The Spanish Fender Guitar vihuela or "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, commonly intentional the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in conventional with the current guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar.

Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or pitted bodies, and gain little total without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the hearten strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The thorough 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, original and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active.