Prelude
ZIP‑A‑DEE‑DOO‑DAH, YIPEE‑KI‑AY AND YABA‑DABA‑DOO. Halloo again, fine people, here we are once more. Time flies or at least our perception of it does. Two thirds of 2026 is already done and dusted, meaning that it’s the long run down into deepest and darkest winter and the carolling capers of customary Christmas‑time. Sorry to break the news to you this early but it is coming and you know that you can’t avoid or prevent the silly season that concludes each and every year. Oh well, if one can’t beat it, one might as well embrace it. Happy Holidays everyone!
Peace & Love in our time? Yes please. When, exactly? Erm… Never. Not gonna happen. What is wrong with these desperately deluded, depraved, demented despots? Us ordinary everyday folks are expected to put up, shut up and be content with our lot, pay our inflated taxes, do as we’re told and respect the law, so why are the so‑called nation leaders incapable of doing the same at a strategic geopolitical level? No sane person wants conflict. There is no Nobel War Prize to ‘celebrate’ the pointless massacre of millions and the destruction of so much. Peace is not hard. Put down your killing machines, make compromises and co‑exist peacefully. Simples. These international thugs and territorial zealots should be brought to account and be dealt with severely. How long will we, as world citizens, stand by and allow these atrocities to which we are complicit through inaction? Whatever happened to pragmatism, altruism humanism and justice(‑ism)? Anglo‑Irish politician and philosopher, Edmund Burke was spot on nearly two Centuries ago…
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke (1729‑1797)
Will we ever learn? Seemingly not. Arguably, humans are the most intelligent and the most ignorant species on this solitary little blue bauble of ours. An unresolvable dichotomy that humans uniquely reserve for themselves. Sadly.
This Month at CRAVE Guitars…
Right, enough angry polemic, down to vintage guitar business. No time to waste. Yup, here we are with the first of another two part series for your discerning deliberation and delightful delectation.
Regular readers may have noticed that I have covered the history of guitars several times over the years in several different ways. However, I don’t think I’ve ever set out a straightforward timeline of key moments throughout guitar history. So, perhaps this is the time to set that particular record straight.
“Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it” – Thom Yorke (1968‑)
After another flight of fantastical fancy last month, it is back to a couple of articles of factual reality focusing on the world’s favourite musical instrument. After last month’s barrage of artificial imagery, this article is definitely one for the reality list‑o‑philes out there. So, after last month’s panoply of pictures, we now have a litany of lists (Ed. Alliteration in top form this month).
As usual, no AI was used in the research and writing of this article. Quotes of wisdom are all about the perpetual and enduring fascination, addiction and obsession with the unassuming instrument. Also as usual, this piece of work is not undertaken with forensic academic rigour and is intended as infotainment (such a horrible ‘word’) purposes only. However, strenuous diligence was applied with the aim of achieving a balance between factual information and popular entertainment. We have an awful lot to get through this month and next, so please bear with me while the story unfolds.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m just a guitar player, and my job is to go out there and play and entertain and do my thing” – Les Paul (1915‑2009)
The Rationale for the Article
The in‑depth history of the guitar’s evolution was explored in, ‘A Potted History of the Guitar’ published by CRAVE Guitars in nine parts from March to November 2018. That was an extensive narrative exercise, originally illustrated with many images obtained from Google Images. After a rude and costly awakening to the perils of using such images, all pictures not created by me were later removed from the series, thereby largely undermining the exercise. That series still works but it lacks the visuals that made it ‘real’. What a shame.
Below are links to each of those ‘History of the Guitar’ articles, should you be so inclined to take a(nother) look (each link opens in a new browser tab)…
- Part I – The Ancient World up to the Early Renaissance
- Part II – The Renaissance up to the end of the 19th Century
- Part III – The late 19th Century up to the 1930s
- Part IV – The 1920s and 1930s
- Part V – 1930s up to the 1950s
- Part VI – 1950s and 1960s
- Part VII – 1960s to date
- Part VIII – The current day and into the future
- Part IX – Epilogue
In addition, there was the supplementary/complementary article, published in January 2024…
“A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me” – B.B. King (1925‑2015)
There is even some new information in this article that wasn’t included in the original series of articles. If you prefer narrative storytelling to the list‑of‑snippets style, those articles are probably a good place to start. They cover much of the same material but in a very different way.
