the listening room · no playing required
Before you learn an instrument it helps to know what it is for — what job it does in music, who made it sing, and the one sound that could only ever be this instrument. Bring your ears.
where you've heard it
iSome of that is simply practical. A guitar is portable — it goes to the campfire, the bus, the bedroom, the stage — and it is cheap enough to start on, which no other instrument of its range can say.
The rest is that it does two completely different jobs equally well. It can sit behind a singer, strumming chords and never asking for attention; or it can step forward and play the solo line everybody hums on the way home. And its voice stretches further than almost anything else: nylon strings picked with the fingers can whisper, and an electric guitar through a cranked amplifier can roar.
the players who shaped it
iiDid much to establish the classical guitar as a serious concert instrument.
A foundational figure of the Delta blues, whose guitar playing shaped later rock.
Expanded what an electric guitar could sound like, using feedback and effects as musical material.
Three players, three different instruments in all but name — a concert guitar, a country blues guitar and an electric one. Go and listen to a few minutes of each.
what to listen for
iiiPlay a chord on a piano and all the notes begin at exactly the same instant. A guitar cannot do that — the pick crosses the strings one after another, so the six notes arrive spread over about a twentieth of a second. Your ear still hears one chord. But it hears a chord that rolls, rather than one that lands like a block.
Fifty milliseconds is far too short to count — you will never hear six separate events. You hear one chord with a shimmer in it, and that shimmer is the sound of a guitar being played by a person.
where it came from
ivPlucked string instruments with a waisted body — that narrow middle you tuck over a knee — have existed for many centuries. The six-string guitar took the form you would recognise today during the 19th century.
Then, in the middle of the 20th century, came the solid-body electric guitar, and the instrument was suddenly loud enough to lead a band instead of accompanying one. Same six strings, same tuning, completely new job.
v and now — your turn
You have heard the thing that makes it a guitar. Now put your own hand on it — the beginner course starts with one finger and one string. And when you want to know why the frets crowd closer together as you climb, the maths is one door along.