A Brief History of the Guitar
Although we tend to think of the guitar as a contemporary instrument, the roots of guitar playing may in fact stretch back thousands of years. Indeed, the word “guitar” originally comes from a Greek word closely related to the term for “lyre.”
Breaking With Tradition
As a stringed instrument, in fact, the lyre was used in Ancient Greece in much the same way that we use guitars today: For the Ancient Greeks, music from the lyre was often used to accompany recitations of poetry. This close relationship between music and “sung” speech gives us the term “lyric poetry” or “lyrics.” As it turns out, Bob Dylan may have felt right at home in the age of Socrates.
The Birth of the Modern Guitar
What we know of as the modern version of the acoustic guitar primarily evolved in Spain during the 19th Century. These gut-stringed instruments were central to the development of Spanish popular music forms like Flamenco. Musical forms such as these were developed by the Roma or Gypsy populations that lived within southern regions of the country.
In many respects, however, the sound of the guitar as we know it in our own time branched out of two philosophical directions in the 20th Century. On one hand, early jazz and blues players like Django Reinhardt and Robert Johnson turned the guitar indelibly into a popular instrument played for mass entertainment.
How Pioneering Guitarists Changed the World
These players would have an immense influence on rock guitarists who utilized developments in electric guitar-making such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton; in turn, players like Hendrix and Clapton inspired the revolutionary sounds of guitarists like Eddie Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
On the other hand, guitarists like Andres Segovia in Spain and John Williams in the United Kingdom helped to turn Spanish-style guitar playing from the Roma tradition into a high art during much of the same time period. While rooted in Gypsy musical traditions, “classical” guitar playing has now gained a serious foothold in the upper echelons of the traditional concert music world.
Remarkably, this humble and folksy instrument changed the course of musical history in the 20th Century. Without it, generations of important musical works would be lost. For an earthy instrument rooted in poetic customs, that would appear to be something of a proper outcome. Players like Django Reinhardt wouldn’t have had it any other way.
