A long time ago, we just had an instrument called a guitar. It wasn’t electric or acoustic, or classical, or anything. It had six strings and was made from some kind of wood. In retrospect, we’d probably call it a Spanish guitar. Since it was relatively easy to play compared to other instruments at the time, it gained popularity as people took to the seas and traveled the world. Soon after we have our first division in the guitar world - classical and flamenco. Builders started becoming more advanced in their design and with their selection of tone woods, building better and better instruments with clear, bell-like ringing tones. That started us on the path that would lead us to the classical nylon string guitar.

On the other side of things, we have the flamenco - people who didn’t need a better and better instrument. Think of them as punk rockers from a century or two past. Flamenco had dancers and singers and all kinds of stuff going on. They could use the less expensive cypress and sycamore wood, and as long as the fundamental note rang out, they didn’t have a need for sustain or anything else - drums and dancing would be covering it up, anyway. After that, we have steel-string guitars. There is some dispute as to who invented them and where in the world they came from, but let’s just say it really took off around the turn of the century in the United States. It was loud, rugged, and sounded great for cowboys sitting around a campfire. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, what can we do with our forgotten forefather of modern guitar in the era of electricity? Lots, if we only rescue it from the stuffy recital hall. Joe Marlow is the guitarist for the South Carolina based The Tips, and he plays a nylon string with a slide going into a gritty sounding tube amp. He says, “The tube amp idea basically just happened. I’ve played standard electrics for years, but started developing a funky finger style that didn’t translate well on steel strings. I was leaving a pile of shredded fingernails all over the stage. Then I heard a recording of Jerry Reed playing what sounded like an amplified gut-string inside a metal trash can being dragged down a gravel road behind an old Ford truck.” On tour at the time in Nashville, he hit a local shop and plugged a classical guitar with a pickup into a small tube combo and found his sound. He finds the nylon strings really grab the slide, and with a shorter sustain he gets a vocal-like sound that he wasn’t able to attain on any other guitar. In addition to Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins was also a huge fan of the nylon string guitar and used it on a variety of recordings, spanning genres. If you think it’s only hillbillies using these guitars, think again - TLC’s “Un-Pretty”, The Pharcyde’s “Runnin’ Away” and Afroman’s “Colt 45” all feature classical guitar. That's about as far from country and western as you can get.

The only thing classical about the nylon string acoustic guitar is the name. Even with advances in digital recording, we still have just one truth - nothing can change the first, fundamental tone you start with. Any guitarist with more than one electric guitar probably has one single coil pickup model and one with humbuckers. No tool works for every job, and acoustic guitars are the same way. Compared to a steel string acoustic, there is almost no tension pulling on the neck, which allows the whole guitar to ring out. A classical guitar’s attack and texture can add a presence to a recording or live show that no other instrument can. With a certain lack of visibility, whether real or perceived, it could become your secret weapon. Pick one up without any preconceived notions and do whatever you like with it. The less class, the better.