytyttÃ¤Ã¤ "to make someone to cause a third person to jump repeatedly", hyppyytellÃ¤ "to, without aim, make someone jump repeatedly", hypÃ¤htÃ¤Ã¤ "to jump suddenly" (in anticausative meaning), hypellÃ¤ "to jump around repeatedly", hypiskellÃ¤ "to be jumping repeatedly and wantonly", hyppimÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping", hyppelemÃ¤ttÃ¤ "without jumping around". Often the diversity and compactness of this agglutination is illustrated with istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" (from istua, "to sit, to be seated"): istua "to sit down" istun "I sit down" / istahtaa "to sit down for a while" istahdan "I sit down for a while" istahtaisin "I should sit down for a while" istahtaisinko "should I sit down for a while?" istahtaisinkohan "I wonder if I should sit down for a while" Over the course of many centuries, the Finnish language has borrowed a great many words from a wide variety of languages, most from neighboring Indo-European languages. Indeed, some estimates put the core Proto-Uralic vocabulary surviving in Finnish at only around 300 word roots. Due to the different grammatical, phonological and phonotactic structure of the Finnish language, loanwords from Indo-European have been assimilated. In general, the first loan words into Finno-Ugric languages seem to come from very early Indo-European languages, and later mainly from Iranian, Turkic, Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic languages. Furthermore, a certain group of very basic and neutral words exists in Finnish and other Finnic languages that are absent from other Finno-Ugric languages, but without a recognizable etymology from any known language. These words are usually regarded as the last remnant of the Nordic language spoken in Fennoscandia before the arrival of the proto-Finnic language. Words included in this group are e.g. jÃ¤nis (hare), musta (black), mÃ¤ki (hill), saari (island), suo (swamp) and niemi (cape). Also some place names, like PÃ¤ijÃ¤nne and Imatra, are probably before the proto-Finnic era. HÃ¤kkinen, Kaisa. Suomalaisten esihistoria kielitieteen valossa (ISBN 951-717-855-7). Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura 1996. See pages 166 and 173. Often quoted loan examples are kuningas "king" and ruhtinas "prince, high ranking nobleman" from Germanic kuningaz and druhtinaz, but another example is Ã¤iti "mother", from Gothic aiÃ¾ei, which is interesting because borrowing of close-kinship vocabulary is a rare phenomenon. The original Finnish emo occurs only in restricted contexts. There are other close-kinship words that are loaned from Baltic and Germanic languages (morsian "bride", armas "dear"). Examples of the ancient Iranian loans are vasara "hammer" from Avestan vadÅ¾ra, vajra and orja "slave" from arya, airya "man" (the latter probably via similar circumstances as slave from Slav in many European languages). More recently, Swedish has been a prolific source of borrowings, and also, the Swedish language acted as a proxy for European words, especially those relating to government. Present-day Finland belonged to the kingdom of Sweden from the 12th century and was ceded to Russia in 1809, becoming an autonomous Grand Duchy. Swedish was retained as the official language and language of the upper class even after this. When Finnish was accepted as an official language, it gained only legal "equal status" with Swedish, which persists even today. It is still the case today, though only about 5.5% of Finnish nationals, the Swedish-speaking Finns, have Swedish as their mother tongue. During the period of autonomy, Russian did not gain much ground as a language of the people or the government. Nevertheless, quite a few words were subsequently acquired from Russian (especially in older Helsinki slang) but not to the same extent as with Swedish. In all these cases, borrowing has been partly a result of geographical proximity. Especially words dealing with administrative or modern culture came to Finnish from Swedish, sometimes reflecting the oldest Swedish form of the word (lag - laki, 'law'; lÃ¤n - lÃ¤Ã¤ni, 'province'; bisp - piispa, 'bishop'; jordpÃ¤ron - peruna, 'potato'), and many more survive as informal synonyms in spoken or dialectal Finnish (e.g. likka, from Swedish flicka, 'girl', usually tyttÃ¶ in Finnish). Typical Russian loanwords are old or very old, thus hard to recognize as such, and concern everyday concepts, e.g. papu "bean", sini "(n.) blue" and pappi "priest". Notably, a few religious words such as Raamattu ("Bible") are borrowed from Russian, which indicates language contact preceding the Swedish era. This is mainly believed to be result of trade with Novgorod from the 9th century on and the Orthodox converting in the 13th century. Most recently, and with increasing impact, English has been the source of new loanwords in Finnish. Unlike previous "geographical" borrowing, the influence of English is largely "cultural" and reaches Finland by many routes including: international business; music; film and TV (foreign films and programmes, excluding ones intended for a very young audience, are shown subtitled); literature; and, of course, the Web this is now probably the most important source of all non-face-to-face exposure to English. The importance of English as the language of global commerce has led many non-English companies, including Finland's Nokia, to adopt English as their official operating language. Recently, it has been observed that English borrowings are also ousting previous borrowings, for example the switch from treffailla "to date" (from Swedish, trÃ¤ffa) to deittailla from English "to go for a date". Calques from English are also found, e.g. kovalevy (hard disk). Grammatical calques are also found, for example, the replacement of the impersonal (passiivi) with the English-style generic you, e. g. sÃ¤ et voi "you cannot", instead of ei voi "one cannot". However, this does not mean that Finnish is threatened by English. Borrowing is normal language evolution, and neologisms are coined actively not only by the government, but also by the media. Moreover, Finnish and English have a considerably different grammar, phonology and phonotactics, discouraging direct borrowing. English loan words in Finnish slang include for example pleikkari "PlayStation", hodari "hot dog", and hedari "headache", "headshot" or "headbutt". Often these loanwords are distinctly identified as slang or jargon, rarely being used in a negative mood or in formal language. Since English and Finnish grammar, pronunciation and phonetics differ considerably, most loan words are inevitably sooner or later calqued â translated into native Finnish â retaining the semantic meaning. Some modern terms have been synthesised rather than borrowed, for example: :puhelin "telephone" (literally: "chatter" + instrument suffix "-in" to make "an instrument for chattering") :tietokone "computer" (literally: "knowledge machine") :levyke "diskette" (from levy "disc" + a diminutive -ke) :sÃ¤hkÃ¶posti "email" (literally: "electrical mail") :linja-auto "bus" (literally: route-car) Neologisms are actively generated by the Language Planning Office and the media. They are widely adopted. One would actually give an old-fashioned or rustic impression using forms such as telefooni or kompuutteri when the neologism is widely adopted. The first page of Abckiria (1543), the first book written in the Finnish language. The spelling of Finnish in the book had many inconsistencies: for example, the k sound could be represented by c, k or even g; the long u and the long i were represented by w and ij respectively, and Ã¤ was represented by e. Finnish is written with the Swedish variant of the Latin alphabet that includes the distinct characters Ã and Ã, and also several characters not used in Finnish (including for example C, Q, Ã). The Finnish orthography built upon the phoneme principle: each phoneme (meaningful sound) of the language is represented by exactly one grapheme (independent letter), and each grapheme represents almost exactly one phoneme. This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell, and facilitates learning to read and write. The rule of thumb for Finnish orthography is: write as you read, read as you write. However, morphemes retain their spelling despite sandhi. Some orthographical notes: Long vowels and consonants are represented by double occurrences of the relevant graphemes. This causes no confusion, and permits these sounds to be written without having to nearly double the size of the alphabet to accommodate separate graphemes for long sounds. The grapheme h occurring before a consonant sounds slightly harder (initially breathy voiced, then voiceless) than when occurring before a vowel. Sandhi is not transcribed; the spelling of