My original intention was, perhaps, to publish the original series in expanded form, such as a book, but that never happened due to the overwhelming constraints of the whole process. Another alternative was to publish the articles as a dedicated page on the website. However, those 10 articles included a massive amount of detail that I felt was not readily digestible as online content. As a result, nothing further happened and the articles have been gradually relegated down a long list of articles over the intervening 8 years.
Then, in April 2025, I published a monthly article, ‘An A‑Z of Vintage Guitar Gear: in 150 Snippets’. This set out short summaries of well‑known guitar gear brand names in alphabetic order. That list was subsequently converted into a web page under the ‘Resources’ section of the website. The ‘A‑Z…’ was fine (if I say so myself), especially if one was looking for a specific reference but it didn’t really help with a question like, ‘what happened in the 1940s?’ This critical insight got me thinking. Again.
For completeness and convenience, here are the links to the ‘A‑Z…’ article and web page (each link opens in a new browser tab)…
- Article: An A‑Z of Vintage Guitar Gear: in 150 Snippets
- Web Page: A-Z of Vintage Guitar Gear
Knowing how my feeble brainium’s mechanism operates, I guess that it was only a matter of time before the remaining marble figured that an appropriate complement to the ‘A‑Z…’ would be a summary timeline that a) condensed the descriptive ‘Potted History…’ into a much smaller and easier to digest format, and b) covered many of the same names featured in the ‘A‑Z…’
“Yes, we three were so happy, my wife, my guitar and me!” – Big Bill Broonzy (1893/1903‑1958)
The tabular format meant that I basically had to start from scratch, which resulted in a whole shedload of work. The noble intention will be, after it has been published as CRAVE Guitars’ Musings, to integrate both parts into a single page on the website under the ‘Resources’ menu, in the same way as the ‘A-Z…’. Making both the ‘A‑Z…’ and the ‘Timeline…’ pages available should, together, provide a useful resource and an important addition to the website (and perhaps even to human knowledge!!). I cannot claim that it will be comprehensive – that would require a LOT more effort. However, it should be more than enough for the casual visitor with an interest in the subject matter.
For accessibility in the here and now of CRAVE Guitars’ articledom, the ‘Timeline…’ has been split into two articles, again, to make the whole easier to digest. This first article carries all the necessary preamble and a timeline from the guitars’ earliest origins up until the end of the 19th Century. Part II will concentrate solely on the more recent history of the 20th and 21st Centuries (so far) as well as a conclusion.
“This machine kills fascists” – Woody Guthrie (1912‑1967)
The Basics – Definition of a Guitar
We all know what a guitar is. Right? Are you sure? Before we get into the history and evolution of the guitar, it kinda makes sense to know exactly what it is that we are talking about. We may be instinctively aware of what a guitar represents in 2026, simply because of our day‑to‑day familiarity with the instrument. However, there is possibly some benefit in defining what we mean by a guitar as a starting point.
There are many opinions about the etymology of the word ‘guitar’. Most point to it as simply deriving from the Greek word ‘kithara’, through the Roman ‘cithara’, the Arabic ‘qitara’, the Spanish ‘guitarra’, the French ‘guitare’ and the German ‘Gitarre’, becoming more familiar through its introduction across Europe and before finishing up with the current English word ‘guitar’. That, though, only tracks the evolution of the word, not how and why the word came about in the first place.
My own research indicates that the origin of the word ‘guitar’ is commonly constructed of 2 key components. The prefix likely refers to the number of strings that an instrument may have while the common suffix, ‘tar’, likely stems from ancient Sanskrit word meaning ‘string’. This results in a variety of alternatives, such as dotar (2), setar (3), chartar (4), panchtar (5), sattar (7), chitar (12) and so on. In 2026, we now have the guitar (generally, 6) culminating the instrument’s progression from Middle Eastern pre‑history, through Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome to the current day. I suspect that there may well be other examples that bear out this proposition. To me, this kinda makes sense. Whatever the truth, I hope you get the general idea of how the word ‘guitar’ originated, evolved and came to be part of the modern lexicon.
“Doesn’t matter what guitar you play, as long as you’ve got passion!” – Eric Johnson (1954‑)
So, where is the guitar positioned amongst the diversity of musical instruments? The widely accepted international system for categorising musical instruments is the Hornbostel‑Sachs Classification of Musical Instruments. The extensive work was undertaken by Austrian scholar, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and German musicologist, Curt Sachs and was published as the seminal, ‘Systematik der Musikinstrumente (Hornbostel and Sachs 1914)’. The system is a complex hierarchical model.
