text:
Jun 5, 2009 11:25am
well...get to it.
Jun 5, 2009 11:30am
i already did :D
Jun 5, 2009 11:30am
me me me me me me me cunt love face me me me me
Jun 5, 2009 11:31am
waiting on alll the dudes to come in here, but im better then all of them... by a longshot
Jun 5, 2009 11:31am
*juggles thirty-two cats, each of them juggling three mice who are in turn juggling nine fleas* (mice are better at juggling than cats)
Jun 5, 2009 11:31am
by your attention do you really mean mine? ill switch defaults super quick and confuse everybody ;) ^lmmfao Myp, youre a genius.
Jun 5, 2009 11:31am
<--- this wins
Jun 5, 2009 11:31am
I have a large chin and my name is Benjamin
Jun 5, 2009 11:32am
I refuse!
Jun 5, 2009 11:32am
Gaius Julius Caesar[1] (pronounced [ˈgaːius ˈjuːlius ˈkaɪsar] in Classical Latin; conventionally pronounced [ˈgajəs ˈdʒuːliəs ˈsiːzɚ] in English), (13 July 100 BC[2] – 15 March 44 BC[3]), was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. A politician of the populares tradition, he formed an unofficial triumvirate with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus which dominated Roman politics for several years, opposed in the Roman Senate by optimates including Marcus Porcius Cato and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. His conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world to the North Sea, and he also conducted the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC. The collapse of the triumvirate, however, led to a stand-off with Pompey and the Senate. Leading his legions across the Rubicon, Caesar began a civil war in 49 BC from which he became the master of the Roman world. After assuming control of government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He heavily centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity" (dictator perpetuo). A group of senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated the dictator on the Ides of March (March 15) in 44 BC, hoping to restore the normal running of the Republic. However, the result was another Roman civil war, which ultimately led to the establishment of a permanent autocracy by Caesar's adopted heir, Gaius Octavianus. In 42 BC, two years after his assassination, the Senate officially sanctified Caesar as one of the Roman deities. Much of Caesar's life is known from his own Commentaries (Commentarii) on his military campaigns, and other contemporary sources such as the letters and speeches of his political rival Cicero, the historical writings of Sallust, and the poetry of Catullus. Many more details of his life are recorded by later historians, such as Appian, Suetonius, Plutarch, Cassius Dio and Strabo. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Early career o 2.1 Coming to prominence * 3 First consulship and triumvirate o 3.1 Conquest of Gaul * 4 Military career * 5 Civil war o 5.1 Aftermath of the civil war * 6 Assassination o 6.1 Aftermath of the assassination * 7 Health * 8 Literary works o 8.1 Memoirs * 9 Name * 10 Family o 10.1 Parents o 10.2 Sisters o 10.3 Wives o 10.4 Children o 10.5 Grandchildren o 10.6 Lovers o 10.7 Notable relatives o 10.8 Political rivals and rumours of homosexual activity * 11 Chronology of his life * 12 Honours and titles * 13 Depictions * 14 References o 14.1 Primary sources + 14.1.1 Own writings + 14.1.2 Ancient historians' writings o 14.2 Secondary sources * 15 External links * 16 Succession table Early life Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus.[4] The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarean section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedere, caes-).[5] The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle.[6] Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favoured this interpretation of his name.[7] Despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, having produced only three consuls. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, reached the rank of praetor, the second highest of the Republic's elected magistracies, and governed the province of Asia, perhaps through the influence of his prominent brother-in-law Gaius Marius.[8] His mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family which had produced several consuls. Marcus Antonius Gnipho, an orator and grammarian of Gaulish origin, was employed as Caesar's tutor.[9] Caesar had two sisters, both called Julia. Little else is recorded of Caesar's childhood. Suetonius and Plutarch's biographies of him both begin abruptly in Caesar's teens; the opening paragraphs of both appear to be lost.[10] Caesar's formative years were a time of turmoil. The Social War was fought from 91 to 88 BC between Rome and her Italian allies over the issue of Roman citizenship, while Mithridates of Pontus threatened Rome's eastern provinces. Domestically, Roman politics was divided between politicians known as optimates and populares, neither of which had a common agenda and so cannot be considered a political party or even a faction. The optimates were those politicians who pursued their agendas through traditional, constitutional routes in the Senate; the populares those who preferred to bypass traditional procedure and pursue their agendas by appealing directly to the electorate. Caesar's uncle Marius was a popularis, Marius' protégé Lucius Cornelius Sulla was an optimas, and in Caesar's youth their rivalry led to civil war. Both Marius and Sulla distinguished themselves in the Social War, and both wanted command of the war against Mithridates, which was initially given to Sulla; but when Sulla left the city to take command of his army, a tribune passed a law transferring the appointment to Marius. Sulla responded by marching on Rome, reclaiming his command and forcing Marius into exile, but when he left on campaign Marius returned at the head of a makeshift army. He and his ally Lucius Cornelius Cinna seized the city and declared Sulla a public enemy, and Marius's troops took violent revenge on Sulla's supporters. Marius died early in 86 BC, but his followers remained in power.[11] In 85 BC Caesar's father died suddenly while putting on his shoes one morning, without any apparent cause,[12] and at sixteen, Caesar was the head of the family. The following year he was nominated to be the new Flamen Dialis, high priest of Jupiter, as Merula, the previous incumbent, had died in Marius's purges.[13] Since the holder of that position not only had to be a patrician but also be married to a patrician, he broke off his engagement to Cossutia, a plebeian girl of wealthy equestrian family he had been betrothed to since boyhood, and married Cinna's daughter Cornelia.[14] Then, having brought Mithridates to terms, Sulla returned to finish the civil war against Marius' followers. After a campaign throughout Italy he seized Rome at the Battle of the Colline Gate in November 82 BC and had himself appointed to the revived office of dictator; but whereas a dictator was traditionally appointed for six months at a time, Sulla's appointment had no term limit. Statues of Marius were destroyed and Marius' body was exhumed and thrown in the Tiber. Cinna was already dead, killed by his own soldiers in a mutiny.[15] Sulla's proscriptions saw hundreds of his political enemies killed or exiled. Caesar, as the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, was targeted. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly, and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.[10] Early career Rather than returning to Rome, Caesar joined the army, serving under Marcus Minucius Thermus in Asia and Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia. He served with distinction, winning the Civic Crown for his part in the siege of Mytilene. On a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, he spent so long at his court that rumours of an affair with the king arose, which would persist for the rest of his life.[16] Ironically, the loss of his priesthood had allowed him to pursue a military career: the Flamen Dialis was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army.[17] In 80 BC, after two years in office, Sulla resigned his dictatorship, re-established consular government and, after serving as consul, retired to private life.[18] Caesar later ridiculed Sulla's relinquishing of the dictatorship—"Sulla did not know his political ABC's".[19] He died two years later in 78 BC and was accorded a state funeral.[20] Hearing of Sulla's death, Caesar felt safe enough to return to Rome. Lacking means since his inheritance was confiscated, he acquired a modest house in the Subura, a lower class neighbourhood of Rome.[21] His return coincided with an attempted anti-Sullan coup by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus but Caesar, lacking confidence in Lepidus's leadership, did not participate.[22] Instead he turned to legal advocacy. He became known for his exceptional oratory, accompanied by impassioned gestures and a high-pitched voice, and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption. Even Cicero praised him: "Come now, what orator would you rank above him...?"[23] Aiming at rhetorical perfection, Caesar travelled to Rhodes in 75 BC to study under Apollonius Molon, who had previously taught Cicero.[24] On the way across the Aegean Sea,[25] Caesar was kidnapped by Cilician (not to be confused with Sicilian) pirates and held prisoner in the Dodecanese islet of Pharmacusa.[26] He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. When the pirates thought to demand a ransom of twenty talents of silver, he insisted they ask for fifty.[27][28] After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them in Pergamon. Marcus Junctus, the governor of Asia, refused to execute them as Caesar demanded, preferring to sell them as slaves,[29] but Caesar returned to the coast and had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised to when in captivity[30]—a promise the pirates had taken as a joke. He then proceeded to Rhodes, but was soon called back into military action in Asia, raising a band of auxiliaries to repel an incursion from Pontus. On his return to Rome he was elected military tribune, a first step on the cursus honorum of Roman politics. The war against Spartacus took place around this time (73–71 BC), but it is not recorded what role, if any, Caesar played in it. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC,[31] and during that year he delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia, widow of Marius, and included images of Marius, unseen since the days of Sulla, in the funeral procession. His own wife Cornelia also died that year.[32] After her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC, Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Hispania under Antistius Vetus.[33] While there he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realised with dissatisfaction he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little. He requested, and was granted, an early discharge from his duties, and returned to Roman politics. On his return in 67 BC,[34] he married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla.[35] He was elected aedile and restored the trophies of Marius's victories; a controversial move given the Sullan regime was still in place. He also brought prosecutions against men who had benefited from Sulla's proscriptions, and spent a great deal of borrowed money on public works and games, outshining his colleague Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. He was also suspected of involvement in two abortive coup attempts.[36] Coming to prominence His bust in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 63 BC was an eventful year for Caesar. He persuaded a tribune, Titus Labienus, to prosecute the optimate senator Gaius Rabirius for the political murder, 37 years previously, of the tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, and had himself appointed as one of the two judges to try the case. Rabirius was defended by both Cicero and Quintus Hortensius, but was convicted of perduellio (treason). While he was exercising his right of appeal to the people, the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer adjourned the assembly by taking down the military flag from the Janiculum hill. Labienus could have resumed the prosecution at a later session, but did not do so: Caesar's point had been made, and the matter was allowed to drop.[37] Labienus would remain an important ally of Caesar over the next decade. The same year, Caesar ran for election to the post of Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of the Roman state religion, after the death of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who had been appointed to the post by Sulla. He ran against two powerful optimates, the former consuls Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus. There were accusations of bribery by all sides. Caesar is said to have told his mother on the morning of the election that he would return as Pontifex Maximus or not at all, expecting to be forced into exile by the enormous debts he had run up to fund his campaign. In any event he won comfortably, despite his opponents' greater experience and standing, possibly because the two older men split their votes.[38] The post came with an official residence on the Via Sacra.[21] When Cicero, who was consul that year, exposed Catiline's conspiracy to seize control of the republic, Catulus and others accused Caesar of involvement in the plot.[39] Caesar, who had been elected praetor for the following year, took part in the debate in the Senate on how to deal with the conspirators. During the debate, Caesar was passed a note. Marcus Porcius Cato, who would become his most implacable political opponent, accused him of corresponding with the conspirators, and demanded that the message be read aloud. Caesar passed him the note, which, embarrassingly, turned out to be a love letter from Cato's half-sister Servilia. Caesar argued persuasively against the death penalty for the conspirators, proposing life imprisonment instead, but a speech by Cato proved decisive, and the conspirators were executed.[40] The following year a commission was set up to investigate the conspiracy, and Caesar was again accused of complicity. On Cicero's evidence that he had reported what he knew of the plot voluntarily, however, he was cleared, and one of his accusers, and also one of the commissioners, were sent to prison.[41] While praetor in 62 BC, Caesar supported Metellus Celer, now tribune, in proposing controversial legislation, and the pair were so obstinate they were suspended from office by the Senate. Caesar attempted to continue to perform his duties, only giving way when violence was threatened. The Senate was persuaded to reinstate him after he quelled public demonstrations in his favour.[42] That year the festival of the Bona Dea ("good goddess") was held at Caesar's house. No men were permitted to attend, but a young patrician named Publius Clodius Pulcher managed to gain admittance disguised as a woman, apparently for the purpose of seducing Caesar's wife Pompeia. He was caught and prosecuted for sacrilege. Caesar gave no evidence against Clodius at his trial, careful not to offend one of the most powerful patrician families of Rome, and Clodius was acquitted after rampant bribery and intimidation. Nevertheless, Caesar divorced Pompeia, saying that "my wife ought not even to be under suspicion."[43] After his praetorship, Caesar was appointed to govern Hispania Ulterior (Outer Iberia), but he was still in considerable debt and needed to satisfy his creditors before he could leave. He turned to Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's richest men. In return for political support in his opposition to the interests of Pompey, Crassus paid some of Caesar's debts and acted as guarantor for others. Even so, to avoid becoming a private citizen and open to prosecution for his debts, Caesar left for his province before his praetorship had ended. In Hispania he conquered the Callaici and Lusitani, being hailed as imperator by his troops, reformed the law regarding debts, and completed his governorship in high esteem.