morphemes is immutable, e.g. tulen+pa . Some consonants (v, j, d) and all consonants occurring in (always medial) clusters do not have distinctive length, and consequently, their allophonic variation is not indicated in spelling, e.g. rajaan /rajaan/ (I limit) vs. raijaan /raijjaan/ (I haul). Pre-1900s texts and personal names use w for v. Both correspond to the same phoneme, the labiodental approximant , a v without the fricative ("hissing") quality of the English v. The letters Ã¤ [Ã¦] and Ã¶ [Ã¸], although written as umlauted a and o, do not represent phonological umlauts, and they are considered independent graphemes; the letter shapes have been copied from Swedish. An appropriate parallel from the Latin alphabet are the characters C and G (uppercase), which historically have a closer kinship than many other characters (G is a derivation of C) but are considered distinct letters, and changing one for the other will change meanings. Although Finnish is almost completely written as it is spoken, there are a few differences: The n in nk is a velar nasal, as in English. As an exception to the phonetic principle, there is no g in ng, which is a long velar nasal as in English singalong. * The gemination between words is not marked in writing. * The double consonant in clitic is marked as a single consonant. * Only comparative and superlative adjectives the letter m is used like in speech in word like parempi, but in other similar cases the letter n is used, like in onpa * The /j/ after the letter i is very weak or there is no /j/ at all, but in writing it is used, example: urheilija. Indeed the j is not used in writing words with consonant gradation (like aion and some other (like lÃ¤ksiÃ¤iset)) * In speech there is no difference between the use of /i/ in words (like ajoittaa, but ehdottaa, but in writing there are quite simple rules: The i is written in words that consist two syllables and end in a or Ã¤ (sanoittaa), and in words that are old-stylish (innoittaa). The i is not written in words that consist two syllables and end in o or Ã¶ like (erottaa), words which do not have clear proto-word (hajottaa), and in words that are descriptive (hÃ¤Ã¤mÃ¶ttÃ¤Ã¤) or workaday by their style (rehottaa) Graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are sometimes converted in two ways, a and o, respectively and, ae and oe respectively. Finnish graphemes Ã¤ and Ã¶ are not umlauts like in German; conversion to ae and oe in Finnish language is less correct than in German language. Conversion to a and o is more common and almost universally used in email-addresses. Conversion ae and oe is rare but formally used in passports and equivalent situations. both conversion rules have minimal pairs. The sounds Å¡ and Å¾ are not a part of Finnish language itself and have been introduced somewhat artificially by a government regulation. Although they occur in some rare loanwords, their principal use is in the transcription of foreign names. For technical reasons or convenience, the graphemes sh and zh are often used in quickly or less carefully written texts instead of Å¡ and Å¾. This is a deviation from the phonetic principle, and as such is liable to cause confusion, but the damage is minimal as the transcribed words are foreign in any case. Finnish does not use the sounds z, Å¡ or Å¾, but for the sake of exactitude, they can be included in spelling. (The recommendation cites the Russian play Hovanshtshina as an example.) Many speakers pronounce all of them s, or distinguish only between s and Å¡, because Finnish has no voiced sibilants. The language may be identified by its distinctive lack of the letters b, c, f, q, w, x, z and Ã¥. VÃ¤inÃ¶ Linna: The Unknown Soldier; these words were also inscribed in the 20 mk note. (Translation: "The benevolent sun watched them. By no means was it angry at them. Perhaps it even felt a kind of compassion towards them. Jolly good brothers.") Sample sound of "HyvÃ¤Ã¤ huomenta" (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) huomenta â Good morning (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) pÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (literally "Good day") (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltapÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ â Good afternoon (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) iltaa â Good evening (HyvÃ¤Ã¤) yÃ¶tÃ¤ / ÃitÃ¤ â Good night Terve! / Moro! â Hello! Hei! / Moi! â Hi! Heippa! / Moikka! / Hei hei! / Moi moi! â Bye! NÃ¤hdÃ¤Ã¤n â See you later (literally "will be seen") NÃ¤kemi(si)in / HyvÃ¤sti â Goodbye Hauska tutustua! â Nice to meet you Kiitos â Thank you Kiitos, samoin â Likewise MitÃ¤ kuuluu? â How are you / How you doing? (Not used among strangers.) (literally "What is heard?") Kiitos hyvÃ¤Ã¤ â I'm fine, thank you Tervetuloa! â Welcome! Tietosanakirja, 11 volumes, 1909-1922, Finnish encyclopedia. * kyllÃ¤ â yes * joo â yes (informal) * ei â no * en â I will not / I do not * minÃ¤, sinÃ¤, hÃ¤n(se) â I, you, he/she(it) * me, te, he(ne) â we, you (two or more), they * (minÃ¤) olen â I am * (sinÃ¤) olet â you are * (minÃ¤) en ole - I am not * (sinÃ¤) et ole - You are not * yksi, kaksi, kolme â one, two, three * neljÃ¤, viisi, kuusi â four, five, six * seitsemÃ¤n, kahdeksan â seven, eight * yhdeksÃ¤n, kymmenen â nine, ten * yksitoista, kaksitoista, kolmetoista â eleven, twelve, thirteen * sata, tuhat, miljoona â hundred, thousand, million * (minÃ¤) rakastan sinua â I love you * anteeksi â forgive me, excuse me, sorry * voitko auttaa â can you help * apua! - help! * voisit(te)ko auttaa â could you help * missÃ¤ on ... ? â where is ...? * olen pahoillani â I'm sorry (apology) * otan osaa â My condolences * onnea â good luck * totta kai/tietysti/toki â of course * pieni hetki, pikku hetki, hetkinen â one moment please! * odota â wait * Suomi â Finland * suomi/suomen kieli â Finnish language * suomalainen â (noun) Finn; (adjective) Finnish * En ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤ â I don't understand * (MinÃ¤) ymmÃ¤rrÃ¤n â I understand * Â¹YmmÃ¤rrÃ¤t(te)kÃ¶ suomea? â Do you understand Finnish? * Â¹Puhut(te)ko englantia? â Do you speak English? * Olen englantilainen / amerikkalainen / kanadalainen / australialainen / uusiseelantilainen / irlantilainen / skotlantilainen / walesilainen / ranskalainen / saksalainen / kiinalainen / japanilainen â I am English / American / Canadian / Australian / New Zealander / Irish / Scottish / Welsh / French / German / Chinese / Japanese * Â¹Olet(te)ko englantilainen? â Are you English? * MissÃ¤ (sinÃ¤) asut/Â¹MissÃ¤ (te) asutte? â Where do you live? Â¹ -te is added to make the sentence formal (T-V distinction). Otherwise, without the added "-te", it is informal. It is also added when talking to more than one person. The transition from second-person singular to second-person plural (teitittely) is a politeness pattern, advised by many "good manners guides". Elderly people, especially, expect it from strangers, whereas the younger might feel it to be too formal to the point of coldness. However, a learner of the language should not be excessively concerned about it. Omitting it is never offensive, but one should keep in mind that on formal occasions this custom may make a good impression. * Finnish alphabet * Finnish grammar * Spoken Finnish * Finland's language strife * Karelian language * Estonian language * Finnish name * Finnish cultural and academic institutes * Finnish language on Ethnologue * The Finnish language --- a list of resources * Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish * Proto-Uralic to Finnish (in IPA mostly migrated from X-SAMPA) * English-Finnish-English Dictionary * Collection of Finnish bilingual dictionaries * Finnish Etymological Dictionary by Andras Rajki * English-Finnish and Russian-Finnish Dictionary * English-Finnish vocabulary quizzes * The 2 253 possible forms of the Finnish noun kauppa 'shop' * Discussion about the Finnish Language To Do This section lists the topics which need to be written or expanded (there are headings for all of these): * This page: History: The history of the language, especially its written form and its official status Derivative suffixes ** External links * Grammar page: Illative formation Noun plurals Noun stem types Adjectives, including comparison Postpositions and prepositions 5th infinitive Imperfect indicative for typeV and VI verbs Present participles, active and passive Past participle, passive Agent participle Passive, 2nd person imperatives 3rd person imperatives 1st person plural imperatives Ordinal numbers ** Names of numbers * Spoken language page: **important regional variations -->