There are five distinct groupings in the top‑level tier of the Hornbostel‑Sachs system:
- Idiophones – percussive instruments
- Membranophones – drums, timpani
- Chordophones – stringed instruments
- Aerophones – wind instruments
- Electrophones – electronic instruments
Hornbostel‑Sachs categorised guitars as part of a broader musical instrument classification of stringed instruments known as a chordophone (NB. Deriving from the words, ‘chorda’, Latin for string and ‘phone’, Greek for sound/voice). A chordophone is defined as “a musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points”. Chordophones comprise simple and composite chordophones. The composite group includes 2 main sub‑groupings; lutes and harps. The guitar falls within the ‘necked box lutes’ class (321.322). For example…
The main division of chordophones into which the guitar falls are known as composite because they incorporate “a resonator that forms an integral part of the instrument”, i.e. with a sound chamber like an acoustic guitar’s hollow body. This characteristic differentiates the guitar from, say, a piano or harpsichord. A chordophone’s strings may be plucked, bowed, strummed or struck thereby creating a sound vibration.
String vibration results in rapid, local changes in air density that the human ear (an auditory sensor) picks up and which, via the auditory nerve, the brain interprets as sounds. The major part of the brain responsible for sound processing is the auditory cortex of the temporal lobe. In psychoacoustics (tonotopy), we generally hear a musical note as comprising pitch (frequency spectrum), intensity (volume), envelope (attack, sustain and decay), harmonics (related frequencies) and timbre (tone). The brain then links perceived sounds to other functions such as cognition, memory and emotion. That’s the much‑simplified explanation, folks!
The number of strings or courses of strings a chordophone may have can vary. NB. A course of strings comprises either a single string or multiple strings that are positioned closely together and which are typically played together. Multiple strings in a course are generally either tuned in unison – to the same pitch – or an octave apart. For instance, a typical modern 12‑string guitar has 6 courses of paired strings with the bass strings tuned an octave apart while the treble strings are tuned in unison.
The modern amplified electric guitar would initially appear to diverge from the Hornbostel‑Sachs original designation and definition, as the technology was not present when the system was devised. The electromagnetic pickup in a solid body electric guitar basically replaces the acoustic chordophone’s resonating sound chamber. In order to fit the electric guitar into a pre‑existing system, it is generally categorised as a ‘solid body electric chordophone’. A guitar is not an electrophone, as the pickups produce an electrical signal, not an electronic one.
“A guitar is a good thing to actually have in your hands and feel it and get the vibrations and feel the weight of it” – Jeff Beck (1944‑2023)
Some historical commentators assert that the guitar’s origins date from the 16th to 18th Centuries. Certainly, the main characteristics of guitars as we now know them began to be standardised during that period. Things are not that simple though. The guitar did not appear fully formed following the European Renaissance. Thousands of years of history have led us up to the current day. Some instruments along the way vary considerably from what we recognise as a guitar today. However, many of the guitar’s predecessors became, to a greater or lesser extent, influential in the evolution and development of today’s guitars. This article tries to unravel the direct, continuous as well as the indirect lineage over time, including some evolutionary dead‑ends.
While often grouped together, other related stringed instruments such as the mandolin, banjo, zither, hurdy‑gurdy and ukulele aren’t covered here, except in passing. Lyres and lutes come in and out of relevance while other chordophones such as violins, harps, pianos, harpsichords et al are definitely out of scope.