[44] Being hailed as imperator entitled Caesar to a triumph. However, he also wanted to stand for consul, the most senior magistracy in the republic. If he were to celebrate a triumph, he would have to remain a soldier and stay outside the city until the ceremony, but to stand for election he would need to lay down his command and enter Rome as a private citizen. He could not do both in the time available. He asked the senate for permission to stand in absentia, but Cato blocked the proposal. Faced with the choice between a triumph and the consulship, Caesar chose the consulship.[45] First consulship and triumvirate Main article: First Triumvirate Three candidates stood for the consulship: Caesar, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who had been aedile with Caesar several years earlier, and Lucius Lucceius. The election was dirty. Caesar canvassed Cicero for support, and made an alliance with the wealthy Lucceius, but the establishment threw its financial weight behind the conservative Bibulus, and even Cato, with his reputation for incorruptibility, is said to have resorted to bribery in his favour. Caesar and Bibulus were elected as consuls for 59 BC.[46] Caesar was already in Crassus's political debt, but he also made overtures to Pompey, who was unsuccessfully fighting the Senate for ratification of his eastern settlements and farmland for his veterans. Pompey and Crassus had been at odds since they were consuls together in 70 BC, and Caesar knew if he allied himself with one he would lose the support of the other, so he endeavoured to reconcile them. Between the three of them, they had enough money and political influence to control public business. This informal alliance, known as the First Triumvirate (rule of three men), was cemented by the marriage of Pompey to Caesar's daughter Julia.[47] Caesar also married again, this time Calpurnia, daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, who was elected to the consulship for the following year.[48] Caesar proposed a law for the redistribution of public lands to the poor, a proposal supported by Pompey, by force of arms if need be, and by Crassus, making the triumvirate public. Pompey filled the city with soldiers, and the triumvirate's opponents were intimidated. Bibulus attempted to declare the omens unfavourable and thus void the new law, but was driven from the forum by Caesar's armed supporters. His lictors had their fasces broken, two tribunes accompanying him were wounded, and Bibulus himself had a bucket of excrement thrown over him. In fear of his life, he retired to his house for the rest of the year, issuing occasional proclamations of bad omens. These attempts to obstruct Caesar's legislation proved ineffective. Roman satirists ever after referred to the year as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar".[49] When Caesar and Bibulus were first elected, the aristocracy tried to limit Caesar's future power by allotting the woods and pastures of Italy, rather than governorship of a province, as their proconsular duties after their year of office was over.[50] With the help of Piso and Pompey, Caesar later had this overturned, and was instead appointed to govern Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Illyricum (the western Balkans), with Transalpine Gaul (southern France) later added, giving him command of four legions. The term of his proconsulship, and thus his immunity from prosecution, was set at five years, rather than the usual one.[51] When his consulship ended, Caesar narrowly avoided prosecution for the irregularities of his year in office, and quickly left for his province.[52] Conquest of Gaul Main article: Gallic Wars Caesar was still deeply in debt, and there was money to be made as a provincial governor, whether by extortion[53] or by military adventurism. Caesar had four legions under his command, two of his provinces, Illyricum and Gallia Narbonensis, bordered on unconquered territory, and independent Gaul was known to be unstable. Rome's allies the Aedui had been defeated by their Gallic rivals, with the help of a contingent of Germanic Suebi under Ariovistus, who had settled in conquered Aeduan land, and the Helvetii were mobilising for a mass migration, which the Romans feared had warlike intent. Caesar raised two new legions and defeated first the Helvetii, then Ariovistus, and left his army in winter quarters in the territory of the Sequani, signaling that his interest in the lands outside Gallia Narbonensis would not be temporary.[54] Roman silver Denarius with the head of captive Gaul 48 BC, following the campaigns of Caesar He began his second year with double the military strength he had begun with, having raised another two legions in Cisalpine Gaul during the winter. The legality of this was dubious, as the Cisalpine Gauls were not Roman citizens. In response to Caesar's activities the previous year, the Belgic tribes of north-eastern Gaul had begun to arm themselves. Caesar treated this as an aggressive move, and, after an inconclusive engagement against a united Belgic army, conquered the tribes piecemeal. Meanwhile, one legion, commanded by Crassus' son Publius, began the conquest of the tribes of the Armorican peninsula.[55] During the spring of 56 BC the Triumvirate held a conference at Luca (modern Lucca) in Cisalpine Gaul. Rome was in turmoil, and Clodius' populist campaigns had been undermining relations between Crassus and Pompey. The meeting renewed the Triumvirate and extended Caesar's proconsulship for another five years. Crassus and Pompey would be consuls again, with similarly long-term proconsulships to follow: Syria for Crassus, the Hispanian provinces for Pompey.[56] The conquest of Armorica was completed when Caesar defeated the Veneti in a naval battle, while young Crassus conquered the Aquitani of the south-west. By the end of campaigning in 56 BC only the Morini and Menapii of the coastal Low Countries still held out.[57] In 55 BC Caesar repelled an incursion into Gaul by the Germanic Usipetes and Tencteri, and followed it up by building a bridge across the Rhine and making a show of force in Germanic territory, before returning and dismantling the bridge. Late that summer, having subdued the Morini and Menapii, he crossed to Britain, claiming that the Britons had aided the Veneti against him the previous year. His intelligence was poor, and although he gained a beachhead on the Kent coast he was unable to advance further, and returned to Gaul for the winter.[58] He returned the following year, better prepared and with a larger force, and achieved more. He advanced inland, establishing Mandubracius of the Trinovantes as a friendly king and bringing his rival, Cassivellaunus, to terms. But poor harvests led to widespread revolt in Gaul, led by Ambiorix of the Eburones, forcing Caesar to campaign through the winter and into the following year. With the defeat of Ambiorix, Caesar believed Gaul was now pacified.[59] While Caesar was in Britain his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, had died in childbirth. Caesar tried to resecure Pompey's support by offering him his great-niece Octavia in marriage, alienating Octavia's husband Gaius Marcellus, but Pompey declined. In 53 BC Crassus was killed leading a failed invasion of Parthia. Rome was on the edge of violence. Pompey was appointed sole consul as an emergency measure, and married Cornelia, daughter of Caesar's political opponent Quintus Metellus Scipio, whom he invited to become his consular colleague once order was restored. The Triumvirate was dead.[60] Vercingetorix surrenders to Caesar , by Lionel Royer In 52 BC another, larger revolt erupted in Gaul, led by Vercingetorix of the Arverni. Vercingetorix managed to unite the Gallic tribes and proved an astute commander, defeating Caesar in several engagements including the Battle of Gergovia, but Caesar's elaborate siege-works at the Battle of Alesia finally forced his surrender.[61] Despite scattered outbreaks of warfare the following year,[62] Gaul was effectively conquered. Titus Labienus was Caesar's most senior legate during his Gallic campaigns, having the status of propraetor.[63] Other prominent men who served under him included his relative Lucius Julius Caesar,[64] Crassus' sons Marcus[65] and Publius,[66] Cicero's brother Quintus,[67] Decimus Brutus,[68] and Mark Antony.[69] Plutarch claimed that the army had fought against three million men in the course of the Gallic Wars, of whom 1 million died, and another million were enslaved. 300 tribes were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed.[70] Almost the entire population of the city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all) was slaughtered.[71] Julius Caesar reports that 368,000 of the Helvetii left home, of whom 92,000 could bear arms, and only 110,000 returned after the campaign.[72] However, in view of the difficulty of finding accurate counts in the first place, Caesar's propagandistic purposes, and the common gross exaggeration of numbers in ancient texts, the totals of enemy combatants in particular are likely to be far too high. Furger-Gunti considers an army of more than 60,000 fighting Helvetii extremely unlikely in the view of the tactics described, and assumes the actual numbers to have been around 40,000 warriors out of a total of 160,000 emigrants.[73] Delbrück suggests an even lower number of 100,000 people, out of which only 16,000 were fighters, which would make the Celtic force about half the size of the Roman body of ca. 30,000 men.[74] Military career Main article: Military career of Julius Caesar Historians place the generalship of Caesar as one of the greatest military strategists and tacticians who ever lived, along with Alexander the Great, Sun Tzu, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Caesar suffered occasional tactical defeats, such as Battle of Gergovia during the Gallic War and the Battle of Dyrrhachium during the Civil War. However, his tactical brilliance was highlighted by such feats as his circumvallation of Alesia during the Gallic War, the rout of Pompey's numerically superior forces at Pharsalus during the Civil War, and the complete destruction of Pharnaces' army at Battle of Zela. Caesar's successful campaigning in any terrain and under all weather conditions owes much to the strict but fair discipline of his legionaries, whose admiration and devotion to him were proverbial due to his promotion of those of skill over those of nobility. Caesar's infantry and cavalry were first rate, and he made heavy use of formidable Roman artillery and his army's superlative engineering abilities. There was also the legendary speed with which he manoeuvred his troops; Caesar's army sometimes marched as many as 40 miles (64 km) a day. His Commentaries on the Gallic Wars describe how, during the siege of one Gallic city built on a very steep and high plateau, his engineers tunnelled through solid rock, found the source of the spring from which the town was drawing its water supply, and diverted it to the use of the army. The town, cut off from their water supply, capitulated at once. Caesar also used a cipher system to communicate with his generals which has now come to be known as the Caesar cipher. Civil war Main article: Caesar's civil war An engraving depicting Gaius Julius Caesar. In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as Proconsul had finished.[75] Moreover, the Senate forbade Caesar to stand for a second consulship in absentia.[75] Caesar thought he would be prosecuted and politically marginalised if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a Consul or without the power of his army. Pompey accused Caesar of insubordination and treason. On January 10, 49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon river (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war. Upon crossing the Rubicon, Plutarch reports that Caesar quoted the Athenian playwright Menander in Greek, saying ἀνερρίφθω κύβος (let the die be thrown).[76] Suetonius gives the Latin approximation alea iacta est (the die is thrown).[77] The Optimates, including Metellus Scipio and Cato the Younger, fled to the south, having little confidence in the newly raised troops especially since so many cities in northern Italy had voluntarily surrendered. An attempted stand by a consulate legion in Samarium resulted in the consul being handed over by the defenders and the legion surrendering without significant fighting. Despite greatly outnumbering Caesar, who only had his Thirteenth Legion with him, Pompey had no intention of fighting. Caesar pursued Pompey to Brindisium, hoping to capture Pompey before the trapped Senate and their legions could escape.[78] Pompey managed to elude him, sailing out of the harbour before Caesar could break the barricades. Lacking a naval force since Pompey had already scoured the coasts of all ships for evacuation of his forces, Caesar decided to head for Hispania saying "I set forth to fight an army without a leader, so as later to fight a leader without an army." Leaving Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as prefect of Rome, and the rest of Italy under Mark Antony as tribune, Caesar made an astonishing 27-day route-march to Hispania, rejoining two of his Gallic legions, where he defeated Pompey's lieutenants. He then returned east, to challenge Pompey in Greece where on July 10, 48 BC at Dyrrhachium Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat when the line of fortification was broken. He decisively defeated Pompey, despite Pompey's numerical advantage (nearly twice the number of infantry and considerably more cavalry), at Pharsalus in an exceedingly short engagement in 48 BC.[79] In Rome, Caesar was appointed dictator,[80] with Mark Antony as his Master of the Horse; Caesar presided over his own election to a second consulate (with Publius Servilius Vatia as his colleague) and then, after eleven days, resigned this dictatorate.[80][81] Cleopatra Before Caesar by the artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1866. He pursued Pompey to Alexandria, where Pompey was murdered by a former Roman officer serving in the court of King Ptolemy XIII.[82] Caesar then became involved with the Alexandrine civil war between Ptolemy and his sister, wife, and co-regent queen, the Pharaoh Cleopatra VII. Perhaps as a result of Ptolemy's role in Pompey's murder, Caesar sided with Cleopatra; he is reported to have wept at the sight of Pompey's head,[83] which was offered to him by Ptolemy's chamberlain Pothinus as a gift. In any event, Caesar defeated the Ptolemaic forces in 47 BC in the Battle of the Nile and installed Cleopatra as ruler. Caesar and Cleopatra celebrated their victory of the Alexandrine civil war with a triumphant procession on the Nile in the spring of 47 B.C. The royal barge was accompanied by 400 additional ships, introducing Caesar to the luxurious lifestyle of the Egyptian pharaohs. Caesar and Cleopatra never married, as Roman Law only recognised between two Roman citizens. Caesar continued his relationship with Cleopatra throughout his last marriage, which lasted 14 years – in Roman eyes, this did not constitute adultery – and possibly fathered a son called Caesarion. Cleopatra visited Rome on more than one occasion, residing in Caesar's villa just outside Rome across the Tiber. Late in 48 BC, Caesar was again appointed Dictator, with a term of one year.[81] After spending the first months of 47 BC in Egypt, Caesar went to the Middle East, where he annihilated King Pharnaces II of Pontus in the Battle of Zela; his victory was so swift and complete that he mocked Pompey's previous victories over such poor enemies.[84] Thence, he proceeded to Africa to deal with the remnants of Pompey's senatorial supporters. He quickly gained a significant victory at Thapsus in 46 BC over the forces of Metellus Scipio (who died in the battle) and Cato the Younger (who committed suicide).[85] After this victory, he was appointed Dictator for ten years.[86] Nevertheless, Pompey's sons Gnaeus Pompeius and Sextus Pompeius, together with Titus Labienus, Caesar's former propraetorian legate (legatus propraetore) and second in command in the Gallic War, escaped to Hispania. Caesar gave chase and defeated the last remnants of opposition in the Battle of Munda in March 45 BC.