Articles
The Infant Paganini: The Story of Giulio Regondi
Around 1830, audiences in Paris came to see a boy of seven or eight who played the guitar like a grown man.
It was a time when the guitar was fashionable, and its greatest maste...
Andrés Segovia: The Man Who Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer
Andrés Segovia’s father broke two, perhaps three guitars.
He did it not out of rage, but out of a belief shared by almost all of Spain at the end of the nineteenth century: the...
Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya: The Duet of a Lifetime
How Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya grew close remains a mystery: their first conversation, their first glance, the moment two separate careers began to become one.
It all began...
The Piece Without an Author: The Mystery of the “Spanish Romance”
If you have ever learned classical guitar, chances are you have played it.
It opens with a slow arpeggio in E minor. The thumb plays the bass, while the other fingers unfold the...
The Man at the Crossroads: The Mystery of Robert Johnson
In Mississippi, in the early 1930s, a young man with a guitar kept hanging around the blues musicians of the Delta.
He wanted to play with them. They weren’t so keen to let him....
The Cardboard Guitar: How One Experiment Revealed the Secret of the Classical Guitar
In 1862, in Seville, a Spanish guitar maker built an instrument that should not have worked.
Its back and sides were not made of rosewood, maple, or cypress. They were made of p...
When Rock Burned the Rules
June 18, 1967.
On the stage of the Monterey Pop Festival, thousands of people watched a young man who seemed like he had come not only to play the guitar.
It was Jimi Hendrix...
The Story of “Lucille” – The Guitar B.B. King Went Back Into the Flames For
Few guitars in music history have a name as famous as “Lucille.” For millions of blues fans, the name is inseparable from B.B. King and his unmistakable sound.
But the story beh...
The Electric Revolution: How Jimi Hendrix Changed Guitar Forever
Jimi Hendrix didn't just play the guitar; he reinvented it. In the 1960s, when electric guitars were still finding their voice, Hendrix showed the world what was possible. His use...
B.B. King: The Soul of the Blues
B.B. King's signature sound came from his Gibson ES-355, which he affectionately named "Lucille." But more than the instrument, it was his touch—his vibrato, his phrasing, his emot...
Led Zeppelin's Sound: The Jimmy Page Blueprint
Jimmy Page didn't just play in Led Zeppelin—he architected their sound. As guitarist and producer, Page shaped every detail, from the fuzzy riffs of "Black Dog" to the acoustic ref...