Today, while there is tremendous diversity to be found in guitar designs and models, fundamentally, they can all be broadly categorised into three important types. The following are highly generalised descriptions presented for convenience and simplicity (remember that ‘rules’ can be, and are, frequently broken):
- Classical guitars – Acoustic wood construction comprising a flat top supported by fan or ladder bracing, a large acoustic sound chamber with a round sound hole, 6 nylon strings, wider necks with a flatter fretted fingerboard and wider string spacing, the neck may not need a stabilising truss rod, the set neck joins the body at the 12th fret. A slotted headstock with rear facing metal and plastic tuners, strings knotted around the wooden bridge. Plucked or strummed by fingers. Classical guitars have a softer string feel and warmer sound used for playing classical and flamenco style music, can be amplified, generally using microphones. While classical guitars were the first to be used and its origins can be traced back to antiquity, the modern standards were laid down from the 1850s. Hornbostel‑Sachs Number: 321.322–5
- Acoustic guitars – Acoustic wood (or laminated composite) construction, flat top supported by X‑bracing (or similar) to cope with higher string tension and torque, a large acoustic sound chamber with a round sound hole, 4 (tenor), 6 or 12 metal strings, narrower necks with a slightly curved fretted fingerboard, fret marker inlays and narrower string spacing, set neck joins the body at the 12th or 14th fret, neck likely has a stabilising truss rod, flat headstock with modern metal tuners, bridge pins secure the strings, optional protective scratchplate. Played by fingers or plectrum. A louder, brighter and more strident sound used for folk, country, blues, jazz, rock and pop music, can be amplified using piezo or magnetic pickups and microphones. Acoustic guitars first appeared in the 1840s. Hornbostel‑Sachs Number: 321.322-6
- Electric guitars – Solid, semi‑hollow or hollow body usually but not exclusively made from tone woods, usually smaller and heavier, commonly with body cutaway(s), body contours, sound holes if present are normally f‑shaped, a variable number steel strings (usually 4-12) with narrower string spacing, set or bolt‑on necks with a stabilising truss rod, usually with a pronounced curved maple/rosewood/ebony fretted fingerboard, flat headstock with rear‑mounted metal tuners, fret marker inlays, clear lacquer or paint finished bodies/necks, one or more electromagnetic pickups, pickup selector switch(es), volume and tone controls, an output jack to feed the electrical signal to effects and amplifiers/PA systems/recording desks to produce varying sound pressure levels, optional vibrato systems to change pitch dynamically. Played by fingers or plectrum. A huge variety of tones is available due to manipulation of the electrical signal chain. Used predominantly for a wide range of rock and pop music as well as many other genres including blues, country, jazz and reggae. Includes electric bass guitars with 4‑6 strings. Electric guitars first appeared in the 1930s. Hornbostel‑Sachs Number: 321.322-6
There is no doubting that the guitar has had a profound impact on modern music, history, society and human culture. These fundamentals may help in understanding how guitar invention, ancestry and development occurred over the last 5,000+ years. In this first part of the story, electric guitars were not yet invented and made available to musicians. If your interest is solely in electric guitars, I’m afraid that you’ll have to wait for Part II.
“I just want to play my guitar, chug on a beer and be a rock star” – Zakk Wylde (1967‑)
Historical Documentation Issues
There have been many difficulties in completing this colossal endeavour, mainly corroborating information across not only existing CRAVE Guitars’ resources but also cross‑referencing the multitude of external sources. The timeline should therefore be regarded as indicative, rather than definitive.
Creating a timeline that makes sense with consistency and continuity was a real challenge, especially as various sources are often contradictory, incomplete, imprecise and confusing. Many sources conveniently ‘fudge’ over such crucial information such as people, dates and locations while others flagrantly plagiarise and simply re‑present the work of others. While nothing here is entirely new and it is impossible not to draw on the work of others to some degree, I have endeavoured to compose my own interpretation, starting with a clean sheet of paper and gradually (laboriously!) formulating the result piece‑by‑piece.
It can be difficult to determine what happened in history without original, conclusive documentation to support the ‘facts’. Such proof can prove impossible to find, centuries or even millennia after the time. In many cases, we just don’t know and we can only use best judgement deductions and assumptions to arrive at something that seems reasonable. In my experience, creating a cohesive model for documenting early guitar history is a bit (!) of a nightmare.
The history of stringed instruments that may or may not have led to the contemporary guitar is also extremely convoluted and doesn’t fit well with a simple linear evolutionary track. Civilisation is not a single entity. As cultures arose, migrated, warred, settled, traded, competed and died out, so did the instruments that those societies used. While it is not possible to create a single direct lineage, there does tend to be a common thread that helps to bind the ancient descendants to their modern counterparts. It is that tantalisingly tangled thread that I am attempting to unravel here, I hope with some relative success.
Many sources (even academic papers, which really should know better) refer vaguely to one or more extended timespans during which events took place. Convenient cop out! When reading the timeline, it sometimes looks like things may be out of order or lacking continuity. That is often down to ambiguous period definitions. Events are, of course (?), frequently interdependent, they can occur singularly, in parallel, they may overlap and gaps may be evident. Such is the complexity of real life. I have done my best to present events as a contiguous, internally consistent, story where possible.