[87] During this time, Caesar was elected to his third and fourth terms as consul in 46 BC (with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus) and 45 BC (without colleague). Aftermath of the civil war While he was still campaigning in Hispania, the Senate began bestowing honours on Caesar in absentia. Caesar had not proscribed his enemies, instead pardoning almost all, and there was no serious public opposition to him. Great games and celebrations were held on April 21 to honour Caesar's victory at Munda. Plutarch writes that many Romans found the triumph held following Caesar's victory to be in poor taste, as those defeated in the civil war had not been foreigners, but instead fellow Romans.[88] Caesar was the first to print his own bust on a Roman minted coin. On Caesar's return to Italy in September 45 BC, he filed his will, naming his grand-nephew Gaius Octavius (Octavian) as the heir to everything, including his name. Caesar also wrote that if Octavian died before Caesar did, Marcus Junius Brutus would be the next heir in succession. Caesar tightly regulated the purchase of state-subsidised grain and reduced the number of recipients to a fixed number, all of whom were entered into a special register.[89] From 47 to 44 he made plans for the distribution of land to about 15,000 of his veterans.[90] In 63 BC Caesar had been elected Pontifex Maximus, and one of his roles as such was settling the calendar. A complete overhaul of the old Roman calendar proved to be one of his most long lasting and influential reforms. In 46 BC, Caesar established a 365-day year with a leap year every fourth year.[91] (This Julian calendar was subsequently modified by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 into the modern Gregorian calendar.) As a result of this reform, a certain Roman year (mostly equivalent to 46 BC in the modern calendar) was made 445 days long, to bring the calendar into line with the seasons.[91] The month of July is named after Julius in his honour.[92] The Forum of Caesar, with its Temple of Venus Genetrix, was built among many other public works. Assassination See also: Assassination of Julius Caesar On the Ides of March (March 15; see Roman calendar) of 44 BC, a group of senators called Caesar to the forum for the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate. However, the petition was a fake.[93] Mark Antony, having vaguely learned of the plot the night before from a terrified Liberator named Servilius Casca, and fearing the worst, went to head Caesar off at the steps of the forum. However, the group of senators intercepted Caesar just as he was passing the Theatre of Pompey, located in the Campus Martius, and directed him to a room adjoining the east portico.[94] A diabase bust of Caesar. As Caesar began to read the false petition, Tillius Cimber, who had handed him the petition, pulled down Caesar's tunic. According to Suetonius, Caesar then cried to Cimber, "Why, this is violence!" ("Ista quidem vis est!").[95] At the same time, the aforementioned Casca produced his dagger and made a glancing thrust at the dictator's neck. Caesar turned around quickly and caught Casca by the arm. According to Plutarch, he said in Latin, "Casca, you villain, what are you doing?"[96] Casca, frightened, shouted "Help, brother!" in Greek ("ἀδελφέ, βοήθει!", "adelphe, boethei!"). Within moments, the entire group, including Brutus, was striking out at the dictator. Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenceless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius, around sixty or more men participated in the assassination. He was stabbed 23 times.[97] According to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal.[98] The dictator's last words are not known with certainty, and are a contested subject among scholars and historians alike. Suetonius reports that others have said Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "καὶ σύ, τέκνον;"[99] (transliterated as "Kai su, teknon?": "You too, child?" in English). However, Suetonius himself says Caesar said nothing.[95] Plutarch also reports that Caesar said nothing, pulling his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators.[100] The version best known in the English-speaking world is the Latin phrase "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", commonly rendered as "You too, Brutus");[101][102] this derives from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where it actually forms the first half of a macaronic line: "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar." It has no basis in historical fact and Shakespeare's use of Latin here is not from any assumption that Caesar would have been using the language, but because the phrase was already popular at the time the play was written.[103] According to Plutarch, after the assassination, Brutus stepped forward as if to say something to his fellow senators; they, however, fled the building.[104] Brutus and his companions then marched to the Capitol while crying out to their beloved city: "People of Rome, we are once again free!". They were met with silence, as the citizens of Rome had locked themselves inside their houses as soon as the rumour of what had taken place had begun to spread. A wax statue of Caesar was erected in the forum displaying the 23 stab wounds. A crowd who had amassed there started a fire, which badly damaged the forum and neighbouring buildings. In the ensuing chaos Mark Antony, Octavian (later Augustus Caesar), and others fought a series of five civil wars, which would end in the formation of the Roman Empire. Aftermath of the assassination Deification of Julius Caesar as represented in a 16th-century engraving. The result unforeseen by the assassins was that Caesar's death precipitated the end of the Roman Republic.[105] The Roman middle and lower classes, with whom Caesar was immensely popular and had been since before Gaul, became enraged that a small group of high-browed aristocrats had killed their champion. Further, when Caesar's will was read, it was learned that he left his private gardens on the Tiber to the Roman public as well as 300 sesterces to every enrolled Roman citizen. (While 300 sesterces was not a fortune, such was the equivalent of three month's wages for the average Roman worker, a very nice gift.) These bequests, combined with Antony's funeral oration, only served to increase Caesar's posthumous stature among the populace, increasing the grief at his death as well as the rage against his assassins. The crowd at the funeral boiled over, throwing dry branches, furniture and even clothing on to Caesar's funeral pyre, causing the flames to spin out of control, seriously damaging the Roman Forum. The mob then attacked the houses of Brutus and Cassius, where they were repelled only with considerable difficulty, ultimately providing the spark for the Liberators' civil war. [106] Antony did not give the speech that Shakespeare penned for him more than 1600 years later ("Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..."), but he did give a dramatic eulogy that appealed to the common people, a reflection of public opinion following Caesar's murder. Antony, who had been drifting apart from Caesar, capitalised on the grief of the Roman mob and threatened to unleash them on the Optimates, perhaps with the intent of taking control of Rome himself. But, to his surprise and chagrin, Caesar had named his grandnephew Gaius Octavian his sole heir, bequeathing him the immensely potent Caesar name as well as making him one of the wealthiest citizens in the Republic.[107] Gaius Octavian became, for all intents and purposes, the son of the great Caesar, and consequently also inherited the loyalty of much of the Roman populace. Octavian, aged only 19 at the time of Caesar's death, proved to have considerable political skills, and while Antony dealt with Decimus Brutus in the first round of the new civil wars, Octavian consolidated his tenuous position. In order to combat Brutus and Cassius, who were massing an enormous army in Greece, Antony needed soldiers, the cash from Caesar's war chests, and the legitimacy that Caesar's name would provide for any action he took against them. With the passage of the lex Titia on November 27, 43 BC,[108] the Second Triumvirate was officially formed, comprised of Antony, Octavian, and Caesar's loyal cavalry commander Lepidus.[109] It formally deified Caesar as Divus Iulius in 42 BC, and Caesar Octavian henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god").[110] Seeing that Caesar's clemency had resulted in his murder, the Second Triumvirate brought back the horror of proscription, abandoned since Sulla.[111] It engaged in the legally-sanctioned murder of a large number of its opponents in order to secure funding for its forty-five legions in the second civil war against Brutus and Cassius.[112] Antony and Octavius defeated them at Philippi.[113] Afterward, Mark Antony married Caesar's lover, Cleopatra, intending to use the fabulously wealthy Egypt as a base to dominate Rome. A third civil war broke out between Octavian on one hand and Antony and Cleopatra on the other. This final civil war, culminating in the latter's defeat at Actium, resulted in the permanent ascendancy of Octavian, who became the first Roman emperor, under the name Caesar Augustus, a name that raised him to status of a deity.[114] Julius Caesar had been preparing to invade Parthia, the Caucasus and Scythia, and then swing back onto Germania through Eastern Europe. These plans were thwarted by his assassination.[115] His successors did attempt the conquests of Parthia and Germania, but without lasting results. Health Based on remarks by Plutarch,[116] Caesar is sometimes thought to have suffered from epilepsy. Modern scholarship is "sharply divided" on the subject, and it is more certain that he was plagued by malaria, particularly during the Sullan proscriptions of the 80s.[117] Caesar had four documented episodes of what may have been complex partial seizures. He may additionally have had absence seizures in his youth. The earliest accounts of these seizures were made by the biographer Suetonius who was born after Caesar died. The claim of epilepsy is countered among some medical historians by a claim of hypoglycemia, which can cause epileptoid seizures.[118][119][120] Literary works Caesar was considered during his lifetime to be one of the best orators and authors of prose in Rome—even Cicero spoke highly of Caesar's rhetoric and style.[121] Among his most famous works were his funeral oration for his paternal aunt Julia and his Anticato, a document written to blacken Cato's reputation and respond to Cicero's Cato memorial. Unfortunately, the majority of his works and speeches have been lost. Memoirs Commentarii de Bello Gallico, an account written by Julius Caesar about his nine years of war in Gaul * The Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), campaigns in Gallia and Britannia during his term as proconsul; and * The Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War), events of the Civil War until immediately after Pompey's death in Egypt. Other works historically attributed to Caesar, but whose authorship is doubted, are: * De Bello Alexandrino (On the Alexandrine War), campaign in Alexandria; * De Bello Africo (On the African War), campaigns in North Africa; and * De Bello Hispaniensi (On the Hispanic War), campaigns in the Iberian peninsula. These narratives were written and published on a yearly basis during or just after the actual campaigns, as a sort of "dispatches from the front". Apparently simple and direct in style—to the point that Caesar's Commentarii are commonly studied by first and second year Latin students—they are in fact highly sophisticated and subtly slanted advertisements for his political agenda, aimed most particularly at the middle-brow readership of minor aristocrats in Rome, Italy, and the provinces. Name Main article: Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar Using the Latin alphabet as it existed in the day of Caesar (i.e., without lower case letters, "J", or "U"), Caesar's name is properly rendered "GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR". The form "CAIVS" is also attested using the old Roman pronunciation of letter C as G; it is an antique form of the more common "GAIVS". It is often seen abbreviated to "C. IVLIVS CAESAR". (The letterform "Æ" is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".) In Classical Latin, it was pronounced [ˈgaːius ˈjuːlius ˈkaisar].[122] In the days of the late Roman Republic, many historical writings were done in Greek, a language most educated Romans studied. Young wealthy Roman boys were often taught by Greek slaves and sometimes sent to Athens for advanced training, as was Caesar's principal assassin, Brutus. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his family name was written Καίσαρ, reflecting its contemporary pronunciation. Thus his name is pronounced in a similar way to the pronunciation of the German Kaiser. This German name was phonemically but not phonetically derived from the Middle Ages Ecclesiastical Latin, in which the familiar part "Caesar" is [ˈtʃeːsar], from which the modern English pronunciation is derived, as well as the title of Tsar. His name is also remembered in Norse mythology, where he is manifested as the legendary king Kjárr.[123] Family Main article: Julio-Claudian family tree Parents * Father Gaius Julius Caesar the Elder * Mother Aurelia (related to the Aurelia Cottae) Sisters * Julia Caesaris "Maior" (the elder) * Julia Caesaris "Minor" (the younger) Wives * First marriage to Cornelia Cinnilla, from 83 BC until her death in childbirth in 69 or 68 BC * Second marriage to Pompeia, from 67 BC until he divorced her around 61 BC * Third marriage to Calpurnia Pisonis, from 59 BC until Caesar's death Children * Julia with Cornelia Cinnilla, born in 83 or 82 BC * Caesarion, with Cleopatra VII, born 47 BC. He was killed at age 17 by Caesar's adopted son Octavianus. * adopted: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, his great-nephew by blood, who later became Emperor Augustus. * Marcus Junius Brutus: The historian Plutarch notes that Caesar believed Brutus to have been his illegitimate son, as his mother Servilia had been Caesar's lover during their youth.[124] Grandchildren * Grandson from Julia and Pompey, dead at several days, unnamed. Lovers * Cleopatra VII * Servilia Caepionis mother of Brutus * Eunoë, queen of Mauretania and wife of Bogudes Notable relatives * Gaius Marius (married to his Aunt Julia) * Mark Antony * Lucius Julius Caesar * Julius Sabinus, a Gaul of the Lingones at the time of the Batavian rebellion of AD 69, claimed to be the great-grandson of Caesar on the grounds that his great-grandmother had been Caesar's lover during the Gallic war.[125] Political rivals and rumours of homosexual activity Roman society viewed the passive role during sex, regardless of gender, to be a sign of submission or inferiority. Indeed, Suetonius says that in Caesar's Gallic triumph, his soldiers sang that, "Caesar may have conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar."[126] According to Cicero, Bibulus, Gaius Memmius, and others (mainly Caesar's enemies), he had an affair with Nicomedes IV of Bithynia early in his career. The tales were repeated, referring to Caesar as the Queen of Bithynia, by some Roman politicians as a way to humiliate and degrade him. It is possible that the rumors were spread only as a form of character assassination. Caesar himself, according to Cassius Dio, denied the accusations under oath.[127] This form of slander was popular during this time in the Roman Republic to demean and discredit political opponents. A favorite tactic used by the opposition was to accuse a popular political rival as living a Hellenistic lifestyle based on Greek and Eastern culture, where homosexuality and a lavish lifestyle were more acceptable than in Roman tradition.[citation needed] Catullus wrote two poems suggesting that Caesar and his engineer Mamurra were lovers,[128] but later apologised.[129] Mark Antony charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours. Suetonius described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavian as political slander. The boy Octavian was to become the first Roman emperor following Caesar's death.