THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR IN THE POPULAR MUSIC.

Usually in popular music in genres such as jazz, blues, rock, etc., outstanding guitarists playing electric guitar, however, throughout history, there have been great guitarists who decided on the acoustic guitar. Vittorio Camardese, Charlie Byrd and Ralph Towner are some of those guitarists.

VITTORIO CAMARDESE.

Vittorio (1956 - 2010) was an Italian guitarist and doctor with a boundless passion for music, guitar playing and jazz.

His musical education was self-taught, but he was the one who popularized one of the techniques that today is used by electric guitarists; tapping. This technique involves using the fingers of his right hand on the neck of the guitar, sounding notes.

Camardese artistic activity is poorly documented, is known primarily for his involvement in an interview "Chitarra Amore Mio" transmitted by Rai in 1965.

He became known for who invented the tapping. However he only popularized it, because this technic was used by the guitarist Roy Smeck in the 30s.

Years after, the tapping began to be used on electric guitar because its sound is much clearer than on an acoustic guitar.

CHARLIE BYRD.

Charlie Lee Byrd, Charlie Byrd was known as one of the best jazz guitarists of Americans, born in 1925 in the town of Suffolk (Virginia).

At a young age he moved to Chuck Tuck (Virginia), his father, who was also a musician (he played guitar and mandolin), he influenced his love of music, ten years took guitar lessons using the famous Sophocles method.

His style called "fingerstyle" (play with the fingertips and nails) which used along with wearing nylon strings on their guitars provided him a very distinctive sound.

In 1942 Charlie Byrd entered the institute, where he joined the school orchestra. The following year he was drafted into the army to participate in the Second World War, he was stationed in Paris until the end of the same in 1945, during his stay was part of a military band.

When he returned to United States he settled in New York, studied composition and jazz theory at the National Music School Harnett. In these formative years he decided to use a classical guitar instead of "steel guitar" in its early years. In 1950 he moved to Washington where he continued to study for a few years with Sophocles method used in the beginning, shortly after the Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia took it as student, he moved a while to Italy to continue his training. It was at this time in Europe where he saw live for the first time Django Reinhardt one of his biggest influences.

Byrd will who incites the interest of jazz musicians, especially the West Coast, for the "bossa nova". 

Charlie Byrd was active until his death in 1999.

RALPH TOWNER.

Ralph Towner was born in 1940 in Chehalis, Washington. It is an American musician, co-founder of Oregon, one of the most innovative and creative jazz groups of all time. Although his initial training was in the study of the tube, it is known primarily as a guitarist.

His mother was a piano teacher, his father played trumpet and other family members played an instrument or instruments well. Ralph and his siblings were developed in an intellectual and musical atmosphere. When I was 4 improvised on the piano listening to recordings of the time. His formal education in music began as a trumpeter, playing with bands of Dixieland, polka and swing at the age of seven years, becoming the youngest musician to have had the band from the city of Bend, Oregon. In 1958 he began his studies at the "Oregon University" graduating in 1963.

He then traveled to Vienna to study guitar, an instrument he discovered in the final year. In the Austrian capital he studied with Karl Scheit teacher, renowned guitarist, lutenist and educator, who independently joined forces with Andres Segovia to take the guitar to the concert halls and raise its status to a solo instrument and not only accompaniment.

He returned to the University of Oregon to study composition under the direction of master Homer Keller, then returned to Europe for a second year of guitar studies with the teacher Scheit. Back to the US, settling in New York in 1968 to pursue his career as a guitarist, pianist and composer.

Towner has made notable recordings of jazz, classical music, folk music, and world music.