Flute	What is the earliest extant transverse flute?	it dates from 433 BC	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What is the earliest extant transverse flute?	Chi	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	When does a flute produce sound?	when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	When does a flute produce sound?	When a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creats a vibration of air at the hole.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	How can a flute's volume be increased?	a flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	How can a flute's volume be increased?	A flute's volume can be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Do open-ended flutes have brighter timbres?	yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Do open-ended flutes have brighter timbres?	Yes.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Where was the oldest flute ever discovered found?	Germany	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Where was the oldest flute ever discovered found?	Various parts of Germany.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Are Western flutes simpler than Indian flutes?	no	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Are Western flutes simpler than Indian flutes?	Yes.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Why is a police whistle very wide for its pitch?	A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Why is a police whistle very wide for its pitch?	It's volume is high either because of its larger resonator or larger tone holes.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What are the two main varieties of Indian flutes?	The first, the Bansuri. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What are the two main varieties of Indian flutes?	Bansuri and the Venu or Pullanguzhal.	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Has the flute been dated to prehistoric times?	yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Has the flute been dated to prehistoric times?	Yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Was the pan flute used in Greece?	yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Was the pan flute used in Greece?	Yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Can a flute be played with several different air sources?	yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	Can a flute be played with several different air sources?	Yes	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	When was the pan flute used in Greece?	the 7th century BC	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	When was the pan flute used in Greece?	7th century BC	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	When did concert flutes begin appearing in concert ensembles?	the 16th-century	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	When did concert flutes begin appearing in concert ensembles?	null	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	How many main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used?	two	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	How many main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used?	Two	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What material is a chi flute fashioned from?	lacquered bamboo	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What material is a chi flute fashioned from?	Lacquered bamboo	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	How does a flute player change the pitch of the sound?	by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	How does a flute player change the pitch of the sound?	Opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What is the most basic form of the flute?	a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Flute	What is the most basic form of the flute?	Open tube which is blown like a bottle	data/set2/a5	Flute A picture of a Western concert flute The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an edge. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. It has appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-holed flute made from a mammoth tusk (from the GeiÃenklÃ¶sterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago ) was discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swans' bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Flute History, UCLA. Retrieved June 2007. The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play the ugab and the kinnor". The former Hebrew term refers to some wind instrument, or wind instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As such, Jubal is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the flute (a word used in some translations of this biblical passage). Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential part of Indian culture and mythology, and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate in India as Indian literature from 1500 BCE has made vague references to the cross flute. Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute"), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu The bone age flute. BBC. Retrieved July 2007. in the Central Chinese province of Henan. The earliest extant transverse flute is a chi (ç¯ª) flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty. It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing, compiled and edited by Confucius. The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe. A Worldwide History of the Pan Flute Throughout the 10th, 12th and 13th centuries, transverse flutes were very uncommon in Europe, with the various fipple flutes being more prominent. The tin whistle (an Irish flute) first appeared in the 12th century, and the recorder in the 14th century. The first literary appearance of the transverse flute was made in 1285, but early on the instrument was only used in Germany and France. Following the 16th-century court music, concert flutes began appearing in chamber ensembles. These flutes were often tuned to the key of D, and used as the tenor voice. However, these flutes varied greatly in size and range. The recorder continued to be popular during the renaissance, but its use declined in the 18th century. The later half of the 18th century shows the first orchestras being formed, and the concert flute being a member thereof, featured in symphonies and concertos. Throughout the rest of the 18th century the interest in concert flutes increased, and peaked in the early half of the 1800s. In the 19th century, the ocarina was developed from the gemshorn, an instrument from the 16th century. The 20th century saw a revival of the recorder, while the concert flute and tin whistle continued to be popular. The invention of plastics in the 20th century gave birth to the tonette, a fipple flute used in music education, but it soon fell out of use, replaced by plastic recorders. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Flute acoustics, UNSW. Retrieved June 2007. The air stream across this hole creates a Bernoulli, or siphon, effect leading to a von Karman vortex street. This excites the air contained in the usually cylindrical resonant cavity within the flute. The player changes the pitch of the sound produced by opening and closing holes in the body of the instrument, thus changing the effective length of the resonator and its corresponding resonant frequency. By varying the air pressure, a flute player can also change the pitch of a note by causing the air in the flute to resonate at a harmonic other than the fundamental frequency without opening or closing any holes. To be louder, a flute must use a larger resonator, a larger air stream, or increased air stream velocity. A flute's volume can generally be increased by making its resonator and tone holes larger. This is why a police whistle, a form of flute, is very wide for its pitch, and why a pipe organ can be far louder than a concert flute: a large organ pipe can contain several cubic feet of air, and its tone hole may be several inches wide, while a concert flute's air stream measures a fraction of an inch across. The air stream must be directed at the correct angle and velocity, or else the air in the flute will not vibrate. In fippled or ducted flutes, a precisely formed and placed windway will compress and channel the air to the labium ramp edge across the open window. In the organ, this air is supplied by a regulated blower. In non-fipple flutes, the air stream is shaped and directed by the player's lips, called the embouchure. This allows the player a wide range of expression in pitch, volume, and timbre, especially in comparison to fipple/ducted flutes. However, it also makes an end blown flute or transverse flute considerably more difficult for a beginner to produce a full sound than a ducted flute, such as the recorder. Transverse and end-blown flutes also take more air to play, which requires deeper breathing and makes circular breathing a considerably