[130] Chronology of his life Honours and titles As a young man he was awarded the Corona Civica (civic crown) for valour while fighting in Asia Minor and went on to receive many honours. These included titles such as Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland), and Dictator. He was also elected Pontifex Maximus in 63 BC. The many titles bestowed on him by the Senate are sometimes cited as a cause of his assassination, as it seemed inappropriate to many contemporaries for a man to be awarded so many honours. Divus Iulius or Divus Julius (the divine Julius or the deified Julius) was the official title that was given to Caesar posthumously by decree of the Roman Senate on the 1 January 42 BC. Mark Antony had been appointed as flamen (priest) to Caesar shortly before the latter was assassinated.[131] Julius Caesar was the first historical Roman to be deified. The cult of Divus Iulius was promoted by both Octavian and Mark Antony. After the death of Antony, Octavian, as the adoptive son of Caesar, assumed the title of Divi Filius (son of a god). Caesar's cognomen would itself become a title; it was greatly promulgated by the Bible, by the famous verse "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". The title became the German Kaiser and Slavic Tsar/Czar. The last tsar in nominal power was Simeon II of Bulgaria whose reign ended in 1946; for two thousand years after Julius Caesar's assassination, there was at least one head of state bearing his name. Depictions Main article: Cultural depictions of Julius Caesar For the marble bust from Arles discovered in 2007–8 alleged to be Caesar's likeness, and the ensuing controversy, see Arles portrait bust. Bust in Naples National Archaeological Museum, photograph published in 1902 Bust of Julius Caesar from the British Museum Modern bronze statue of Julius Caesar, Rimini, Italy References 1. ^ Fully, Caius Iulius Caii filius Caii nepos Caesar Imperator ("Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius, grandson of Gaius, Imperator"). Official name after deification in 42 BC: Divus Iulius ("The Divine Julius"). 2. ^ There is some dispute over the date of Caesar's birth. The day is sometimes stated to be be 12 July when his feast-day was celebrated after deification, but this was because his true birthday clashed with the Ludi Apollinares. Some scholars, based on the dates he held certain magistracies, have made a case for 101 or 102 BC as the year of his birth, but scholarly consensus favours 100 BC. Goldsworthy, 30 3. ^ After Caesar's death the leap years were not inserted according to his intent and there is uncertainty about when leap years were observed between 45 BC and AD 4 inclusive; the dates in this article between 45 BC and AD 4 inclusive are those observed in Rome and there is an uncertainty of about a day as to where those dates would be on the proleptic Julian calendar. See Blackburn, B and Holford-Strevens, L. (1999 corrected 2003). The Oxford Companion to the Year. Oxford University Press. p. 671. ISBN 978-0192142313 4. ^ Froude, James Anthony (1879). Life of Caesar. Project Gutenberg e-text. p. 67. http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05/8cesr10.txt. See also: Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Julius 6; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.41; Virgil, Aeneid 5. ^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.7. The misconception that Julius Caesar himself was born by Caesarian section dates back at least to the 10th century (Suda kappa 1199). Julius wasn't the first to bear the name, and in his time the procedure was only performed on dead women, while Caesar's mother, Aurelia, lived long after he was born. 6. ^ Historia Augusta: Aelius 2. 7. ^ "Coins of Julius Caesar". http://members.aol.com/dkaplan888/jcae.htm. 8. ^ Suetonius, Julius 1; Plutarch, Caesar 1, Marius 6; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.54; Inscriptiones Italiae, 13.3.51–52 9. ^ Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians 7 10. ^ a b Plutarch, Caesar 1; Suetonius, Julius 1 11. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 1.34–75; Plutarch, Marius 32–46, Sulla 6–10; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.15–20; Eutropius 5; Florus, Epitome of Roman History 2.6, 2.9 12. ^ Suetonius, Julius 1; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.54 13. ^ Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.22; Florus, Epitome of Roman History 2.9 14. ^ Suetonius, Julius 1; Plutarch, Caesar 1; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.41 15. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 1.76–102; Plutarch, Sulla 24–33; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.23–28; Eutropius, Abridgement of Roman History 5; Florus, Epitome of Roman History 2.9 16. ^ Suetonius, Julius 2–3; Plutarch, Caesar 2–3; Cassius Dio, Roman History 43.20 17. ^ William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities: Flamen 18. ^ Appian. Civil Wars 1.103 19. ^ Suetonius, Julius 77. 20. ^ Plutarch, Sulla 36–38 21. ^ a b Suetonius, Julius 46 22. ^ Suetonius, Julius 3; Appian, Civil Wars 1.107 23. ^ Suetonius, Julius 55 24. ^ Suetonius, Julius 4. Plutarch (Caesar 3–4) reports the same events but follows a different chronology. 25. ^ Again, according to Suetonius's chronology (Julius 4). Plutarch (Caesar 1.8–2) says this happened earlier, on his return from Nicomedes's court. Velleius Paterculus (Roman History 2:41.3–42 says merely that it happened when he was a young man. 26. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 1–2 27. ^ Thorne, James (2003). Julius Caesar: Conqueror and Dictator. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 15. 28. ^ Freeman, 39 29. ^ Freeman, 39–40 30. ^ Freeman, 40 31. ^ Freeman, 51 32. ^ Freeman, 52 33. ^ Goldsworthy, 100 34. ^ Goldsworthy, 101 35. ^ Suetonius, Julius 5–8; Plutarch, Caesar 5; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.43 36. ^ Suetonius, Julius 9–11; Plutarch, Caesar 5.6–6; Cassius Dio, Roman History 37.8, 10 37. ^ Cicero, For Gaius Rabirius; Cassius Dio, Roman History 26–28 38. ^ Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.43; Plutarch, Caesar 7; Suetonius, Julius 13 39. ^ Sallust, Catiline War 49 40. ^ Cicero, Against Catiline 4.7–9; Sallust, Catiline War 50–55; Plutarch, Caesar 7.5–8.3, Cicero 20–21, Cato the Younger 22–24; Suetonius, Julius 14 41. ^ Suetonius, Julius 17 42. ^ Suetonius, Julius 16 43. ^ Cicero, Letters to Atticus 1.12, 1.13, 1.14; Plutarch, Caesar 9–10; Cassius Dio, Roman History 37.45 44. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 11–12; Suetonius, Julius 18.1 45. ^ Plutarch, Julius 13; Suetonius, Julius 18.2 46. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 13–14; Suetonius 19 47. ^ Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.1, 2.3, 2.17; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.44; Plutarch, Caesar 13–14, Pompey 47, Crassus 14; Suetonius, Julius 19.2; Cassius Dio, Roman History 37.54–58 48. ^ Suetonius, Julius 21 49. ^ Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.15, 2.16, 2.17, 2.18, 2.19, 2.20, 2.21; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 44.4; Plutarch, Caesar 14, Pompey 47–48, Cato the Younger 32–33; Cassius Dio, Roman History 38.1–8 50. ^ Suetonius, Julius 19.2 51. ^ Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2:44.4; Plutarch, Caesar 14.10, Crassus 14.3, Pompey 48, Cato the Younger 33.3; Suetonius, Julius 22; Cassius Dio, Roman History 38:8.5 52. ^ Suetonius, Julius 23 53. ^ See Cicero's speeches against Verres for an example of a former provincial governor successfully prosecuted for illegally enriching himself at his province's expense. 54. ^ Cicero, Letters to Atticus 1.19; Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 1; Appian, Gallic Wars Epit. 3; Cassius Dio, Roman History 38.31–50 55. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 2; Appian, Gallic Wars Epit. 4; Cassius Dio, Roman History 39.1–5 56. ^ Cicero, Letters to his brother Quintus 2.3; Suetonius, Julius 24; Plutarch, Caesar 21, Crassus 14–15, Pompey 51 57. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 3; Cassius Dio, Roman History 39.40–46 58. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 4; Appian, Gallic Wars Epit. 4; Cassius Dio, Roman History 47–53 59. ^ Cicero, Letters to friends 7.6, 7.7, 7.8, 7.10, 7.17; Letters to his brother Quintus 2.13, 2.15, 3.1; Letters to Atticus 4.15, 4.17, 4.18; Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 5–6; Cassius Dio, Roman History 40.1–11 60. ^ Suetonius, Julius [1]; Plutarch, Caesar 23.5, Pompey 53–55, Crassus 16–33; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 46–47 61. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 7; Cassius Dio, Roman History 40.33–42 62. ^ Aulus Hirtius, Commentaries on the Gallic War Book 8 63. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 1.21 64. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 7.65 65. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 6.6 66. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 2.34 67. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 6.32f. 68. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 3.11 69. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 7.81f. 70. ^ "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch (chapter48)". http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/lives/chapter48.html. 71. ^ "Chapter 28". "De Bello Gallico" & Other Commentaries of Caius Julius Caesar (Translated by Thomas de Quincey ed.). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10657/10657.txt. 72. ^ "Chapter 29". "De Bello Gallico" & Other Commentaries of Caius Julius Caesar (Translated by Thomas de Quincey ed.). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10657/10657.txt. 73. ^ Furger-Gunti, 102. 74. ^ H. Delbrück Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, Vol. 1, 1900, pp. 428 and 459f. 75. ^ a b Suetonius, Julius 28 76. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 60.2 77. ^ Suetonius, Julius 32 78. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 35.2 79. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 42–45 80. ^ a b Plutarch, Caesar 37.2 81. ^ a b Martin Jehne, Der Staat des Dicators Caesar, Köln/Wien 1987, p. 15-38. 82. ^ Plutarch, Pompey 77–79 83. ^ Plutarch, Pompey 80.5 84. ^ Suetonius, Julius 35.2 85. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 52–54 86. ^ Martin Jehne, Der Staat des Dicators Caesar, Köln/Wien 1987, p. 15-38. Technically, Caesar was not appointed Dictator with a term of ten years but he was appointed annual dictator for the next ten years in advance. 87. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 56 88. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 56.7–56.8 89. ^ Mackay, Christopher S. (2004). Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History. Cambridge University Press. p. 254. 90. ^ Campbell, J. B. (1994). The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337. Routledge. p. 10. 91. ^ a b Suetonius, Julius 40 92. ^ Suetonius, Julius 76 93. ^ "Petition effectiveness: improving citizens' direct access to parliament" (PDF). Parliament of Western Australia. http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/web/webpages.nsf/WebFiles/ASPG+2007+-+Palmieri/$FILE/Palmieri.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-08-28. 94. ^ "Theatrum Pompei". Oxford University Press. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Theatrum_Pompei.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-28. 95. ^ a b Suetonius, Life of the Caesars, Julius trans. J C Rolfe [2] 96. ^ Plutarch, Life of Caesar, ch. 66: "ὁ μεν πληγείς, Ῥωμαιστί· 'Μιαρώτατε Κάσκα, τί ποιεῖς;'" 97. ^ Woolf Greg (2006), Et Tu Brute? – The Murder of Caesar and Political Assassination, 199 pages – ISBN 1-8619-7741-7 98. ^ Suetonius, Julius, c. 82. 99. ^ Suetonius, Julius 82.2 100. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 66.9 101. ^ Stone, Jon R. (2005). The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations. London: Routledge. pp. 250. ISBN 0415969093. 102. ^ Morwood, James (1994). The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary (Latin-English). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198602839. 103. ^ It appears, for example, in Richard Eedes' Latin play Caesar Interfectus of 1582 and The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke &tc of 1595, Shakespeare's source work for other plays. Dyce, Alexander; (quoting Malone) (1866). The Works of William Shakespeare. London: Chapman and Hall. pp. p 648. 104. ^ Plutarch, Caesar, 67 105. ^ Florus, Epitome 2.7.1 106. ^ Suetonius, Life of Caesar, Chapters LXXXIII, LXXXIV, LXXXV [3] 107. ^ Suetonius, Julius 83.2 108. ^ Osgood, Josiah (2006). Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press. p. 60. 109. ^ Suetonius, Augustus 13.1; Florus, Epitome 2.6 110. ^ Warrior, Valerie M. (2006). Roman Religion. Cambridge University Press. p. 110. ISBN 0521825113. 111. ^ Florus, Epitome 2.6.3 112. ^ Zoch, Paul A. (200). Ancient Rome: An Introductory History. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 217–218. ISBN 0806132876. 113. ^ Florus, Epitome 2.7.11–14; Appian, The Civil Wars 5.3 114. ^ Florus, Epitome 2.34.66 115. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 58.6 116. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 17, 45, 60; see also Suetonius, Julius 45. 117. ^ Ronald T. Ridley, "The Dictator's Mistake: Caesar's Escape from Sulla," Historia 49 (2000), pp. 225–226, citing doubters of epilepsy: F. Kanngiesser, "Notes on the Pathology of the Julian Dynasty," Glasgow Medical Journal 77 (1912) 428–432; T. Cawthorne, "Julius Caesar and the Falling Sickness," Proceedings of Royal Society of Medicine 51 (1957) 27–30, who prefers Ménière's disease; and O. Temkin, The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology (Baltimore 1971), p 162. 118. ^ Hughes J (2004). "Dictator Perpetuus: Julius Caesar—did he have seizures? If so, what was the etiology?". Epilepsy Behav 5 (5): 756–64. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2004.05.006. PMID 5380131. 119. ^ Gomez J, Kotler J, Long J (1995). "Was Julius Caesar's epilepsy due to a brain tumor?". The Journal of the Florida Medical Association 82 (3): 199–201. PMID 7738524. 120. ^ H. Schneble (2003-01-01). "Gaius Julius Caesar". German Epilepsy Museum. http://www.epilepsiemuseum.de/alt/caesaren.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-28. 121. ^ Cicero, Brutus, 252. 122. ^ Note that the first name, like the second, is properly pronounced in three syllables, not two. See Latin spelling and pronunciation. 123. ^ Anderson, Carl Edlund. (1999). Formation and Resolution of Ideological Contrast in the Early History of Scandinavia. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic (Faculty of English). p. 44.PDF (308 KB) 124. ^ "Considering that Brutus was born about that time in which their loves were at the highest, Caesar had a belief that he was his own child": Plutarch; Translated A. H. Clough (1996). "Marcus Brutus". The Project Gutenberg Etext of Plutarch's Lives. Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/plivs10.txt. Retrieved on 2008-07-14. 125. ^ Tacitus, Histories 4.55 126. ^ Suetonius, Julius 49 127. ^ Suetonius, Julius 49; Cassius Dio, Roman History 43.20 128. ^ Catullus, Carmina 29, 57 129. ^ Suetonius, Julius 73 130. ^ Suetonius, Augustus 68, 71 131. ^ According to Dio Cassius, 44.6.4. Primary sources Find more about Julius Caesar on Wikipedia's sister projects: Definitions from Wiktionary Textbooks from Wikibooks Quotations from Wikiquote Source texts from Wikisource Images and media from Commons News stories from Wikinews Learning resources from Wikiversity Own writings * Forum Romanum Index to Caesar's works online in Latin and translation * omnia munda mundis Hypertext of Caesar's De Bello Gallico * Works by Julius Caesar at Project Gutenberg Ancient historians' writings * Appian, Book 13 (English translation) * Cassius Dio, Books 37–44 (English translation) * Plutarch on Antony (English translation, Dryden edition) * Plutarch: The Life of Julius Caesar (English translation) * Plutarch: The Life of Mark Antony (English translation) * Suetonius: The Life of Julius Caesar. (Latin and English, cross-linked: the English translation by J. C. Rolfe) * Suetonius: The Life of Julius Caesar (J. C. Rolfe English translation, modified) Secondary sources * Canfora, Luciano (2006). Julius Caesar: The People's Dictator. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-748-61936-4. * Freeman, Philip (2008)
Jun 5, 2009 11:32am
Jun 5, 2009 11:34am
Fuck you, Yax.
