Giannini is a Brazilian

musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

manufacturing company, based in

Salto, São Paulo Salto is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million ...

. Products currently manufactured by Giannini include

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

, steel-string acoustic, nylon-string acoustic and bass

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

s. Other string instruments include craviolas, cavaquinhos,

viola caipira The ''viola caipira'', often simply ''viola'', ( Portuguese for ''country guitar'') is a Brazilian ten-string guitar with five courses of strings arranged in pairs. It was introduced in the state of São Paulo, where it is widely played as the ...

s and mandolins. Giannini also manufactures

bowed string instrument Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to ...

s such as

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

cellos The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 ...

and

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

es, and strings for those instruments.

History

The company was founded in 1900 by Tranquillo Giannini (1876–1952), an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

immigrant with luthier talents. Their first industrial plant was located at Av. Sao Joao in the city of

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

. Today, Giannini's plant is located at Salto, a city in the state of

(not far from the capital). They currently produce nylon and steel stringed guitars,

craviola Paulinho Nogueira (Campinas, 8 October 1929 – São Paulo, 2 August 2003) was a Brazilian guitarist, composer and singer. Biography He was an eclectic composer, his influences ranging from bossa nova to Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach. Paulinho No ...

, cavaquinho, mandolin, violins, electric guitars and basses and some accessories such as guitar tuners and guitar strings.

Craviola

The Craviola, created by Giannini with Brazilian musician Paulinho Nogueira is one of the most notable guitars made by Giannini due to its unique shape and sound identity. It gained widespread visibility after it was used by

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...

's guitarist Jimmy Page. From September 1971 to June 1972, Page used a 12-string craviola, model GWSCRA12-P, mostly in Zeppelin's performances of "

Tangerine The tangerine is a type of citrus fruit that is orange in color. Its scientific name varies. It has been treated as a separate species under the name ''Citrus tangerina'' or ''Citrus'' × ''tangerina'', or treated as a variety of ''Citrus retic ...

", which was also first recorded using the same craviola. Page received two craviolas (one with six strings and the other, by his request, with twelve) from Giannini itself as gifts, while visiting his NGO at

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

. The Craviola also received an electric version with Wilkinson pickups. The guitar's wiring has one 3-position key for each of the pickups, which allow them to work with one coil, the other one, both as a humbucker or both separately as single coils, giving a wide range of possible timbres, aside from the regular 3-position key for alternating between both pickups.

Instruments

Current

Electric Guitars

* G-100 * G-101 * G-102

Bass

* GB-100 * GB-200 A * GB-205 A

Bowed

* GB-100 * GB-200 A * GB-205 A

Recorders

* Recorder Barroque (GFD 24B, GFD 314B) * Recorder German (GFD 313G, GFD 23G)

Ethnical

* Cavaquinho * Viola caipira * Mandolin

Catalog

Electric Guitars

* SuperSonic (AEO3, GG03, GSS-ECL) * Stratosonic (AE08, GG08) * Telesonic (AE02) * Craviola (GCRA-202 EL FM) * Diamond (Mirage Guitar, AE06, Apollo, GSH 350) * Gemini (AE04, GG04)

References

External links

Official website
{{Mandolin family instruments Companies based in São Paulo (state) Manufacturing companies established in 1900 1900 establishments in Brazil Guitar manufacturing companies Bass guitar manufacturing companies Musical instrument manufacturing companies of Brazil Brazilian brands Design companies established in 1900 Mandolin makers