trickier proposition. Generally, the quality called timbre or "tone colour" varies because the flute can produce harmonics in different proportions or intensities. The tone color can be modified by changing the internal shape of the bore, such as the conical taper, or the diameter-to-length ratio. A harmonic is a frequency that is a whole number multiple of a lower register, or "fundamental" note of the flute. Generally the air stream is thinner (vibrating in more modes), faster (providing more energy to excite the air's resonance), and aimed across the hole less deeply (permitting a more shallow deflection of the air stream) in the production of higher harmonics or upper partials. Head joint geometry appears particularly critical to acoustic performance and tone, but there is no clear consensus on a particular shape amongst manufacturers. Acoustic impedance of the embouchure hole appears the most critical parameter. Critical variables affecting this acoustic impedance include: chimney length (hole between lip-plate and head tube), chimney diameter, and radiuses or curvature of the ends of the chimney and any designed restriction in the "throat" of the instrument, such as that in the Japanese Nohkan Flute. A study in which professional players were blindfolded could find no significant differences between instruments made from a variety of different metals. In two different sets of blind listening, no instrument was correctly identified in a first listening, and in a second, only the silver instrument was identified. The study concluded that there was "no evidence that the wall material has any appreciable effect on the sound color or dynamic range of the instrument". Unfortunately, this study did not control for headjoint design, which is generally known to affect tone (see above). Controlled tone tests show that the tube mass does make a difference and therefore tube density and wall thickness will make a difference. One must also consider the inefficiency of the human ear to detect sound, vs electronic sensors. Playing the zampoÃ±a, a Pre-Inca instrument and type of pan flute. In its most basic form, a flute can be an open tube which is blown like a bottle. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece. However, some flutes, such as the whistle, gemshorn, flageolet, recorder, tin whistle, tonette, fujara, and ocarina have a duct that directs the air onto the edge (an arrangement that is termed a "fipple"). These are known as fipple flutes. The fipple gives the instrument a distinct timbre which is different from non-fipple flutes and makes the instrument easier to play, but takes a degree of control away from the musician. Another division is between side-blown (or transverse) flutes, such as the Western concert flute, piccolo, fife, dizi, and bansuri; and end-blown flutes, such as the ney, xiao, kaval, danso, shakuhachi, Anasazi flute, and quena. The player of a side-blown flute uses a hole on the side of the tube to produce a tone, instead of blowing on an end of the tube. End-blown flutes should not be confused with fipple flutes such as the recorder, which are also played vertically but have an internal duct to direct the air flow across the edge of the tone hole. Flutes may be open at one or both ends. The ocarina, pan pipes, police whistle, and bosun's whistle are closed-ended. Open-ended flutes such as the concert flute and the recorder have more harmonics, and thus more flexibility for the player, and brighter timbres. An organ pipe may be either open or closed, depending on the sound desired. Flutes can be played with several different air sources. Conventional flutes are blown with the mouth, although some cultures use nose flutes. The Flue pipes of Organs, which are acoustically similar to duct flutes, are blown by bellows or fans. An illustration of a Western concert flute The Western concert flute, a descendant of the 19th-century German flute, is a transverse flute which is closed at the top. Near the top is the embouchure hole, across and into which the player blows. It has larger circular finger-holes than its baroque predecessors, designed to increase the instrument's dynamic range. Various combinations can be opened or closed by means of keys, to produce the different notes in its playing range. There are a total of 25 working keys on a western concert flute. The note produced depends on which finger-holes are opened or closed and on how the flute is blown. There are two kinds of foot joints available for the concert flute: the standard C foot (shown above) or the longer B foot with an extra key extending the flute's range to B below middle C. There can also be a Bb below middle c foot joint added to the instrument. With the rare exception of the Kingma system, or custom-devised fingering systems, modern Western concert flutes conform to the Boehm system. The standard concert flute is pitched in the key of C and has a range of three octaves starting from middle C (or one half-step lower with a B foot). This means that the concert flute is one of the highest common orchestral instruments, with the exception of the piccolo, which plays an octave higher. G alto and C bass flutes, pitched, respectively, a perfect fourth and an octave below the concert flute, are used occasionally. Parts are written for alto flute more frequently than for bass. The contrabass, double contrabass, and hyperbass are other rare forms of the flute pitched two, three, and four octaves below middle C respectively. Other sizes of flute and piccolo are used from time to time. A rarer instrument of the modern pitching system is the treble G flute. Instruments made according to an older pitch standard, used principally in wind-band music, include Db piccolo, Eb soprano flute (the primary instrument, equivalent to today's concert C flute), F alto flute, and Bb bass flute. Photograph of an 8-holed bamboo flute A bansuri being played by an Indian classical music artist. The bamboo flute is an important instrument in Indian classical music, and developed independently of the Western flute. The Hindu god Krishna is traditionally considered a master of the Bansuri (see below). The Indian flutes are very simple compared to the Western counterparts; they are made of bamboo and are keyless. Pannalal Ghosh, a legendary Indian flutist, was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a bamboo flute (32 inches long with seven finger holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music, and also to bring to it the stature of other classical music instruments. The extra hole permitted madhyam to be played, which facilitates the meends (like M N, P M and M D) in several traditional ragas. Indian concert flutes are available in standard pitches. In Carnatic Music, the pitches are referred by numbers such as (assuming C as the tonic) 1 (for C), 1-1/2 (C#), 2 (D), 2-1/2 (D#), 3 (E), 4 (F), 4-1/2 (F#), 5 (G), 5-1/2 (G#), 6 (A), 6-1/2 (A#) and 7 (B). However, the pitch of a composition is itself not fixed and hence any of the flutes may be used for the concert (as long as the accompanying instruments, if any, are tuned appropriately) and is largely left to the personal preference of the artist. Various type of flutes being sold by a boy in a local market in Bangalore, India Two main varieties of Indian flutes are currently used. The first, the Bansuri, has six finger holes and one embouchure hole, and is used predominantly in the Hindustani music of Northern India. The second, the Venu or Pullanguzhal, has eight finger holes, and is played predominantly in the Carnatic music of Southern India. Presently, the 8-holed flute with cross-fingering technique is common among many Carnatic flutists. This technique was introduced by T. R. Mahalingam in the mid-20th century. Prior to this, the South Indian flute had only seven finger holes, with the fingering standard developed by Sharaba Shastri, of the Palladam school, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1998, based on his research on Bharata Natya Shastra's Sarana Chatushtai, Avinash Balkrishna Patwardhan developed a methodology to produce perfectly tuned flutes for the ten thatas currently present in Indian classical music. The quality of the flute's sound depends somewhat on the specific bamboo used to make it, and it is generally agreed that the best bamboo grows in the Nagarcoil area in South India. The Japanese flute, called the Fue, encompasses a large number of musical flutes from Japan. The sring (also called blul) is a relatively small, end-blown flute with a nasal tone quality Pahlevanian 2001 and the pitch of a piccolo, found in the Caucasus region of Eastern Armenia. It is made of wood or cane, usually with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, producing a diatonic scale. The sring is used by shepherds to play various signals and tunes connected with their work, and also lyrical love songs called chaban bayaty, as well as programmatic pieces. The sring is also used in combination with the def and the dohl to provide music for dancing. One Armenian musicologist believes the sring to be the most characteristic of national Armenian instruments. Komitas 1994 Diple Duduk Irish flute Palendag Pipe and tabor Tin whistle Tumpong Washint Fleadh Cheoil (Irish competition) Trill Boehm, Theobald. 