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Heavy metal music From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the music genre. For other uses, see Heavy metal and Metal (disambiguation). Heavy metal Stylistic origins Hard rock, Blues-rock Psychedelic rock Cultural origins Late 1960s, England and United States Typical instruments Electric guitar - Bass guitar - Drums - Vocals - Keyboards Mainstream popularity Worldwide. Subgenres Avant-garde metal - Black metal - Death metal - Doom metal - Glam metal - Gothic metal - Groove metal - Power metal - Progressive metal - Speed metal - Stoner metal - Symphonic metal - Thrash metal - Viking metal Fusion genres Alternative metal - Christian metal - Crust punk - Drone metal - Folk metal - Funk metal - Grindcore - Grunge - Industrial metal - Metalcore - Neo-classical metal - Nu metal - Post-metal - Rap metal - Sludge metal Regional scenes Australia - Bay Area - Brazil − Britain − Germany - Gothenburg - United States Other topics Fashion - Bands - Umlaut - Blast beat - Subgenres Heavy metal (often referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in England and the United States.[2] With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo.[3] Early heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple attracted large audiences, though they were often critically reviled, a status common throughout the history of the genre. In the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence; Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal had attracted a worldwide following of fans known as "metalheads" or "headbangers". In the 1980s, glam metal became a major commercial force with groups like Mötley Crüe. Underground scenes produced an array of more extreme, aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, while other styles like death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s, popular styles such as nu metal, which often incorporates elements of funk and hip hop; and metalcore, which blends extreme metal with hardcore punk, have further expanded the definition of the genre. Contents * 1 Characteristics o 1.1 Musical language + 1.1.1 Rhythm and tempo + 1.1.2 Harmony + 1.1.3 Typical harmonic structures + 1.1.4 Relationship with classical music o 1.2 Lyrical themes o 1.3 Image and fashion o 1.4 Physical gestures o 1.5 Fan subculture * 2 Etymology * 3 History o 3.1 Antecedents: mid-1960s o 3.2 Origins: late 1960s and early 1970s o 3.3 Mainstream: late 1970s and 1980s o 3.4 Underground metal: 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s + 3.4.1 Thrash metal + 3.4.2 Death metal + 3.4.3 Black metal + 3.4.4 Power metal + 3.4.5 Doom and gothic metal o 3.5 New fusions: 1990s and early 2000s o 3.6 Recent trends: mid–late 2000s * 4 See also * 5 References * 6 Sources * 7 External links [edit] Characteristics Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, and vigorous vocals. Metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter, or omit one or more of these attributes. The New York Times critic Jon Pareles writes, "In the taxonomy of popular music, heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard-rock—the breed with less syncopation, less blues, more showmanship and more brute force."[4] The typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound;[5] early heavy metal bands typically used a Hammond organ, while synthesizers are now more common. Judas Priest, performing in 2005 The electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal.[6] Guitars are often played with distortion pedals through heavily overdriven tube amplifiers to create a thick, powerful, "heavy" sound. In the early 1970s, some popular metal groups began cofeaturing two guitarists. Leading bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden followed this pattern of having two or three guitarists share the roles of both lead and rhythm guitar. A central element of much heavy metal is the guitar solo, a form of cadenza. As the genre developed, more intricate solos and riffs became an integral part of the style. Guitarists use sweep-picking, tapping, and other advanced techniques for rapid playing, and many styles of metal emphasize virtuosic displays. The lead role of the guitar in heavy metal often collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry".[5] Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity.[7] Critic Simon Frith claims that the metal singer's "tone of voice" is more important than the lyrics.[8] Metal vocals vary widely in style, from the multioctave, theatrical approach of Judas Priest's Rob Halford and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, to the gruff style of Motörhead's Lemmy and Metallica's James Hetfield, to the growling of many death metal performers. The prominent role of the bass is also key to the metal sound, and the interplay of bass and guitar is a central element. The bass guitar provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy".[9] Metal basslines vary widely in complexity, from holding down a low pedal point as a foundation to doubling complex riffs and licks along with the lead and/or rhythm guitars. Some bands feature the bass as a lead instrument, an approach popularized by Metallica's Cliff Burton in the early 1980s.[10] Metallica, performing in 2003 The essence of metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed, power, and precision".[11] Metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", and drummers have to develop "considerable speed, coordination, and dexterity...to play the intricate patterns" used in metal.[12] A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and then immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand (or, in some cases, the same striking hand), producing a burst of sound. The metal drum setup is generally much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music.[9] In live performance, loudness—an "onslaught of sound," in sociologist Deena Weinstein's description—is considered vital.[6] In his book Metalheads, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to heavy metal concerts as "the sensory equivalent of war."[13] Following the lead set by Jimi Hendrix, Cream and The Who, early heavy metal acts such as Blue Cheer set new benchmarks for volume. As Blue Cheer's Dick Peterson puts it, "All we knew was we wanted more power."[14] A 1977 review of a Motörhead concert noted how "excessive volume in particular figured into the band's impact."[15] Weinstein makes the case that in the same way that melody is the main element of pop and rhythm is the main focus of house music, powerful sound, timbre, and volume are the key elements of metal. She argues that the loudness is designed to "sweep the listener into the sound" and to provide a "shot of youthful vitality."[6] Heavy metal's fixation on loudness was mocked in the rockumentary spoof This Is Spinal Tap, in which a metal guitarist claims to have modified his amplifiers to "go to eleven." [edit] Musical language [edit] Rhythm and tempo The rhythm in metal songs is emphatic, with deliberate stresses. Weinstein observes that the wide array of sonic effects available to metal drummers enables the "rhythmic pattern to take on a complexity within its elemental drive and insistency."[9] In many heavy metal songs, the main groove is characterized by short, two-note or three-note rhythmic figures—generally made up of 8th or 16th notes. These rhythmic figures are usually performed with a staccato attack created by using a palm-muted technique on the rhythm guitar.[16] An example of a rhythmic pattern used in heavy metal. Brief, abrupt, and detached rhythmic cells are joined into rhythmic phrases with a distinctive, often jerky texture. These phrases are used to create rhythmic accompaniment and melodic figures called riffs, which help to establish thematic hooks. Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as whole note- or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo power ballads. The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be "slow, even ponderous."[9] By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos. In the 2000s, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note = 60 beats per minute) to extremely fast blast beat tempos (quarter note = 350 beats per minute).[12] [edit] Harmony The main riff from Megadeth's "Addicted to Chaos" is an example of a heavy metal riff incorporating several types of power chords One of the signatures of the genre is the guitar power chord.[17] In technical terms, the power chord is relatively simple: it involves just one main interval, generally the perfect fifth, though an octave may be added as a doubling of the root. Although the perfect fifth interval is the most common basis for the power chord,[18] power chords are also based on different intervals such as the minor third, major third, perfect fourth, diminished fifth, or minor sixth.[19] Since the power chord is based on a single interval, it enables guitarists to use a high level of distortion without unintended inharmonicity or intermodulation distortion. If a triad—a chord with a root, third, and fifth—is played on a heavily distorted guitar, intermodulation distortion may produce frequency components at the various sums and differences of the frequency components of the input signal which will be not be harmonically related to the input signal, leading to disarmonious sounds.[20] Most power chords are also played with a consistent finger arrangement that can be slid easily up and down the fretboard.[21] [edit] Typical harmonic structures Heavy metal is usually based on riffs created with three main harmonic traits: modal scale progressions, tritone and chromatic progressions, and the use of pedal points. Modal harmony Example of a typical heavy metal Aeolian harmonic progression in I-VI-VII (Am-F-G): the main riff of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" Traditional heavy metal tends to employ modal scales, in particular the Aeolian and Phrygian modes.[22] Harmonically speaking, this means the genre typically incorporates modal chord progressions such as the Aeolian progressions I-VI-VII, I-VII-(VI), or I-VI-IV-VII and Phrygian progressions implying the relation between I and ♭II (I-♭II-I, I-♭II-III, or I-♭II-VII for example). Aeolian harmony is used in songs such as Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law", Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name", and Accept's "Princess of the Dawn", each employing a I-VI-VII progression as its main riff. Phrygian harmony is used in songs such as Mercyful Fate's "Gypsy" (main riff I-♭II-I-VI-V), Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" (main riff built on the ♭II-I relation), and Sodom's "Remember the Fallen" (Introduction + main riff—the riff closing implies a Phrygian cadence: I-♭II-III). Tritone and chromatism Example of a harmonic progression with the tritone G-C#: the main riff of "Black Sabbath" Tense-sounding chromatic or tritone relationships are used in a number of metal chord progressions.[23][24] The tritone, an interval spanning three whole tones—such as C and F#—was a forbidden dissonance in medieval ecclesiastical singing, which led monks to call it diabolus in musica—"the devil in music."[25] Because of that original symbolic association, it came to be heard in Western cultural convention as "evil". Heavy metal has made extensive use of the tritone in guitar solos and riffs, such as in the beginning of "Black Sabbath". Pedal point Heavy metal songs often make extensive use of pedal point as a harmonic basis. A pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass range, during which at least one foreign (i.e., dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts.[26] Heavy metal riffs are frequently constructed over a persistent repeating note played on the low strings of the bass or rhythmic guitar, most usually on the E, A, and D strings.[27] In other words, a single bass note—most frequently low E or A—is persistently repeated while some different chords are successively played, including chords that do not normally incorporate that bass note, which creates a sense of tension. An example is the opening riff of Judas Priest's "You've Got Another Thing Comin'"[dubious – discuss]. In this case, one guitar plays the pedal point in F#, while the second guitar plays the chords. [edit] Relationship with classical music Yngwie Malmsteen in concert Robert Walser argues that, alongside blues and R&B, the "assemblage of disparate musical styles known...as 'classical music'" has been a major influence on heavy metal since the genre's earliest days. He claims that metal's "most influential musicians have been guitar players who have also studied classical music. Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity [and] changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal."[28] Although a number of metal musicians cite classical composers as inspiration, heavy metal cannot be regarded as the modern descendant of classical music.[29] Classical and metal are rooted in different cultural traditions and practices—classical in the art music tradition, metal in the popular music tradition. As musicologists Nicolas Cook and Nicola Dibben note, "Analyses of popular music also sometimes reveal the influence of 'art traditions.' An example is Walser's linkage of heavy metal music with the ideologies and even some of the performance practices of nineteenth-century Romanticism. However, it would be clearly wrong to claim that traditions such as blues, rock, heavy metal, rap or dance music derive primarily from 'art music.'"[30] [edit] Lyrical themes Black Sabbath and the many metal bands they inspired have concentrated lyrically "on dark and depressing subject matter to an extent hitherto unprecedented in any form of pop music," according to scholars David Hatch and Stephen Millward. They take as an example Sabbath's 1970 album Paranoid, which "included songs dealing with personal trauma—'Paranoid' and 'Fairies Wear Boots' (which described the unsavoury side effects of drug-taking)—as well as those confronting wider issues, such as the self-explanatory 'War Pigs' and 'Hand of Doom.'"[31] Nuclear annihilation was addressed in later metal songs such as Iron Maiden's "2 Minutes to Midnight" and Ozzy Osbourne's "Killer of Giants". Death is a predominant theme in heavy metal, routinely featuring in the lyrics of bands as otherwise widely different as Slayer and W.A.S.P. The more extreme forms of death metal and grindcore tend to have aggressive and gory lyrics. Deriving from the genre's roots in blues music, sex is another important topic—a thread running from Led Zeppelin's suggestive lyrics to the more explicit references of glam and nu metal bands.[32] Romantic tragedy is a standard theme of gothic and doom metal, as well as of nu metal, where teenage angst is another central topic. Heavy metal songs often feature outlandish, fantasy-inspired lyrics, lending them an escapist quality. Iron Maiden's songs, for instance, were frequently inspired by mythology, fiction, and poetry, such as "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem. Other examples include Black Sabbath's "The Wizard," Megadeth's "The Conjuring" and "Five Magics," and Judas Priest's "Dreamer Deceiver". Since the 1980s, with the rise of thrash metal and songs such as Metallica's "...And Justice for All" and Megadeth's "Peace Sells", more metal lyrics have included sociopolitical commentary. Genres such as melodic death metal, progressive metal, and black metal often explore philosophical themes. The thematic content of heavy metal has long been a target of criticism. According to Jon Pareles, "Heavy metal's main subject matter is simple and virtually universal. With grunts, moans and subliterary lyrics, it celebrates...a party without limits.... [T]he bulk of the music is stylized and formulaic."[4] Music critics have often deemed metal lyrics juvenile and banal, and others have objected to what they see as advocacy of misogyny and the occult. During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center petitioned the U.S. Congress to regulate the popular music industry due to what the group asserted were objectionable lyrics, particularly those in heavy metal songs. In 1990, Judas Priest was sued in American court by the parents of two young men who had shot themselves five years earlier, allegedly after hearing the subliminal statement "do it" in a Priest song. While the case attracted a great deal of media attention, it was ultimately dismissed.[33] In some predominantly Muslim countries, heavy metal has been officially denounced as a threat to traditional values. In countries including Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Malaysia, there have been incidents of heavy metal musicians and fans being arrested and incarcerated.[34] [edit] Image and fashion Main article: Heavy metal fashion Kiss performing in 2004, wearing their famous makeup As with much popular music, visual imagery plays a large role in heavy metal. In addition to its sound and lyrics, a heavy metal band's "image" is expressed in album sleeve art, logos, stage sets, clothing, and music videos.[35] Some heavy metal acts such as Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Gwar have become known as much for their outrageous performance personas and stage shows as for their music. Down-the-back long hair, according to Weinstein, is the "most crucial distinguishing feature of metal fashion."[36] Originally adopted from the hippie subculture, by the 1980s and 1990s heavy metal hair "symbolised the hate, angst and disenchantment of a generation that seemingly never felt at home," according to journalist Nader Rahman. Long hair gave members of the metal community "the power they needed to rebel against nothing in general."[37] The classic uniform of heavy metal fans consists of "blue jeans, black T-shirts, boots and black leather or jeans jackets.... T-shirts are generally emblazoned with the logos or other visual representations of favorite metal bands."[38] Metal fans also "appropriated elements from the S&M community (chains, metal studs, skulls, leather and crosses)." In the 1980s, a range of sources, from punk and goth music to horror films, influenced metal fashion.[39] Many metal performers of the 1970s and 1980s used radically shaped and brightly colored instruments to enhance their stage appearance. Fashion and personal style was especially important for glam metal bands of the era. Performers typically wore long, dyed, hairspray-teased hair (hence the nickname, "hair metal"); makeup such as lipstick and eyeliner; gaudy clothing, including leopard-skin-printed shirts or vests and tight denim, leather, or spandex pants; and accessories such as headbands and jewelry.[40] Pioneered by the heavy metal act X Japan in the late 1980s, bands in the Japanese movement known as visual kei—which includes many nonmetal groups—emphasize elaborate costumes, hair, and makeup.[41] [edit] Physical gestures Fans raise their fists and make the "devil horns" gesture at a concert by Estonian heavy metal group Metsatöll in 2006 Many metal musicians when performing live engage in headbanging, which involves rhythmically beating time with the head, often emphasized by long hair. The corna, or devil horns, hand gesture, also widespread, was popularized by vocalist Ronnie James Dio while with Black Sabbath and Dio.[24] Gene Simmons of Kiss claims to have been the first to make the gesture in concert.[42] Attendees of metal concerts do not dance in the usual sense; Deena Weinstein has argued that this is due to the music's largely male audience and "extreme heterosexualist ideology." She identifies two primary body movements that substitute for dancing: headbanging and an arm thrust that is both a sign of appreciation and a rhythmic gesture.[43] The performance of air guitar is popular among metal fans both at concerts and listening to records at home.[44] Other concert audience activities include stage diving, crowd surfing, pushing and shoving in a chaotic mêlée called moshing, and displaying the corna hand symbol. [edit] Fan subculture Main article: Metalhead Deena Weinstein argues that heavy metal has outlasted many other rock genres largely due to the emergence of an intense, exclusionary, strongly masculine subculture.