“Guitars are meant to be played, and they’re happiest when they’re making music” – Rick Nielsen (1948‑)
I also realise that by adding my own informed interpretation to actual historic events, I may actually be contributing to the problem, rather than clarifying it. In my defence, I have tried very, very hard to be meticulous, methodical and thorough. However, I am sorry to say that the outcome may well be less than 100% robust and reliable. Despite best efforts, if I have made glaring errors or omissions, let me know and I will do my best to correct oversights. My advice and caveat, for what it is worth, is don’t believe all you read folks, including here.
Please also bear in mind that each of the ‘events’ summarised in the timeline represents only the proverbial ’tip of the iceberg’. For each specific ‘event’, there is a wealth of additional background information that had to be excluded for brevity (!). The ‘events’ shown can therefore be used as an introduction to more detailed investigation, should you wish to go down one or more bottomless rabbit holes. Please feel free to roam the hinterwebby thingummy in search of multitudinous further reading.
“The most important thing for me is the freedom to play my guitar and be myself” – Eric Clapton (1945‑)
A Timeline of Guitar History: Part I
As this is meant to be a linear timeline, there is little point in further prosaic narrative exposition, so let’s dive in and get this particular ball rolling from the beginning of humanity’s exploration with stringed musical instruments to the end of the 19th Century. Readers with little knowledge or interest in this period of history may find this introduction a bit heavy going, for which I apologise. However, the early development of the guitar is an essential element of the guitar’s perennially fabled (hi)story.
As mentioned above, this first part of the guitar’s long journey covers the period roughly 3500BCE to 1899CE (almost 5,400 years) in just 90 entries. For those with attention deficit, the infographic below is an even more abbreviated version, after which you are permitted to skip to the end. Off you go then…
| 3500BCE | Indications are that the guitar’s earliest origins began with rudimentary stringed instruments in Mesopotamia, Sumeria and the ancient Near East/West Asia, dating back to the Uruk (protoliterate) period (c.4000‑3100 BCE) |
| 3100BCE | Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Turks and Greeks were among the earliest pioneers to develop stringed instruments. The first instruments were possibly similar to bowl harps, with a fretless curved neck, a round back, an animal hide soundboard and a variable number of strings |
| 3000BCE | The oldest pictorial record of a lute‑like stringed instrument dates back to the early Bronze Age Uruk period in Southern Mesopotamia (roughly modern‑day Iraq) on a cylinder seal currently held at the British Museum |
| 2550-2450BCE | The ancient ‘lyres of Ur’ were excavated in Iraq in 1920 by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley (1880‑1960). The group of four instruments – Golden Lyre, Queen’s Lyre, Silver Lyre and Bull‑Headed Lyre – are considered to be the world’s oldest surviving stringed instruments to be discovered to‑date. Today, one is in Iraq, two in England and one in the USA |
| 2000BCE | While the origins of the lute may date back another 1,000 years to c.3000BCE, lute‑type instruments were commonly used by the Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians across the Middle East |
| 1500BCE | One of the earliest documented records of a guitar‑like instrument derived from ancient Persia (modern‑day Iran), shows a long‑necked fretted instrument with 4 strings resembling the long lutes of ancient Egypt and Babylon |
| 1400BCE | The Bronze Age Hittite civilization in north‑central Anatolia (modern‑day Turkey) also used guitar‑like stringed instruments. Archaeologists have discovered a relief of a Hittite musician playing a simple stringed instrument. The relief is held in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey |
| 800BCE | The Greek kithara (a.k.a. kythara) was an ancient musical instrument belonging to the lute family. It was a 7‑stringed version of the 3‑4‑stringed lyre. The Greeks distributed stringed instruments widely across Mediterranean trade routes |
| 600BCE | The origins of the tanbur (a.k.a. tambur), a pear‑shaped hollow instrument with a long neck and 2‑3 strings with around 14 frets first appeared in Persia (now Iran). Early recorded images of the tanbur were from ancient Babylon and Egypt |
| 433BCE | The plucked 7‑string Chinese guqin may be an ancestor of the early zither group of instruments. The European/German word zither derives from the Greek kithara and Roman cithara, suggesting a shared lineage at some point. The zither is a discrete simple chordophone, as the strings do not extend beyond the integral resonator (sound box) |