1964. The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, translated by Dayton C. Miller, with a new introduction by Samuel Baron. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21259-9 Buchanan, Donna A. 2001. âBulgaria Â§II: Traditional Music, 2: Characteristics of Pre-Socialist Musical Culture, 1800â1944, (iii): Instrumentsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Crane, Frederick. 1972. Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: A Provisional Catalogue by Types. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-022-6 Galway, James. 1982. Flute. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Macdonald. ISBN 0356047113 (cloth); ISBN 0356047121 (pbk.) New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 002871380X Reprinted 1990, London: Kahn & Averill London: Khan & Averill ISBN 1871082137 Komitas, Vardapet. 1994. Grakan nshkhark' Komitas Vardapeti beghun grch'Än: npast mÄ Komitas Vardapeti srbadasman harts'in, edited by Abel Oghlukian. Montreal: Ganatahayots' Aá¹ajnordarani "K'ristonÄakan Usman ew Astuatsabanut'ean Kedron". Pahlevanian, Alina. 2001. âArmenia Â§I: Folk Music, 3: Epicsâ. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. Phelan, James, The Complete Guide to the Flute and Piccolo (Burkart-Phelan, Inc., 2004) Putnik, Edwin. 1970. The Art of Flute Playing. Evanston, Illinois: Summy-Birchard Inc. Revised edition 1973, Princeton, New Jersey and Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 0874870771 Toff, Nancy. 1985. The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. New York: Charles's Scribners Sons. ISBN 0684182416 Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0715387715 Second Edition 1996, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105028 Wye, Trevor. 1988. Proper Flute Playing: A Companion to the Practice Books. London: Novello. ISBN 0711984654 * FluteInfo Contains fingering charts, performance articles, free sheet music and other musical information. * Thai Flute Khlui * Sources for the prescribed sheet music for the ABRSM practical flute exams * Access to IMSLP: 12 collections totaling 1000 free downloadable flute/recorder solos with historical notes * Chiff & Fipple: Very large website devoted to tin whistles * Chiffboard: Large and busy forums on flutes, tin whistles and related folk instruments * Vidly.net This video shows how a flute is manufactured. * The Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection has many pictures of flutes through the ages, among other useful information. * FluteHistory.com * Larry Krantz Flute Pages Wide range of flute related information contributed by many professional flute players. Access to information about flute - email discussion group. * Flautistico.com Flute related content in Spanish. * Jennifer Cluff flute articles Extensive list of articles on hard-to-find flute topics. * The Woodwind Fingering Guide - A large, easy-to-navigate listing of flute fingerings * The Virtual Flute An easy to search database of Boehm flute alternate fingering and multiphonic fingering - An extensive work by the School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia * Indian Flutes * Photo of a Pinkillo. * * * * * * Ikonographie der RenaissanceflÃ¶te / Renaissance Flute Iconography * Interactive Indian Classical Bansuri Fingering Chart * Download Bansuri Fingering Chart * Interactive Flute Fingering Trainer
Giant_Panda	Has the dragon historically served as China's national emblem?	yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Has the dragon historically served as China's national emblem?	Yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Do pandas hibernate?	no	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Do pandas hibernate?	No	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Do giant pandas attack humans?	yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Do giant pandas attack humans?	Yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What family is the panda a part of?	Ursidae (bear)	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What family is the panda a part of?	Ursidae	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	How long does it take for the panda cubs skin to turn gray?	one to two weeks after birth	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	How long does it take for the panda cubs skin to turn gray?	One to two weeks	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	How many different names did Chinese writings give to the panda?	20	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	How many different names did Chinese writings give to the panda?	20	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What foods do pandas eat?	bamboo	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What foods do pandas eat?	bamboo, honeys, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What are the two subspecies of giant pandas?	Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca and Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What are the two subspecies of giant pandas?	Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca and The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What is panda diplomacy?	Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	What is panda diplomacy?	Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda a mammal?	yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda a mammal?	Yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda a terrestrial animal?	yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda a terrestrial animal?	Yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda an endangered species?	yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda an endangered species?	Yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Where do Giant Pandas live?	a few mountain ranges in central china	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Where do Giant Pandas live?	Sichuan province, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	When was the Giant Panda's genome sequenced?	2009	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	When was the Giant Panda's genome sequenced?	2009	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	How many subspecies of the Giant Panda are there?	Two	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	How many subspecies of the Giant Panda are there?	Two	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the Giant Panda a carnivore?	Yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Why is the Giant Panda an endangered species?	threatened by habitat loss	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Why is the Giant Panda an endangered species?	It is threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the population of wild Giant Pandas growing?	according to some reports, yes	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Giant_Panda	Is the population of wild Giant Pandas growing?	Yes but uncertain	data/set1/a4	Giant_Panda The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, literally meaning "cat-foot black-and-white") is a mammal native to central-western and south western China. The Giant Panda is a member of the Ursidae (bear) family. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the Giant Panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Other parts of its diet include honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. The Giant Panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 Giant Pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of Giant Pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the Giant Panda has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins. Though the Giant Panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. A Giant Panda cub. At birth, the Giant Panda typically weighs 100â200 g (4â8 oz) and measures 15â17 cm (6â6.7") long The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males are 10â20% larger than females. Males can weigh up to 150 kg (330 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 125 kg (275 pounds). The Giant Panda lives in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. The Giant Panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into its shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The Giant Panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. The Giant Panda has large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. The Giant Panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the Giant Panda to hold bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould used this example in his book of essays concerned with evolution and biology, The Panda's Thumb. The Giant Panda has the second longest tail in the bear family, with one that is 4â long. The longest belongs to the Sloth Bear. The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25â30 years old in captivity. In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub. Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures. Two of the panda's most distinctive features, its large size and its round face, are adaptations to its bamboo diet. Panda researcher Russell Ciochon observed that: â[much] like the vegetarian gorilla, the low body surface area to body volume [of the giant panda] is indicative of a lower metabolic rate. This lower metabolic rate and a more sedentary lifestyle allow the giant panda to subsist on nutrient poor resources such as bamboo.â Similarly, the Giant Panda's round face is the result of powerful jaw muscles, which attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. Panda eating bamboo Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less. Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the Giant Panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation. While primarily herbivorous, the Giant Panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the Giant Panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements. The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20âpairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest that the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, O'Brien, Nash, Wildt, Bush & Benveniste, A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny, Nature 317, 140 - 144 (12 September 1985) though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. The Giant Panda has been referred to as a living fossil. Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat), the Giant Panda and Red Panda are only distantly related. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family Ailuridae, and not under Ursidae. Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 Two subspecies of Giant Panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005). * The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors. * The Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300â3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Giant Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures â the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya. Schaller p.61 The Giant Panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary, Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living Giant Panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live Giant Panda, a cub named Su-Lin who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Gao Gao, an adult male Giant Panda at San Diego Zoo Loans of Giant Pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the People's Republic and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy". By 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the Giant Panda and its habitat. In May 2005, China offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relationsâboth over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international," or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. China's Panda Politics. Newsweek. October 15, 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2008. China's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However when the presidency changed hands China's offer was accepted at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency in 2008, and the pandas themselves arrived in December of that year. A contest to name the pandas was held in China, resulting in the politically charged names "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion"). China sends panda peace offering. The Guardian. December 28, 2008. The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times, and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time. Close up of a baby seven-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun control and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species. In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. The Giant Panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2009. Pandas gain world heritage status BBC News Panda sanctuaries now World Heritage sites United Press International Not all conservationists agree that the money spent on conserving pandas is money well spent. Chris Packham has argued that breeding pandas in captivity is "pointless" because "there is not enough habitat left to sustain them", a point of view with which David Bellamy agrees, pointing out that even the WWF accepts that "there is no longer enough land for them to live on". Chris Packham: 'Giant pandas should be allowed to die out'. Telegraph.co.uk. September 22, 2009. Packham argues that the money spent on pandas would be better spent elsewhere, and has said that he would "eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with," Beyond cute and cuddly. The Australian. November 10, 2007. a comment for which he has since apologized. TV Packham says sorry for 'ditch pandas' blast He points out that "The panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century. The panda is, unfortunately, virtually unsavable. It lives in the most overpopulated country in the world, it feeds on plants when it ought to be eating partially meat, it transfers all sorts of nasty diseases among itself, it tastes nice and it's got a coat that looks good on someone's back". Panda Research and Breeding Centre in Chengdu Initially the primary method of breeding Giant Pandas in captivity was by artificial insemination, as they seemed to lose their interest in mating once they were captured. This led some scientists to try extreme methods such as showing them videos of giant Pandas mating and giving the males Viagra. Only recently have researchers started having success with captive breeding programs, and they have now determined that Giant Pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American Black Bear, a thriving bear family. The current reproductive rate is considered one young every two years. Giant Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous cycle which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days. Cubs weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother's weight. Usually, the female gives birth to one or two cubs. Since cubs are born very small and helpless, they need the mother's undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs . She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. A Giant Panda cub is also extremely small, and it is difficult for the mother to protect it because of the baby's size. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on cub's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub's fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant Panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years. In July 2009, Chinese scientists confirmed the birth of the first cub to be successfully conceived through artificial insemination using frozen sperm. The cub was born at 07:41 on 23 July that year in Sichuan as the third child of You You, an 11-year-old. The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the problem of lessening Giant Panda semen availability which had led to in-breeding. It has been suggested that panda semen, which can be frozen for decades, could be shared between different zoos to save the species. It is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will now be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more Giant Pandas. There is no conclusive source for the origin of the Anglicized name "panda." The closest candidate that has been accepted as the source originates in the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone. The Western world originally applied this name to the Red Panda. Until 1901, when it was erroneously stated that it was related to the Red Panda, the Giant Panda was known as "mottled bear" (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or "particolored bear." In most encyclopedic sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" originally referred to the lesser-known Red Panda, thus necessitated the inclusion of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes in front of the names. Even now, Encyclopaedia Britannica still uses "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear /ref> and simply "panda" for the Ailuridae, /ref> despite the popular usage of the word "panda" today. Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear 20 different names, such as è±ç (hua xiong) "spotted bear" and ç«¹ç (zhu xiong) "bamboo bear." The most popular names in China today are å¤§çè² (dÃ xiÃ³ng mÄo), literally "large bear cat," or just çè² (xiÃ³ng mÄo), "bear cat." The name may have been inspired by the Giant Panda's eyes which have pupils that are cat-like vertical slits unlike other bear species with round pupils. In Taiwan, the popular name for panda is the inverted è²ç (mÄo xiÃ³ng) "cat bear," even though many encyclopedia and dictionaries in Taiwan still use "bear cat" as the correct name. Some linguists argue that, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making this name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. Pandas have been kept in zoos as early as the Western Han Dynasty in China, where the writer Sima Xiangru notes that the panda was the most treasured animal in the emperor's garden of exotic animals in Xi'an. Not until the 1950s were pandas again recorded to have been exhibited in China's zoos. Schaller pg.62. A 2006 New York Times article outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos generally pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typical ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China was to expire in 2008 but got a five-year extension at about half of the previous yearly cost. The last contract, with the Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, ends in 2013. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, Sichuan, China â Home to a number of captive Giant Pandas, including 2 year old Xiong Bang (M), who just arrived from Japan. Twelve cubs were born here in 2006. China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China â Seventeen cubs were born here in 2006. Beijing Zoo, home of the internationally notorious Gu Gu. Shanghai Zoo. Taipei Zoo, Taipei, Taiwan â home to Tuan Tuan (M) and Yuan Yuan (F). Ocean Park, Hong Kong â home to Jia Jia (F) and An An (M) since 1999. Two new pandas, Le Le (M) and Ying Ying (F), were added to Ocean Park on April 26, 2007. Chiang Mai Zoo, Chiang Mai, Thailand â home to Chuang Chuang (M), Lin Hui (F), and Lin Bing, a female cub born May 27, 2009 Adventure World, Shirahama, Wakayama â Until recently, home to Ei Mei (M), Mei Mei (F), Rau Hin (F), Ryu Hin and Syu Hin (male twins), and Kou Hin (M). In December 2006, twin cubs were born to Ei Mei and Mei Mei. Two cubs, Eiihin (M) and Meihin (F), were born to Rau Hin on September 13, 2008. Mei Mei, a mother of ten cubs, died on October 15, 2008. Oji Zoo, Kobe, HyÅgo â home of Kou Kou (M), Tan Tan (F) Adelaide Zoo, Adelaide â home to Wang Wang (M) and Funi (F). They arrived on November 28 and will go on display on December 14, 2009. They are expected to stay for a minimum of 10 years, and will be the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern Hemisphere. Giant Panda in Viennaâs zoo Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn Bai Yun at San Diego Zoo, has given birth to 4 cubs in captivity and is considered one of the most successfully reproductive captive pandas Tai Shan in June 2007 * Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany â home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced. * Tiergarten SchÃ¶nbrunn, Vienna, Austria â home to Yang Yang (F) and Long Hui (M), born in Wolong, China in 2000, and their new cub, Fu Long (M), born on August 23, 2007 at the zoo. The cub was the first to be born in Europe in 25 years. * Zoo Aquarium, Madrid, Spain â home of Bing Xing (M) and Hua Zuiba (F). Arrived in Madrid on September 8, 2007. In 1978 China presented the King of Spain with two pandas, Shao Shao and Quian Quiang. Their cub, Chu-lin, born in 1982 died in 1996. Chu-lin was the first panda born in captivity using artificial insemination in Europe. * The Edinburgh Zoo is currently in negotiations with the Wolong Nature Preserve to obtain two Giant Pandas. As of 2007, five major North American zoos have Giant Pandas: * Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City â home of Xi Hua, born on June 25, 1985, Shuan Shuan, born on June 15, 1987, and Xin Xin, born on July 1, 1990 from Tohui (Tohui born on Chapultepec Zoo on July 21, 1981 and died on November 16, 1993), all females * San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California â home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), Zhen Zhen (F), and Yun Zi (M). * US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. â home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and their offspring Tai Shan (M) * Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia â home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), Mei Lan (F), and Xi Lan (M) * Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee â home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M) Tohui (Nahuatl word for kid), born July 21, 1981, died November 16, 1993; female. Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City. Was the first giant panda that was born and survived in captivity outside China. Her parents were Ying Ying and Pe Pe. Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004. Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007. Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington. Lumpkin & Seidensticker 114 Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo. Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta. Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo. Xi Lan, born August 30, 2008 at Zoo Atlanta. Yun Zi, born August 5, 2009 at the San Diego Zoo. The first sequences of pandas in the wild were shot by Franz Camenzind for ABC in about 1982. They were bought by BBC Natural History Unit for their weekly magazine show Nature. Recently, NHNZ has featured pandas in two documentaries. Panda Nursery (2006) featured Chinaâs Wolong National Nature Reserve in the mountains in Sichuan Province; forty Giant Pandas and a dedicated team of staff play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the species. As part of the Reserveâs panda breeding program, a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs called âswap-raisingâ has been developed. Each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserveâs veterinarians, Wei Rongping, to increase the chances of both cubs surviving. Growing Up: Giant Panda (2003) featured Chengdu Giant Panda Center in south-west China as one of the best in the world. Yet with female pandas' short fertility cycles and low birth rates, raising the captive panda population is an uphill battle. Pygmy Giant Panda * AFP (via Discovery Channel) (2006, June 20). Panda Numbers Exceed Expectations. * Associated Press (via CNN) (2006). Article link. * Catton, Chris (1990). Pandas. Christopher Helm. * Friends of the National Zoo (2006). Panda Cam: A Nation Watches Tai Shan the Panda Cub Grow. New York: Fireside Books. * Goodman, Brenda (2006, February 12). Pandas Eat Up Much of Zoos' Budgets. The New York Times. * * Panda Facts At a Glance (N.d.). www.wwfchina.org. WWF China. * Ryder, Joanne (2001). Little panda: The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Schaller, George B. (1993). The Last Panda. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. * Wan, Q.-H., H. Wu, and S.-G. Fang (2005). "A New Subspecies of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) from Shaanxi, China. Journal of Mammalogy 86: 397â402. * Warren, Lynne (2006, July). "Panda, Inc." National Geographic. (About Mei Xiang, Tai Shan and the Wolong Panda Research Facility in Chengdu China). * GLOBIO's Glossopedia; Giant Panda â Children's science and nature encyclopedia * Panda Pioneer: the release of the first captive-bred panda 'Xiang Xiang' in 2006 * WWF â environmental conservation organization * Giant Panda Species Survival Plan * Pandas International â panda conservation group * Smithsonian National Zoo Live Panda Cams â Baby Panda Tai Shan and mother Mei Xiang * Information from Animal Diversity * Wolong Panda Club * NPR News 2007/08/20 â Panda Romance Stems From Bamboo * A Quest for Pandas in Chinese Art
