The exact date of its first availability is uncertain, as Bigsby kept few records, but it was on Bigsby-built guitars photographed in 1952, in what became its standard form. Even today, almost two centuries after its invention, the flat top guitar continues to be the most popular form of the acoustic guitar. Development of the acoustic guitar in Europe Because all these precursors to the acoustic guitar were so mobile, merchants and sailors from the ancient world brought them to Europe. At the back of the front panel are resonator plates (hence, this type of guitar is also known as “resonator”). It would be interesting to be able to look 500 years into the future to see how much the guitar might have changed in that time, if at all. The Modern Acoustic Guitar is Born The flat top acoustic guitar. The American adaptation of the guitar has been embraced by players of all styles and sub-genres of music around the globe. The Acoustic Guitar Rises. The first commercially successful vibrato system for guitar was the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, often just called a Bigsby, invented by Paul Bigsby (US Patent D169120 filed in 1952, issued in 1953). Torres constructed the first modern acoustic guitar around the mid-19th century, approximately in the year of 1850. It was developed by Christian Frederick Martin, a German-born American luthier who made his first guitar in the United States in the 1830s. The production of the very first modern classical acoustic guitar is attributed to Antonio Torres, a Spanish guitarist and luthier, often praised as one of the most important guitar makers in history. John Dopyera invented the resonator guitar in an effort to increase the volume of the 6 stringed instruments to better compete with banjos for the rhythm sections of bands. Guitar, plucked stringed musical instrument that probably originated in Spain early in the 16th century. The modern-day acoustic guitar’s history is still relatively young, relative to the history of other instruments, but the instruments that the guitar evolved from date back a lot further. In the medieval period, an instrument known as the Guitarra Latina was invented . He joined forces with Vaudevillian George Beauchamp to start the National String Instrument Corporation. This looks like an acoustic guitar, except that the body is made of aluminium. The 1930s bore witness to the guitar’s rise to dominance. His design of six string guitars was copied many times, most notably by Spanish guitarist and luthier Antonio Torres Jurado who in late 19th century created modern classical guitar that is today regarded as a standard for all acoustic guitars. Guitars at the time used so-called catgut strings created from the intestines of sheep. The first one was made in 1926 by National. In popular music the guitar is usually amplified, and ensembles frequently include more than one instrument, a ‘lead’ guitar for solos, another for rhythm, and a ‘bass’ guitar to play bass lines. Modern Acoustic Guitar. Another strange guitar that was produced in the 1930’s is the Dobro. The acoustic guitar has over 5,000 years of history attached to it and the origins could be traced back to stringed instruments used by the Indo-Europeans. Although steel-stringed acoustic guitars are now used all over the world, the person who is thought to have created the first of these guitars was a German immigrant to the United States named Christian Frederick Martin (1796-1867). https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-accoustic-and-electric-guitar-1991855