[45] While the metal fanbase is largely young, white, male, and blue-collar, the group is "tolerant of those outside its core demographic base who follow its codes of dress, appearance, and behavior."[46] Identification with the subculture is strengthened not only by the shared experience of concert-going and shared elements of fashion, but also by contributing to metal magazines and, more recently, websites.[47] The metal scene has been characterized as a "subculture of alienation", with its own code of authenticity.[48] This code puts several demands on performers: they must appear both completely devoted to their music and loyal to the subculture that supports it; they must appear disinterested in mainstream appeal and radio hits; and they must never "sell out".[49] For the fans themselves, the code promotes "opposition to established authority, and separateness from the rest of society."[50] Scholars of metal have noted the tendency of fans to classify and reject some performers (and some other fans) as "poseurs" "who pretended to be part of the subculture, but who were deemed to lack authenticity and sincerity."[48][51] [edit] Etymology The origin of the term heavy metal in a musical context is uncertain. The phrase has been used for centuries in chemistry and metallurgy. An early use of the term in modern popular culture was by countercultural writer William S. Burroughs. His 1962 novel The Soft Machine includes a character known as "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid." Burroughs's next novel, Nova Express (1964), develops the theme, using heavy metal as a metaphor for addictive drugs: "With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms—Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes—And The Insect People of Minraud with metal music."[52] Metal historian Ian Christe describes what the components of the term mean in "hippiespeak": "heavy" is roughly synonymous with "potent" or "profound," and "metal" designates a certain type of mood, grinding and weighted as with metal.[53] The word "heavy" in this sense was a basic element of beatnik and later countercultural slang, and references to "heavy music"—typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare—were already common by the mid-1960s. Iron Butterfly's debut album, released in early 1968, was titled Heavy. The first recorded use of heavy metal is a reference to a motorcycle in the Steppenwolf song "Born to Be Wild," also released that year:[54] "I like smoke and lightning/Heavy metal thunder/Racin' with the wind/And the feelin' that I'm under." A late, and disputed, claim about the source of the term was made by "Chas" Chandler, former manager of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In a 1995 interview on the PBS program Rock and Roll, he asserted that heavy metal "was a term originated in a New York Times article reviewing a Jimi Hendrix performance," in which the author likened the event to "listening to heavy metal falling from the sky." A source for Chandler's claim has never been found. The first documented uses of the phrase to describe a type of rock music are from reviews by critic Mike Saunders. In the November 12, 1970, issue of Rolling Stone, he commented on an album put out the previous year by the British band Humble Pie: "Safe As Yesterday Is, their first American release, proved that Humble Pie could be boring in lots of different ways. Here they were a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal-leaden shit-rock band with the loud and noisy parts beyond doubt. There were a couple of nice songs...and one monumental pile of refuse." He described the band's latest, self-titled release as "more of the same 27th-rate heavy metal crap."[55] In a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's Kingdom Come in the May 1971 Creem, Saunders wrote, "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book."[56] Creem critic Lester Bangs is credited with popularizing the term via his early 1970s essays on bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.[57] Through the decade, heavy metal was used by certain critics as a virtually automatic putdown. In 1979, lead New York Times popular music critic John Rockwell described what he called "heavy-metal rock" as "brutally aggressive music played mostly for minds clouded by drugs,"[58] and, in a different article, as "a crude exaggeration of rock basics that appeals to white teenagers."[59] The terms "heavy metal" and "hard rock" have often been used interchangeably, particularly in discussing bands of the 1970s, a period when the terms were largely synonymous.[60] For example, the 1983 Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll includes this passage: "known for its aggressive blues-based hard-rock style, Aerosmith was the top American heavy-metal band of the mid-Seventies."[61] Few would now characterize Aerosmith's classic sound, with its clear links to traditional rock and roll, as "heavy metal." [edit] History [edit] Antecedents: mid-1960s While heavy metal's quintessential guitar style, built around distortion-heavy riffs and power chords, traces its roots to the late 1950s instrumentals of American Link Wray,[62] the genre's direct lineage begins in the mid-1960s. American blues music was a major influence on the early British rockers of the era. Bands like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds developed blues-rock by recording covers of many classic blues songs, often speeding up the tempos. As they experimented with the music, the UK blues-based bands—and the U.S. acts they influenced in turn—developed what would become the hallmarks of heavy metal, in particular, the loud, distorted guitar sound.[14] The Kinks played a major role in popularizing this sound with their 1964 hit "You Really Got Me."[63] A significant contributor to the emerging guitar sound was the feedback facilitated by the new generation of amplifiers. In addition to The Kinks' Dave Davies, other guitarists such as The Who's Pete Townshend and the Tridents' Jeff Beck were experimenting with feedback.[64] Where the blues-rock drumming style started out largely as simple shuffle beats on small kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex, and amplified approach to match and be heard against the increasingly loud guitar.[65] Vocalists similarly modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylized and dramatic. In terms of sheer volume, especially in live performance, The Who's "bigger-louder-wall-of-Marshalls" approach was seminal.[66] Simultaneous advances in amplification and recording technology made it possible to successfully capture the power of this heavier approach on record. The combination of blues-rock with psychedelic rock formed much of the original basis for heavy metal.[67] One of the most influential bands in forging the merger of genres was the power trio Cream, who derived a massive, heavy sound from unison riffing between guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce, as well as Ginger Baker's double bass drumming.[68] Their first two LPs, Fresh Cream (1966) and Disraeli Gears (1967), are regarded as essential prototypes for the future style. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album, Are You Experienced (1967), was also highly influential. Hendrix's virtuosic technique would be emulated by many metal guitarists and the album's most successful single, "Purple Haze," is identified by some as the first heavy metal hit.[14] [edit] Origins: late 1960s and early 1970s In 1968, the sound that would become known as heavy metal began to coalesce. That January, the San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a cover of Eddie Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues," from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum, that many consider the first true heavy metal recording.[69] The same month, Steppenwolf released its self-titled debut album, including "Born to Be Wild," with its "heavy metal" lyric. In July, another two epochal records came out: The Yardbirds' "Think About It"—B-side of the band's last single—with a performance by guitarist Jimmy Page anticipating the metal sound he would soon make famous; and Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, with its 17-minute-long title track, a prime candidate for first-ever heavy metal album. In August, The Beatles' single version of "Revolution," with its redlined guitar and drum sound, set new standards for distortion in a top-selling context. The Jeff Beck Group, whose leader had preceded Page as The Yardbirds' guitarist, released its debut record that same month: Truth featured some of the "most molten, barbed, downright funny noises of all time," breaking ground for generations of metal ax-slingers.[70] In October, Page's new band, Led Zeppelin, made its live debut. In November, Love Sculpture, with guitarist Dave Edmunds, put out Blues Helping, featuring a pounding, aggressive version of Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance." The Beatles' so-called White Album, which also came out that month, included "Helter Skelter," then one of the heaviest-sounding songs ever released by a major band.[71] The Pretty Things' rock opera S.F. Sorrow, released in December, featured "proto heavy metal" songs such as "Old Man Going."[72] Led Zeppelin performing in June 1969 for the French TV show Tous en scène In January 1969, Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album was released and reached number 10 on the Billboard album chart. In July, Zeppelin and a power trio with a Cream-inspired, but cruder sound, Grand Funk Railroad, played the Atlanta Pop Festival. That same month, another Cream-rooted trio led by Leslie West released Mountain, an album filled with heavy blues-rock guitar and roaring vocals. In August, the group—now itself dubbed Mountain—played an hour-long set at the Woodstock Festival.[73] Grand Funk's debut album, On Time, also came out that month. In the fall, Led Zeppelin II went to number 1 and the album's single "Whole Lotta Love" hit number 4 on the Billboard pop chart. The metal revolution was under way. "Whole Lotta Love" Play sound Sample of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin, from Led Zeppelin II (1969). The heavy riff-based song, using lyrics culled from blues songwriter Willie Dixon, reached number four on the Billboard charts.[74] Problems listening to this file? See media help. Led Zeppelin defined central aspects of the emerging genre, with Page's highly distorted guitar style and singer Robert Plant's dramatic, wailing vocals.[75] Other bands, with a more consistently heavy, "purely" metal sound, would prove equally important in codifying the genre. The 1970 releases by Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath and Paranoid) and Deep Purple (In Rock) were crucial in this regard.[65] Black Sabbath had developed a particularly heavy sound in part due to an industrial accident guitarist Tony Iommi suffered before cofounding the band. Unable to play normally, Iommi had to tune his guitar down for easier fretting and rely on power chords with their relatively simple fingering.[76] Deep Purple had fluctuated between styles in its early years, but by 1969 vocalist Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had led the band toward the developing heavy metal style.[77] In 1970, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple scored major UK chart hits with "Paranoid" and "Black Night," respectively. That same year, three other British bands released debut albums in a heavy metal mode: Uriah Heep with Very 'eavy... Very 'umble, UFO with UFO 1, and Black Widow with Sacrifice. Wishbone Ash, though not commonly identified as metal, introduced a dual-lead/rhythm-guitar style that many metal bands of the following generation would adopt. Budgie brought the new metal sound into a power trio context. The occult lyrics and imagery employed by Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, and Black Widow would prove particularly influential; Led Zeppelin also began foregrounding such elements with its fourth album, released in 1971. Tony Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath onstage in January 1973 On the other side of the Atlantic, the trend-setting group was Grand Funk Railroad, "the most commercially successful American heavy-metal band from 1970 until they disbanded in 1976, [they] established the Seventies success formula: continuous touring."[78] Other bands identified with metal emerged in the U.S., such as Dust (first LP in 1971), Blue Öyster Cult (1972), and Kiss (1974). In Germany, the Scorpions debuted with Lonesome Crow in 1972. Blackmore, who had emerged as a virtuoso soloist with Deep Purple's Machine Head (1972), quit the group in 1975 to form Rainbow. These bands also built audiences via constant touring and increasingly elaborate stage shows.[65] As described above, there are arguments about whether these and other early bands truly qualify as "heavy metal" or simply as "hard rock." Those closer to the music's blues roots or placing greater emphasis on melody are now commonly ascribed the latter label. AC/DC, which debuted with High Voltage in 1975, is a prime example. The 1983 Rolling Stone encyclopedia entry begins, "Australian heavy-metal band AC/DC..."[79] Rock historian Clinton Walker writes, "Calling AC/DC a heavy metal band in the seventies was as inaccurate as it is today.... [They] were a rock'n'roll band that just happened to be heavy enough for metal."[80] The issue is not only one of shifting definitions, but also a persistent distinction between musical style and audience identification: Ian Christe describes how the band "became the stepping-stone that led huge numbers of hard rock fans into heavy metal perdition."[81] In certain cases, there is little debate. After Black Sabbath, the next major example is Britain's Judas Priest, which debuted with Rocka Rolla in 1974. In Christe's description, Black Sabbath's audience was...left to scavenge for sounds with similar impact. By the mid-1970s, heavy metal aesthetic could be spotted, like a mythical beast, in the moody bass and complex dual guitars of Thin Lizzy, in the stagecraft of Alice Cooper, in the sizzling guitar and showy vocals of Queen, and in the thundering medieval questions of Rainbow.... Judas Priest arrived to unify and amplify these diverse highlights from hard rock's sonic palette. For the first time, heavy metal became a true genre unto itself.[82] Though Judas Priest did not have a top 40 album in the U.S. until 1980, for many it was the definitive post-Sabbath heavy metal band; its twin-guitar attack, featuring rapid tempos and a nonbluesy, more cleanly metallic sound, was a major influence on later acts.[83] While heavy metal was growing in popularity, most critics were not enamored of the music. Objections were raised to metal's adoption of visual spectacle and other trappings of commercial artifice,[84] but the main offense was its perceived musical and lyrical vacuity: reviewing a Black Sabbath album in the early 1970s, leading critic Robert Christgau described it as "dull and decadent...dim-witted, amoral exploitation."[85] [edit] Mainstream: late 1970s and 1980s Iron Maiden, one of the central bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s as a reaction against contemporary social conditions as well as what was perceived as the overindulgent, overproduced rock music of the time, including heavy metal. Sales of heavy metal records declined sharply in the late 1970s in the face of punk, disco, and more mainstream rock.[84] With the major labels fixated on punk, many newer British heavy metal bands were inspired by the movement's aggressive, high-energy sound and "lo-fi", do it yourself ethos. Underground metal bands began putting out cheaply recorded releases independently to small, devoted audiences.[86] Motörhead, founded in 1975, was the first important band to straddle the punk/metal divide. With the explosion of punk in 1977, others followed. British music papers such as the NME and Sounds took notice, with Sounds writer Geoff Barton christening the movement the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal."[87] NWOBHM bands including Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard reenergized the heavy metal genre. Following the lead set by Judas Priest and Motörhead, they toughened up the sound, reduced its blues elements, and emphasized increasingly fast tempos.[88] In 1980, NWOBHM broke into the mainstream, as albums by Iron Maiden and Saxon, as well as Motörhead, reached the British top 10. Though less commercially successful, other NWOBHM bands such as Venom and Diamond Head would have a significant influence on metal's development.[89] In 1981, Motörhead became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the UK charts with No Sleep 'til Hammersmith. The first generation of metal bands was ceding the limelight. Deep Purple had broken up soon after Blackmore's departure in 1975, and Led Zeppelin broke up following drummer John Bonham's death in 1980. Black Sabbath was routinely upstaged in concert by its opening act, the Los Angeles band Van Halen.[90] Eddie Van Halen established himself as one of the leading metal guitar virtuosos of the era—his solo on "Eruption," from the band's self-titled 1978 album, is considered a milestone.[91] Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen also became famed virtuosos, associated with what would be known as the neoclassical metal style. The adoption of classical elements had been spearheaded by Blackmore and the Scorpions' Uli Jon Roth; this next generation progressed to occasionally using classical nylon-stringed guitars, as Rhoads does on "Dee" from former Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne's first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz (1980). "Purgatory" Play sound Sample of "Purgatory" by Iron Maiden, from the album Killers (1981). The early Iron Maiden sound was a mix of punk rock speed and heavy metal guitar work typical of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Problems listening to this file? See media help. "Hot for Teacher" Play sound Sample of "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen, from the album 1984 (1984). This sample demonstrates their sound's similarity to the glam metal style. Problems listening to this file? See media help. Inspired by Van Halen's success, a metal scene began to develop in Southern California during the late 1970s. Based around the clubs of L.A.'s Sunset Strip, bands such as Quiet Riot, Ratt, Mötley Crüe, and W.A.S.P. were influenced by traditional heavy metal of the earlier 1970s[92] and incorporated the theatrics (and sometimes makeup) of glam rock acts such as Alice Cooper and Kiss.[93] The lyrics of these glam metal bands characteristically emphasized hedonism and wild behavior. Musically, the style was distinguished by rapid-fire shred guitar solos, anthemic choruses, and a relatively pop-oriented melodic approach. The glam metal movement—along with similarly styled acts such as New York's Twisted Sister—became a major force in metal and the wider spectrum of rock music. In the wake of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and Judas Priest's breakthrough British Steel (1980), heavy metal became increasingly popular in the early 1980s. Many metal artists benefited from the exposure they received on MTV, which began airing in 1981—sales often soared if a band's videos screened on the channel.[94] Def Leppard's videos for Pyromania (1983) made them superstars in America and Quiet Riot became the first domestic heavy metal band to top the Billboard chart with Metal Health (1983). One of the seminal events in metal's growing popularity was the 1983 US Festival in California, where the "heavy metal day" featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, and others drew the largest audiences of the three-day event.[95] Between 1983 and 1984, heavy metal went from an 8 percent to a 20 percent share of all recordings sold in the U.S.