Giant Portuguese Guitar

Even guitar greats like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton may have difficulty making music from this Guitar.
Created by Jose Amorim, this traditional curved Portuguese Guitar is 16-metres long, eight-metres wide and weighs four tonnes.

Located in Porto, it is built from five different types of wood, took nine months to construct and is 20 times bigger than a standard instrument.
“In my workshop we often talk about what goes on inside the instrument, especially the acoustic phenomenon that occur there. Given that you can’t shrink people so they can get inside the instrument – I’ve made the biggest guitar in the world,” says Amorim.
Since the master craftsman decided to build the giant instrument to help people better understand acoustics, he has also installed various sound analysis equipment inside so that visitors and admirers can understand the science which goes into building a guitar.
Amorim explains: “The visitors are quite surprised at being able to get inside a real guitar and the computers and microphones are there to help them understand how it works.”
The Portuguese guitar which this giant instrument is based upon is a plucked string instrument with twelve steel strings, strung in six courses comprising two strings each.