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The guitar of the sixteenth century, then called the guitarra or guiterre is known today as the Renaissance guitar or the four-course guitar. The instrument is much smaller than the modern instrument and was usually tuned to the same set of intervals as the modern guitar (there is occasionally a scordatura tuning where the fourth course is tuned down a whole step). Note that this is a treble instrument and realize that the notated pitches would not sound an octave lower as they do on our contemporary guitar. Though pitches were approximated at this time, a popular treatise of the period places the pitches of the guitar a perfect twelfth higher than where they are currently. The fourth course (pair of strings) of the instrument usually consisted of a pair of octaves.

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