Flamenco guitars look similar to what most of us would recognize as a traditional acoustic guitar, but are known for their more distinct sound. The main difference in appearance is that the flamenco guitar will usually have an exaggerated pickguard, which is usually used for tapping to measure timing within music, although the actual reason it was originally invented was to prevent the guitar becoming damaged by players who use a pick. On the flamenco guitar, these are more commonly called tapping plates, golpeadores in Spanish.

Early Flamenco Guitar

While guitars were used in similar styles, such as salsa, before the 19^th century, the guitar wasn’t a huge part of flamenco during the early days of the genre. Flamenco songs would still be sung as people did flamenco dances, but the guitar wouldn’t be introduced until the 1850s. Antonio de Torres is credited as being the first to start developing the flamenco style guitar around this time, although he wouldn’t manufacture his own product until 1867.

The main differences were the materials used in creating the guitar, which would be Spanish cypress and rosewood owing to their relatively cheap cost. Traditionally, the flamenco guitar would also be slightly smaller than a traditional acoustic guitar. The lightweight nature of cypress is partly what gives the flamenco guitar such a distinct sound.

Why it was developed

It is believed that de Torres developed the flamenco guitar so that instruments would be accessible to those with little money. Flamenco guitarists have traditionally been from the lower classes of Spain and Latin American countries, although as the world has diversified over the last century wider demographics have started to play the instrument.

Modern Developments

It is a testament to the work of de Torres that there haven’t been many changes made to his original design. It has got a little bigger from its original size, and while there have been experiments with using different types of wood, such as maple, most continue to prefer cypress models.

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