[96] Several major professional magazines devoted to the genre were launched, including Kerrang! (in 1981) and Metal Hammer (in 1984), as well as a host of fan journals. In 1985, Billboard declared, "Metal has broadened its audience base. Metal music is no longer the exclusive domain of male teenagers. The metal audience has become older (college-aged), younger (pre-teen), and more female."[97] By the mid-1980s, glam metal was a dominant presence on the U.S. charts, music television, and the arena concert circuit. New bands such as L.A.'s Warrant and acts from the East Coast like Poison and Cinderella became major draws, while Mötley Crüe and Ratt remained very popular. Bridging the stylistic gap between hard rock and glam metal, New Jersey's Bon Jovi became enormously successful with its third album, Slippery When Wet (1986). The similarly styled Swedish band Europe became international stars with the The Final Countdown (1986). Its title track hit number 1 in 25 countries.[98] In 1987, MTV launched a show, Headbanger's Ball, devoted exclusively to heavy metal videos. However, the metal audience had begun to factionalize, with those in many underground metal scenes favoring more extreme sounds and disparaging the popular style as "lite metal" or "hair metal."[99] One band that reached diverse audiences was Guns N' Roses. In contrast to their glam metal contemporaries in L.A., they were seen as much rawer and more dangerous. With the release of their chart-topping Appetite for Destruction (1987), they "recharged and almost single-handedly sustained the Sunset Strip sleaze system for several years."[100] The following year, Jane's Addiction emerged from the same L.A. hard-rock club scene with its major label debut, Nothing's Shocking. Reviewing the album, Rolling Stone declared, "as much as any band in existence, Jane's Addiction is the true heir to Led Zeppelin."[101] The group was one of the first to be identified with the "alternative metal" trend that would come to the fore in the next decade. Meanwhile, new bands such as New York's Winger and New Jersey's Skid Row sustained the popularity of the glam metal style.[102] [edit] Underground metal: 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s Many subgenres of heavy metal developed outside of the commercial mainstream during the 1980s.[103] Several attempts have been made to map the complex world of underground metal, most notably by the editors of Allmusic, as well as critic Garry Sharpe-Young. Sharpe-Young's multivolume metal encyclopedia separates the underground into five major categories: thrash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal, and the related subgenres of doom and gothic metal. [edit] Thrash metal For more details on this topic, see Thrash metal. Thrash metal band Slayer performing in 2007 Thrash metal emerged in the early 1980s under the influence of hardcore punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal,[104] particularly songs in the revved-up style known as speed metal. The movement began in the United States, with the leading scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sound developed by thrash groups was faster and more aggressive than that of the original metal bands and their glam metal successors.[104] Low-register guitar riffs are typically overlaid with shredding leads. Lyrics often express nihilistic views or deal with social issues using visceral, gory language. Thrash has been described as a form of "urban blight music" and "a palefaced cousin of rap."[105] "Angel of Death" Play sound Slayer's "Angel of Death," from Reign in Blood (1986), which features the fast, technically complex musicianship typical of thrash metal Problems listening to this file? See media help. The subgenre was popularized by the "Big Four of Thrash": Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer.[106] Three German bands, Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction, played a central role in bringing the style to Europe. Others, including San Francisco's Testament and Exodus, New Jersey's Overkill, and Brazil's Sepultura, also had a significant impact. While thrash began as an underground scene, and remained largely that for almost a decade, the leading bands in the movement began to reach a wider audience. Metallica brought the sound into the top 40 of the Billboard album chart in 1986 with Master of Puppets; two years later, the band's ...And Justice for All hit number 6, while Megadeth and Anthrax had top 40 records.[107] Though less commercially successful than the rest of the Big Four, Slayer released one of the genre's definitive records: Reign in Blood (1986) was described by Kerrang! as the "heaviest album of all time."[108] Two decades later, Metal Hammer named it the best album of the preceding twenty years.[109] Slayer attracted a following among far-right skinheads, and accusations of promoting violence and Nazi themes have dogged the band.[110] In the early 1990s, thrash achieved breakout success, challenging and redefining the metal mainstream.[111] Metallica's self-titled 1991 album topped the Billboard chart, Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction (1992) hit number 2, Anthrax and Slayer cracked the top 10, and albums by regional bands such as Testament and Sepultura entered the top 100. [edit] Death metal For more details on this topic, see Death metal. Death's Chuck Schuldiner, "widely recognized as the father of death metal"[112] Thrash soon began to evolve and split into more extreme metal genres. "Slayer's music was directly responsible for the rise of death metal," according to MTV News.[113] The NWOBHM band Venom was also an important progenitor. The death metal movement in both North America and Europe adopted and emphasized the elements of blasphemy and diabolism employed by such acts. Florida's Death and the Bay Area's Possessed are recognized as seminal bands in the style. Both groups have been credited with inspiring the subgenre's name, the latter via its 1984 demo Death Metal and the song "Death Metal," from its 1985 debut album Seven Churches (1985). Death metal utilizes the speed and aggression of both thrash and hardcore, fused with lyrics preoccupied with Z-grade slasher movie violence and Satanism.[114] Death metal vocals are typically bleak, involving guttural "death growls," high-pitched screaming, the "death rasp,"[115] and other uncommon techniques.[116] Complementing the deep, aggressive vocal style are downtuned, highly distorted guitars[114][115] and extremely fast percussion, often with rapid double bass drumming and "wall of sound"–style blast beats. Frequent tempo and time signature changes and syncopation are also typical. "Suffocation" Play sound "Suffocation" by Obituary from the album Slowly We Rot (1989) Problems listening to this file? See media help. Death metal, like thrash metal, generally rejects the theatrics of earlier metal styles, opting instead for an everyday look of ripped jeans and plain leather jackets.[117] One major exception to this rule was Deicide's Glen Benton, who branded an inverted cross on his forehead and wore armor on stage. Morbid Angel adopted neo-fascist imagery.[117] These two bands, along with Death and Obituary, were leaders of the major death metal scene that emerged in Florida in the mid-1980s. In the UK, the related style of grindcore, led by bands such as Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, emerged out of the anarcho-punk movement.[114] A large Scandinavian death metal scene, with bands such as Sweden's Entombed and Dismember, began to develop as well. Out of this evolved a melodic death metal sound, typified by Swedish bands such as In Flames and Dark Tranquillity and Finland's Children of Bodom and Kalmah. [edit] Black metal For more details on this topic, see Black metal. Photo of the burned ruins of Fantoft stave church depicted on Burzum's 1992 EP Aske The first wave of black metal emerged in Europe in the early and mid-1980s, led by Britain's Venom, Denmark's Mercyful Fate, Switzerland's Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, and Sweden's Bathory. By the late 1980s, Norwegian bands such as Mayhem and Burzum were heading a second wave.[118] Black metal varies considerably in style and production quality, although most bands emphasize shrieked and growled vocals, highly distorted guitars frequently played with rapid tremolo picking, a "dark" atmosphere[116] and intentionally lo-fi production, with ambient noise and background hiss.[119] Satanic themes are common in black metal, though many bands take inspiration from ancient paganism, promoting a return to pre-Christian values.[120] Numerous black metal bands also "experiment with sounds from all possible forms of metal, folk, classical music, electronica and avant-garde."[115] Darkthrone drummer Fenriz explains, "It had something to do with production, lyrics, the way they dressed and a commitment to making ugly, raw, grim stuff. There wasn't a generic sound."[121] By 1990, Mayhem was regularly wearing corpsepaint; many other black metal acts also adopted the look. Bathory inspired the Viking metal and folk metal movements and Immortal brought blast beats to the fore. Some bands in the Scandinavian black metal scene became associated with considerable violence in the early 1990s,[122] with Mayhem and Burzum linked to church burnings. Growing commercial hype around death metal generated a backlash; beginning in Norway, much of the Scandinavian metal underground shifted to support a black metal scene that resisted being co-opted by the commercial metal industry.[123] According to former Gorgoroth vocalist Gaahl, "Black Metal was never meant to reach an audience.... [We] had a common enemy which was, of course, Christianity, socialism and everything that democracy stands for."[121] "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" Play sound The title track of Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (1994) Problems listening to this file? See media help. By 1992, black metal scenes had begun to emerge in areas outside Scandinavia, including Germany, France, and Poland.[124] The 1993 murder of Mayhem's Euronymous by Burzum's Varg Vikernes provoked intensive media coverage.[121] Around 1996, when many in the scene felt the genre was stagnating,[125] several key bands, including Burzum and Finland's Beherit, moved toward an ambient style, while symphonic black metal was explored by Sweden's Tiamat and Switzerland's Samael.[126] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Norway's Dimmu Borgir brought black metal closer to the mainstream,[127] as did Cradle of Filth, which Metal Hammer calls England's most successful metal band since Iron Maiden.[128] Critically lauded contemporary acts include Sweden's traditionalist Watain,[129] France's more experimental Deathspell Omega,[130] and America's one-man Xasthur.[131] [edit] Power metal For more details on this topic, see Power metal. Swedish power metal band HammerFall after a concert in Milan, Italy, in 2005 During the late 1980s, the power metal scene came together largely in reaction to the harshness of death and black metal.[132] Though a relatively underground style in North America, it enjoys wide popularity in Europe, Japan, and South America. Power metal focuses on upbeat, epic melodies and themes that "appeal to the listener's sense of valor and loveliness."[133] The prototype for the sound was established in the mid- to late 1980s by Germany's Helloween, which combined the power riffs, melodic approach, and high-pitched, "clean" singing style of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden with thrash's speed and energy, "crystalliz[ing] the sonic ingredients of what is now known as power metal."[134] New York's Manowar and Virgin Steele were pioneering American bands. Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force (1984) was crucial in popularizing the ultrafast electric guitar style known as "shredding" as well as the merger of metal with classical music elements, developments that have strongly influenced power metal. "Dark Avenger" Play sound Manowar's "Dark Avenger," from Battle Hymns (1982) Problems listening to this file? See media help. Traditional power metal bands like Sweden's HammerFall, England's DragonForce, and Florida's Iced Earth have a sound clearly indebted to the classic NWOBHM style.[135] Many power metal bands such as Florida's Kamelot, Finland's Nightwish, Italy's Rhapsody of Fire, and Russia's Catharsis feature a keyboard-based "symphonic" sound, sometimes employing orchestras and opera singers. Power metal has built a strong fanbase in Japan and South America, where bands like Brazil's Angra and Argentina's Rata Blanca are popular. Closely related to power metal is progressive metal, which adopts the complex compositional approach of bands like Rush and King Crimson. This style emerged in the United States in the early and mid-1980s, with innovators such as Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, and Dream Theater. The mix of the progressive and power metal sounds is typified by New Jersey's Symphony X, whose guitarist Michael Romeo is among the most recognized of latter-day shredders.[136] Bands such as Sweden's Meshuggah have taken progressive in even more experimental directions as part of the avant-garde metal movement. [edit] Doom and gothic metal For more details on this topic, see Doom metal and Gothic metal. Emerging in the mid-1980s with such bands as California's Saint Vitus, Maryland's The Obsessed, Chicago's Trouble, and Sweden's Candlemass, the doom metal movement rejected other metal styles' emphasis on speed, slowing its music to a crawl. Doom metal traces its roots to the lyrical themes and musical approach of early Black Sabbath[137] and Sabbath contemporaries such as Blue Cheer, Pentagram, and Black Widow.[138] The Melvins have also been a significant influence on doom metal and a number of its subgenres.[139] Doom emphasizes melody, melancholy tempos, and a sepulchral mood relative to many other varieties of metal.[140] "Country Doctor" Play sound "Country Doctor" from Crippled Lucifer (1998) by doom metal band Burning Witch Problems listening to this file? See media help. The 1991 release of Forest of Equilibrium, the debut album by UK band Cathedral, helped spark a new wave of doom metal. During the same period, the doom-death fusion style of British bands Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema gave rise to European gothic metal,[141] with its signature dual-vocalist arrangements, exemplified by Norway's Theatre of Tragedy and Tristania. New York's Type O Negative introduced an American take on the style.[142] Led by the Swedish band Therion's incorporation of classical elements, gothic metal in turn spawned a symphonic metal movement including Australia's Virgin Black, Finland's Nightwish, and the Netherlands' Within Temptation and After Forever. In the United States, sludge metal, mixing doom and hardcore, emerged in the late 1980s—Eyehategod and Crowbar were leaders in a major Louisiana sludge scene. Early in the next decade, California's Kyuss and Sleep, inspired by the earlier doom metal bands, spearheaded the rise of stoner metal,[143] while Seattle's Earth helped develop the drone metal subgenre.[144] The late 1990s saw new bands form such as the Los Angeles–based Goatsnake, with a classic stoner/doom sound, and Sunn O))), which crosses lines between doom, drone, and dark ambient metal—the New York Times has compared their sound to an "Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake".[140] [edit] New fusions: 1990s and early 2000s For more details on this topic, see Alternative metal and Nu metal. "Walk" Play sound "Walk" from Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power (1992), exemplifying the groove metal style Problems listening to this file? See media help. The era of metal's mainstream dominance in North America came to an end in the early 1990s with the emergence of Nirvana and other grunge bands, signaling the popular breakthrough of alternative rock.[145] Grunge acts were influenced by the heavy metal sound, but rejected the excesses of the more popular metal bands, such as their "flashy and virtuosic solos" and "appearance-driven" MTV orientation.[102] Glam metal fell out of favor due not only to the success of grunge,[146] but also because of the growing popularity of the more aggressive sound typified by Metallica and the post-thrash groove metal of Pantera and White Zombie.[147] A few new, unambiguously metal bands had commercial success during the first half of the decade—Pantera's Far Beyond Driven topped the Billboard chart in 1994—but, "In the dull eyes of the mainstream, metal was dead."[148] Some bands tried to adapt to the new musical landscape. Metallica revamped its image: the band members cut their hair and, in 1996, headlined the alternative musical festival Lollapalooza founded by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell. While this prompted a backlash among some long-time fans,[149] Metallica remained one of the most successful bands in the world into the new century.[150] Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, one of the most popular acts identified with alternative metal, performing in 1992 Like Jane's Addiction, many of the most popular early 1990s groups with roots in heavy metal fall under the umbrella term "alternative metal."[151] The label was applied to a wide spectrum of acts that fused metal with different styles, not all associated with alternative rock. Acts labeled alternative metal included the Seattle grunge scene's Alice in Chains and groups drawing on multiple styles: Faith No More combined their alternative rock sound with punk, funk, metal, and hip hop; Primus joined elements of funk, punk, thrash metal, and experimental music. Tool mixed metal and progressive rock; Ministry began incorporating metal into its industrial sound; and Marilyn Manson went down a similar route, while also employing shock effects of the sort popularized by Alice Cooper. Alternative metal artists, though they did not represent a cohesive scene, were united by their willingness to experiment with the metal genre and their rejection of glam metal aesthetics (with the stagecraft of Marilyn Manson and White Zombie—also identified with alt-metal—significant, if partial, exceptions).[151] Alternative metal's mix of styles and sounds represented "the colorful results of metal opening up to face the outside world."[152] In the mid- and late 1990s came a new wave of U.S. metal groups inspired by the alternative metal bands and their mix of genres.[153] Dubbed "nu metal", bands such as P.O.D., Korn, Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Flaw, Slipknot, and Linkin Park incorporated elements ranging from death metal to hip hop, often including DJs and rap-style vocals. The mix demonstrated that "pancultural metal could pay off."[154] Nu metal gained mainstream success through heavy MTV rotation and Ozzy Osbourne's 1996 introduction of Ozzfest, which led the media to talk of a resurgence of heavy metal.[155] That year, Korn released Life Is Peachy, the first nu metal album to reach the top 10; two years later, the band's Follow the Leader hit number 1. In 1999, Billboard noted that there were more than 500 specialty metal radio shows in the U.S., nearly three times as many as ten years before.[156] While nu metal was widely popular early in the 2000s, traditional metal fans did not fully embrace the style.[157] By early 2003, the movement had clearly passed its peak, though several nu metal acts, as well as bands with related styles, such as System of a Down, retained substantial followings.[158] [edit] Recent trends: mid–late 2000s "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr" Play sound "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr" from Trivium's metalcore album Ascendancy (2005) Problems listening to this file? See media help. Metalcore, an originally American hybrid of thrash metal and hardcore punk,[159] emerged as a commercial force in the mid-2000s. It is rooted in the crossover thrash style developed two decades earlier by bands such as Suicidal Tendencies, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and Stormtroopers of Death.