other sizes of guitar in the guitar family

Hampshire Guitar Orchestra » Guitars » other guitars

Here in hago, we use the alto, prime, bass and contra guitars - based on the Niibori instrumentation.

Other orchestras, and a whole variety of other ensembles such as the Mexican Mariachi band, use the requinto and call the contra a "double bass" or "octave bass" guitar.

But dig deeper and there are still more members of the guitar family!

In this section of our website you'll find brief information on some of the other members of the guitar family - a bewildering and almost ad hoc collection containing, amongst others ...

The alto, classical, bass and contra, as we've said, team up to form the core of the Niibori orchestra on which hago is based.

The Terz guitar is often found in duet with the classical guitar

The Requinto teams up with the classical guitar and either the contrabass or guitarron to form the "trio romantico"

And the treble, classical, baritone and contra form a (rare) ensemble closely related to the Niibori orchestration (but just different enough that Niibori music can't be played without two lines being re-written in another key).

 

Although this section of the website is not exhaustive (we're missing the baroque guitar amongst others), we'd be the first to admit that it's exhausting!