THEHISTORYOFTHEGUITAR!

Around the same time that Torres designed his guitar in Spain, German immigrants in the United States were making guitars with X-braced tops It is thought that this unique style of the brace was first designed by Christian Frederick Martin, who built the first guitar that was used in the US in 1830. X-bracing is popularly used in steelstring guitars Steel-string guitars became more popular around the 1900s because there were able to produce a louder sound, but the tension from the strings was too much for the fan-braced guitars created by Torres. The Xbrace was able to handle the strain much more effectively.

At the end of the 19th century, Orville Gibson became to design archtop guitars that featured an oval sound hole He merged together the steel-string guitar with a cello-like body. Therefore, the bridge would exert no torque on the top, and only created pressure straight downward. This new design helped the top of the guitar to vibrate more freely and was much louder. In the 1920s, Lloyd Loar joined forces with Gibson and invented the archtop jazz guitar that has f-holes, cell-type tailpiece, and a floating bridge