[160] Through the 1990s, metalcore was mostly an underground phenomenon. By 2004, melodic metalcore—influenced as well by melodic death metal—was popular enough that Killswitch Engage's The End of Heartache and Shadows Fall's The War Within debuted at numbers 21 and 20, respectively, on the Billboard album chart.[161] Bullet for My Valentine, from Wales, broke into the top 5 in both the U.S. and British charts with Scream Aim Fire (2008). In recent years, metalcore bands have received prominent slots at Ozzfest and the Download Festival. Lamb of God, with a related blend of metal styles, hit the Billboard top 10 in 2006 with Sacrament. The success of these bands and others such as Trivium, which has released both metalcore and straight-ahead thrash albums, and Mastodon, which plays in a progressive/sludge style, has inspired claims of a metal revival in the United States, dubbed by some critics the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal."[162] Children of Bodom, performing at the 2007 Masters of Rock festival The term "retro-metal" has been applied to such bands as England's The Darkness[163] and Australia's Wolfmother.[164] The Darkness's Permission to Land (2003), described as an "eerily realistic simulation of '80s metal and '70s glam,"[163] topped the UK charts, going quintuple platinum. One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) reached number 11.[165] Wolfmother's self-titled 2005 debut album had "Deep Purple-ish organs," "Jimmy Page-worthy chordal riffing," and lead singer Andrew Stockdale howling "notes that Robert Plant can't reach anymore."[164] "Woman," a track from the album, won for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2007 Grammy Awards. Slayer's "Eyes of the Insane" won for Best Metal Performance in 2007; their "Final Six" won the same award in 2008. Metallica took the honor in 2009 for "My Apocalypse".[166] In continental Europe, especially Germany and Scandinavia, metal continues to be broadly popular. Well-established British acts such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden continue to have chart success on the continent, as do a range of local groups. In Germany, Western Europe's largest music market, several continental metal bands placed multiple albums in the top 20 of the charts between 2003 and 2008, including Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom, Norwegian symphonic extreme metal act Dimmu Borgir, and two power metal groups, Germany's Blind Guardian and Sweden's HammerFall.[167] The Swedish melodic death metal act In Flames took both Come Clarity (2006) and A Sense of Purpose (2008) to number 6 in Germany;[167] each album topped the Swedish charts.[168] [edit] See also Heavy metal portal * Heavy metal subgenres * List of heavy metal bands * List of metal festivals [edit] References 1. ^ Du Noyer (2003), p. 96; Weinstein (2000), pp. 11–13 2. ^ Weinstein (2000), p. 14 3. ^ Fast (2005), pp. 89–91; Weinstein (2000), pp. 7, 8, 23, 36, 103, 104 4. ^ a b Pareles, Jon. "Heavy Metal, Weighty Words" The New York Times, July 10, 1988. Retrieved on November 14, 2007. 5. ^ a b Weinstein (2000), p. 25 6. ^ a b c Weinstein (2000), p. 23 7. ^ Weinstein (2000), p. 26 8. ^ Cited in Weinstein (2000), p. 26 9. ^ a b c d Weinstein (2000), p. 24 10. ^ "Cliff Burton's Legendary Career: The King of Metal Bass" Bass Player, February 2005. Retrieved on November 13, 2007. 11. ^ Dawson, Michael. "Chris Adler: More Than Meets The Eye" Modern Drummer Online. Retrieved on November 13, 2007. 12. ^ a b Berry and Gianni (2003), p. 85 13. ^ Arnett (1996), p. 14 14. ^ a b c Walser (1993), p. 9 15. ^ Paul Sutcliffe quoted in Waksman, Steve. "Metal, Punk, and Motörhead: Generic Crossover in the Heart of the Punk Explosion". Echo: A Music-Centered Journal 6.2 (Fall 2004). Retrieved on November 15, 2007 16. ^ "Master of Rhythm: The Importance of Tone and Right-hand Technique," Guitar
Jun 5, 2009 11:38am
Nobody likes you now Yax. Fuck your guitar, too
Jun 5, 2009 11:38am
Stop pasting words
Jun 5, 2009 11:38am
Jun 5, 2009 11:39am
Guitar From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Semi-protected For other uses, see Guitar (disambiguation). Guitar A Di Giorgio classic guitar A Di Giorgio classic guitar String instrument Classification String instrument (plucked, nylon-stringed guitars usually played with fingerpicking, and steel-, etc. usually with a pick.) Hornbostel-Sachs Classification 321.322 (Composite chordophone) Playing range (a regularly tuned guitar) Related instruments * Bowed and plucked string instruments 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, eleven, twelve, thirteen and eighteen string guitars also exist. Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in flamenco, jazz, blues, country, mariachi, 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 1930s 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. There are many brands of guitars, but some commonly known brands are PRS, Gibson, Dean, Gretsch, Ibanez, Martin, Jackson, Schecter, and Fender. Contents * 1 History * 2 Types of guitar o 2.1 Acoustic guitars o 2.2 Electric guitars * 3 Guitar construction and components o 3.1 General o 3.2 Headstock o 3.3 Nut o 3.4 Fretboard o 3.5 Frets o 3.6 Truss rod o 3.7 Inlays o 3.8 Neck o 3.9 Neck joint or 'Heel' o 3.10 Strings o 3.11 Body (acoustic guitar) o 3.12 Body (electric guitar) o 3.13 Pickups o 3.14 Electronics o 3.15 Lining, Binding, and Purfling o 3.16 Bridge o 3.17 Pickguard o 3.18 Tremolo arm o 3.19 Guitar Strap o 3.20 Self-tuning guitars * 4 Tuning * 5 Guitar accessories o 5.1 Capotasto o 5.2 Slides o 5.3 Plectrum * 6 Notes * 7 See also * 8 External links History Main article: History of the classical guitar 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".[1] The term is used to refer to a number of such related instruments that were developed and used across Europe in the modern era.[2] Some types of guitars, which are themselves related to these European instruments, originated in the Americas. The ancestors of the European guitar can be traced back as much as 4000 thousand years to an Indo-European origin of stringed instruments then known in central Asia and India. For this reason guitars are distantly related to instruments such as the tanbur and setar, and the sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying the essential features of a guitar is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard.[3] The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare),[4] loaned from the medieval Andalusian Arabic qitara[5], itself derived from the Latin cithara, which in turn came from the earlier Greek word kithara,[6] a possible descendant of Old Persian sihtar.[7] Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument. The 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 Iberia in the 8th century.[8] 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.[9] By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the guitarra latina (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck.[10] The Spanish vihuela or "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its similarities, is often considered an important influence in the development 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 in Spain and Italy; 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. Meanwhile, the five string renassance guitar and the baroque guitar enjoyed popularity, especially in Italy and France, and indeed, most of Europe, from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Types of guitar The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric: Acoustic guitars 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' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española 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). 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. Main article: Ten-string guitar Portuguese guitar In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern. Main article: Portuguese guitar 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. Many variations are possible from the roughly classical-sized OO and Parlour to the large Dreadnought and Jumbo. 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 guitar has a large, deep, hollow body 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. Selmer-Maccaferri guitars are usually played by those who follow the style of Django Reinhardt. It is an unusual-looking instrument, distinguished by a fairly large body with squarish bouts, and either a "D"-shaped or longitudinal oval soundhole. The strings are gathered at the tail like an archtop guitar, but the top is flatter. It also has a wide fingerboard and slotted head like a nylon-string guitar. The loud volume and penetrating tone make it suitable for single-note soloing and it is frequently employed as a lead instrument in gypsy swing. 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 – called "square neck" – 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[citation needed]the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) – 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[citation needed] 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).[11] 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 Main article: Electric guitar 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), lighter (thinner) strings, 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. in 1982 Uli Jon Roth developed the "Sky Guitar", with a vastly extended amount of frets, which was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin. Roth's 7-string "Mighty Wing" guitar features an altogether 6-octave range. 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,[12] 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. Guitar construction and components 1. Headstock 2. Nut 3. Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners) 4. Frets 5. Truss rod 6. Inlays 7. Neck 8. Heel (acoustic) – Neckjoint (electric) 9. Body 10. Pickups 11. Electronics 12. Bridge 13. Pickguard 14. Back 15. Soundboard (top) 16. Body sides (ribs) 17. Sound hole, with Rosette inlay 18. Strings 19. Saddle 20. Fretboard (or Fingerboard) General 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. Headstock Main article: Headstock 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. Nut Main article: Nut (instrumental) 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. Fretboard Main article: Fingerboard 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 Main article: Fret 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 (21/12). 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.[13] Actual fret spacing does not use this exact value; the fret spacing on the fretboard was also done by trial and error (testing) method over the ages. 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. Truss rod Main article: Truss rod 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. However their necks are often reinforced with a strip of harder wood, such as an ebony strip running down the back of a cedar neck. There is no tension adjustment on this form of reinforcement. Inlays Main article: Inlay (guitar) 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. These usually appear on the odd numbered frets, but also on the 12th fret (the one octave mark) instead of the 11th and 13th frets. 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. Neck Main article: Neck (music) 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. Neck joint or 'Heel' See also: Set-in neck, Bolt-on neck, and Neck-through 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. Strings See also: Classical guitar strings 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. Body (acoustic guitar) See also: Sound box 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 sounds 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 3 mm 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. Body (electric guitar) See also: Solid body 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 Main article: Pickup (music) 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 magnet–coil 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. Electronics 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. Lining, Binding, and Purfling 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. Bridge Main article: Bridge (instrument) 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 – 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. Pickguard Main article: Pickguard 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. Tremolo arm Main article: Tremolo arm Many electric guitars are fitted with a vibrato and pitch bend device known as a "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two 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". The tremolo arm is common enough that there is a technical term, hard tail, for a guitar without one. Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato" by the naming 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. 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. Guitar Strap 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 Main article: Tuning Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, is often mistaken as the first of this kind, but was preceded by the Transperformance system by at least 20 years. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.[citation needed] [14] Tuning Main article: Guitar tuning 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. The most common tuning, known as "Standard Tuning," has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range – EADGBE. The pitches are as follows: String Scientific pitch Helmholtz pitch Interval from middle C Frequency first E4 e' major third above 329.63 Hz second B3 b minor second below 246.94 Hz third G3 g perfect fourth below 196.00 Hz fourth D3 d minor seventh below 146.83 Hz fifth A2 A minor tenth below 110 Hz sixth E2 E minor thirteenth below 82.41 Hz 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. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E B C C♯ D E♭ E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E F F♯ G D E♭ E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E F F♯ G A♭ A E F F♯ G A♭ A B♭ B C C♯ D E♭ E 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.[15] There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings – 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' down a whole tone. 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. – "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[citation needed]. 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. Guitar accessories Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar. Capotasto Main article: Capo 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. Slides Main article: Slide Guitar 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. Plectrum Main article: Guitar pick A variety of guitar picks A "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. 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. Notes 1. ^ Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 2. ^ Wade, Graham A Concise History of the Classic Guitar Mel Publications, 2001 3. ^ [A Brief History of the Guitar http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/BriefHistory.html] 4. ^ "Guitar Origins". http://www.guitarsite.com/newsletters/010625/18.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-11-11. 5. ^ Farmer, Henry George (1988), Historical facts for the Arabian Musical Influence, Ayer Publishing, 137, ISBN 040508496X 6. ^ 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 [1] 7. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=guitar&searchmode=none. Retrieved on 2007-09-21. 8. ^ 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. 9. ^ [Viking Art & Architecture http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/vikings/vikart.htm] 10. ^ [A Look At The History Of The Guitar http://www.thejazzfestival.net/showarticle?id=109580] 11. ^ http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/om23350.html 12. ^ The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars 13. ^ Mottola, R.M.. "Lutherie Info – Calculating Fret Positions". http://www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm. 14. ^ http://www.gibson.com/Products/DarkFire.aspx 15. ^ "One Pattern To Rule Them All". Between the Licks. 2008-04-13. http://betweenthelicks.com/jazz-theory/one-pattern-to-rule-them-all. Retrieved on 2008-07-02. See also Guitar portal * Classical guitar * List of guitarists * Electric guitar * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Fretless guitar * List of guitar manufacturers * List of compositions for guitar * Luthier * 3rd Bridge * Guitar solo * Guitar harmonics * Guitar effects * Guitar amplifier * Double-neck guitjo * Prepared guitar * Tablature * Tonewood * Stringed instrument tunings External links Find more about Guitar on Wikipedia's sister projects: Definitions from Wiktionary Textbooks from Wikibooks Quotations from Wikiquote Source texts from Wikisource Images and media from Commons News stories from Wikinews Learning resources from Wikiversity * The Guitar Family Tree * 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 – Web forum and online magazine about guitar. * Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music * http://www.guitar-insight.com * - Guitar Strap Sample Images * Fretbase - An Online Guitar Encyclopedia * The Guitar, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring many historic guitars from the Museum's collection v • d • e Guitars Guitars by String Number Four String (Tenor) · Six String · Seven String · Eight String · Ten String · Eleven String · Twelve String Guitars by Type Archtop · Classical · Multi String Classical · Steel String Acoustic · Baroque · Russian · Resonator (Dobro) · Semi Acoustic · Electric · Electric acoustic · Tailed bridge guitar Alternate Versions Bass guitar · Baritone guitar · Harp guitar · Double neck guitar · Pikasso guitar · Chitarra battente Other related topics Luthier · Vintage guitar · Jazz guitar · Guitar chord · Guitar harmonics · Prepared guitar · Electric Guitar Design · Guitar amplifier · History of the classical guitar Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar" Categories: Guitars Hidden categories: Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages | Articles containing Latin language text | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements from January 2009 | Articles with unsourced statements from December 2007 Views * Article * Discussion * View source * History Personal tools * Log in / create account Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article Search Interaction * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia * Donate to Wikipedia * Help Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Printable version * Permanent link * Cite this page Languages * Afrikaans * Alemannisch * Anglo-Saxon * العربية * Aragonés * Asturianu * Avañe'ẽ * Azərbaycan * Bamanankan * বাংলা * Bân-lâm-gú * Беларуская (тарашкевіца) * Bosanski * Български * Català * Česky * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * Frysk * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Hrvatski * Bahasa Indonesia * Иронау * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * Basa Jawa * Kalaallisut * ಕನ್ನಡ * ქართული * Latina * Latviešu * Lietuvių * Lojban * Magyar * Македонски * മലയാളം * مصرى * مَزِروني * Bahasa Melayu * Myanmasa * Nāhuatl * Nederlands * Nedersaksisch * 日本語 * Norsk (bokmål) * Norsk (nynorsk) * Nouormand * O'zbek * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Shqip * Sicilianu * Simple English * Slovenčina * Slovenščina * Српски / Srpski * Srpskohrvatski / Српскохрватски * Suomi * Svenska * Tagalog * தமிழ் * తెలుగు * ไทย * Türkçe * Українська * Vèneto * Tiếng Việt * 粵語 * 中文 Powered by MediaWiki Wikimedia Foundation * This page was last modified on 1 June 2009 at 16:22. * All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. 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