Guitar	Is an acoustic guitar dependent on an external device?	No	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is an acoustic guitar dependent on an external device?	No.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is the battente smaller than a classical guitar?	Yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is the battente smaller than a classical guitar?	Yes.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is the flamenco guitar similar to the classical guitar?	Yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is the flamenco guitar similar to the classical guitar?	Yes.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Where is the headstock located?	end of the guitar neck furthest from the body	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Where is the headstock located?	At the end of the guitar.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Whom are guitars made and repaired by?	luthiers	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Whom are guitars made and repaired by?	Luthiers.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	What are modern guitar strings constructed of?	metal, polymers, animal or plant product materials	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	What are modern guitar strings constructed of?	Metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Why are Harp Guitars difficult to classify?	as there are many variations within this type of guitar	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Why are Harp Guitars difficult to classify?	There are many variations within this type.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	What is the bridge used for?	transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	What is the bridge used for?	The transfer of string vibrations.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Which guitars use three single-coil pickups?	Fender Statocaster type guitars	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Which guitars use three single-coil pickups?	Fender Stratocaster type guitars.	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is a guitar an instrument?	Yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Is a guitar an instrument?	yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Can guitars be divided into two broad categories?	Yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Can guitars be divided into two broad categories?	yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Do picks come in many shapes and sizes?	Yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	Do picks come in many shapes and sizes?	yes	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	How many strings does a guitar typically have?	Six	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	How many strings does a guitar typically have?	six	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *
Guitar	What is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body?	Headstock	data/set2/a7	Guitar The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture. Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar. Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period. The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing. The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound. There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar. ;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' InstrucciÃ³n de MÃºsica sobre la Guitarra EspaÃ±ola of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole. ;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely: ;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar ;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal) ;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal) ;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar ;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings ;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal) ;The modern Ten-string guitar: The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority. ;Portuguese guitar: In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. ;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues. ;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings. Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar. ;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues. ;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms. ;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning. ;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar. ;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound. ;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples. ;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses. ;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice. This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs. Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals. Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing. The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol. Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such. Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars. 225px210px # Headstock # Nut # Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) # Frets # Truss rod # Inlays # Neck # Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric) # Body # Pickups # Electronics # Bridge # Pickguard # Back # Soundboard (top) # Body sides (ribs) # Sound hole, with Rosette inlay # Strings # Saddle # Fretboard (or Fingerboard) Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument. The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge. The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz. Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar. Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.) Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner. There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz. On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required. The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems. By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage. Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument. In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck. Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones. A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options. Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars). Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds. This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types. Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs. Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it. Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament. In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity. In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature. In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it. Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling. The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly. Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced. Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys. Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified. Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation. The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range. Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit. Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups. Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings. Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments. On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise. The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib). During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back. Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic. The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting. Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments. The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech". Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history. A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician. Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar. Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist. Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire. The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score. A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret. A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved. Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad'). Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan. As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute. Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute. A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar. Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher. A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use. Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum. Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles. * Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987. * Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com * Parts of a guitar * List of guitarists * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Electric guitar * Acoustic guitars * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Fretless guitar * Stringed instrument tunings * Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007) * Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar * Guitar physics * International Guitar Research Archive * The first rock guitars * allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music *

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