| 400BCE | The early origins of what would become the 16th Century Indian sitar may lie in a plucked lute‑type instrument, the chitar, with 12 stings, a long straight neck and a gourd‑shaped resonator. The chitar was possibly also related to another ancestor of the sitar, the 16‑stringed veena |
| 300BCE | The pandura (a.k.a. pandoura) was an ancient Greek 3‑string, full‑range chromatic scale instrument similar to a lute and based on the earlier tanbur. The pandura’s descendants still exist and are in use today, such as the Greek tamboura and bouzouki |
| 200BCE | The Chinese developed their own guitar‑like instrument, the 4‑string, 11‑fret qin‑pipa, based on an earlier instrument, the xiantao. The qin‑pipa later became known as the ruan, after the Chinese scholar and musician, Ruan Xian. It is related to the larger pipa, a popular 4-string ‘Chinese lute’ with 12‑31 frets |
| 100BCE | The ancient Persian/Kurdish tanbur and its derivatives became popular in Egypt and parts of the Middle East |
| 40CE | The Romans adopted the Greek kithara and re‑named it the cithara (a.k.a. chithara, chittara, chitarra, chitara, cythara, etc.) or ‘Latin guitar’. The Romans distributed the cithara via trade routes to the western Mediterranean, particularly into Portugal and Spain |
| 400 | The Romans adopted the Persian tanbur via Greece and incorporated it into their culture, influencing other stringed instrument designs |
| 500 | During the post‑Roman Middle Ages, crude guitar‑like instruments with 3, 4 and 5 strings were already in use across western Europe, often adapted to meet the needs of local musicians |
| 711 | The Arabian origins of the oud date back some 3,500 years. Descended from the Persian barbat lute, the oud diverged from the lute by having a short fretless neck. After the Arabian Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula, they adapted the Roman cithara into a 4‑stringed fretless instrument called the Arabic oud, similar to the medieval lute, thereby introducing it to western Europe via Spain and Portugal |
| 1100 | The descendants of the Roman cithara became widely used in medieval Spain. The European guitarra Latina (Latin Guitar) used a single string course and was normally played with a pick (plectrum). Another plucked, lute‑like variant originated from North Africa also became common in Spain, known as the guitarra Morisca (Moorish Guitar). The guitarra Morisca (a.k.a. guiterre morische or the mandora medieval) |
| 1200 | The European citole was a stringed instrument comprising a small body with a short straight neck and a fretted fingerboard. 2-3 courses of strings were plucked or strummed with a plectrum. The citole is thought to be a precursor to later instruments like the cittern. The only surviving citole is currently held in the British Museum |
| 1265 | The first written description of a ‘guitar’ appeared in British historical records, although nowadays the reference is generally thought to denote early gitterns (see below) used by itinerant musicians and referred to as a ‘foreign’ instrument at the time |
| 1300 | The small gittern (Renaissance guitar) was introduced to Europe, originating from Spain. It became one of the most popular instruments of its time in Spain, Italy and Germany during the European Renaissance (c.14th‑17th Centuries). The gittern resembled a small round‑backed lute, initially with a single course of gut strings, then with 4 courses of strings. There are only two surviving gitterns, one in Germany and the other in the USA |
| 1330 | The poem, ‘The Book of Good Love’ (c.1330) by Spanish Castilian poet, Juan Ruiz (1283‑1350) describes the guitarra Latina and the guitarra Morisca, using the term ‘Spanish guitars’ to unite them |
| 1349 | The English Duke of Normandy employed musicians playing the Latin and Moorish guitars, often depicted in religious iconography of the time. By 1400, the two variants converged and became known initially as Spanish guitars and, later, just as guitars |
| 1448 | Portuguese sailors introduced early guitar‑like instruments such as the lute and the later vihuela to West Africa. Around the same time, the Arabic oud spread via African coastal trade routes into regions such as Mozambique. Africans incorporated imported stringed instruments into their cultures alongside native African instruments like the krar, kora, ngoni, xalam, Beganna and Litungu |
| 1465 | The plucked Spanish vihuela (a.k.a. viola da mano) became a common guitar design. The alternative bowed viola da arco would become the viola. In its most popular form, the vihuela was guitar‑shaped with a flat back, a straight neck with 10 movable frets and 6 courses of paired strings. The first published music for the vihuela dates from 1536 |
