{{Short description|Type of guitar}} thumb|A Viennese "Schrammel guitar."The '''contraguitar''' or '''Schrammel guitar''' is a type of guitar developed in Vienna in the mid-19th century. In addition to the usual guitar neck with six strings and a fretboard, it has a second, fretless neck with up to nine bass strings. Customarily these additional strings are tuned from E-flat downwards. The lowest string on the 15-string contraguitar is usually tuned to G.
Viennese instrument maker Johann Gottfried Scherzer developed the instrument after 1848, improving on earlier, unfinished efforts by Johann Georg Stauffer (1778{{ndash}}1853), the master from whom Scherzer had learned his craft.
The contraguitar is heard almost exclusively in Viennese folk music, especially Schrammelmusik. Occasionally it is also used in Alpine folk music.
==References== {{no footnotes|date=July 2017}} {{Reflist|30em}}
==Bibliography== * [http://permalink.obvsg.at/AC03221750 "Die Kontragitarre in Wien"] (diploma thesis) by Reinhard Kopschar * [http://www.stauffer-and-co.com/ ''Stauffer & Co.: The Viennese guitar of the 19th Century''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200220225442/http://stauffer-and-co.com/ |date=2020-02-20 }} (book & CD) by Erik Pierre Hofmann, Pascal Mougin, and Stefan Hackl. {{ISBN|9782953886801}}
==See also== *Acoustic guitar *Combolin *Harp guitar *Multi-neck guitar *Schrammelmusik
Category:Guitar family instruments