They were fresh often acclimated as measure instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in primeval music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is bare plain and the Baroque guitar is mere ornate, with ivory or copse inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.

The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets http://www.guitarelectric.org the fretboard. Its grooves captain the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.