| 1500 | The Turkish Saz (a.k.a. Bağlama) comprised a long neck, movable frets and 3 courses of strings also became popular in eastern Europe and west Asia. The tanbur‑lute‑like instrument became central to Turkish folk music at the time and was tuned to quarter tones |
| 1500 | The European lute, which basically added frets to the Arabic oud, became widely popular across Europe and Asia |
| 1519 | The first use of the vihuela in Latin America was documented in Hispaniola (the island of Haiti/Dominican Republic) in 1519 by Ortiz, who was said to have travelled with Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernan Cortes (1485‑1547) on his early conquests of the Americas |
| 1520 | The plucked vihuela became the largest guitar‑like instrument of its time. It used 6 or 7 courses of gut strings, tuned like a lute and was played with a pick. The vihuela became popular for European chamber and court music |
| 1581 | The earliest surviving guitar‑like vihuela was built by Belchior Dias (1540‑1619) in Lisbon, Portugal, now held at the Royal College of Music in London, England. The vihuela, along with lutes and citterns became known as early barber shop instruments in Elizabethan England and was used widely throughout the 16th and 17th Centuries |
| 1600 | The cittern was a flat-backed, 4-course, metal-strung fretted instrument that first appeared in Western Europe as early as the 13th Century and was probably descended from the medieval citole. It was a relatively common instrument for all social classes from the c.15th‑18th Centuries. The cittern was sometimes referred to as the ‘English guitar’ |
| 1600 | Difficulties in tuning 12‑string guitars led to the adoption of the ornate Baroque guitar with 4 or 5 strings and movable gut frets. The popularity of the guitar began to rival that of the lute in Europe |
| 1600 | Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Caribbean and mainland South America. The European conquerors defeated the native Aztec Empire and colonised much of what is present‑day Mexico. The Spanish victors dispersed the vihuela across Latin America |
| 1600s | The Italian chitarra battente (‘strumming guitar’) became a popular folk instrument with its origins in Italian court music of the early Baroque period |
| 1621 | What we know today as the banjo may have been introduced to North America and the Caribbean by enslaved people from West and Central Africa. The earliest documented description of a banjo‑like instrument was from Gambia, West Africa |
| 1630 | The Spanish Baroque guitar design diverged significantly from the lute and other predecessors. Features associated with the modern guitar began to appear. Baroque guitar ornamentation became increasingly elaborate and highly decorative reflecting art of the Baroque period |
| 1660 | Antonio Stradivari (1644‑1737) set up shop in Cremona, Italy to make violins as well as a small number of early guitars between 1680 and 1688 |
| 1672 | Dutch fine artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632‑1675), who specialised in domestic interior scenes of 17th Century middle‑class life, painted ‘The Guitar Player’, depicting a young woman strumming a guitar |
| 1679 | Antonio Stradivari made the 5‑course ‘Sabionari’ guitar, named after Giovanni Sabionari, who bought the instrument from the Stradivari family |
| 1725 | While its origins date back a lot further (to the Persian tanbur of c.600BCE), the Indian sitar was named and its current form became largely determined. The sitar was made famous by Indian musician Ravi Shankar (1920‑2012) and promoted in western popular music by bands like The Beatles in the 1960s |
| 1744 | The mandolin is a member of the lute family. The first metal‑strung (3 brass, one gut) mandolins began to appear in Italy, evolving from the earlier mandola and the small mandolina. It would evolve into today’s familiar 4‑course (8‑string) mandolin |
| 1750 | The modern Spanish Guitar became popular as an instrument played by the lower classes throughout Europe. Multiple courses of strings had been almost entirely replaced by single strings |
| 1773 | The earliest known 6‑string guitar was made by Francois Lupot (1725‑1804) in Orleans, France, although it is no longer in existence |
| 1773 | The first harp guitar was produced in Paris by French luthier and music trader, Jean‑Henri Naderman (1734‑1799). The instrument comprised 6 standard strings, a fretted neck and 6 open bass strings |
| 1779 | The earliest known surviving 6‑string guitar was made by Italian violin and mandolin luthier Gaetano Vinaccia (1759‑1831) in Naples, Italy. The instrument is held at the Smithsonian Institution in the USA but is not on display |
| 1780 | The now‑standard 6‑string guitar tuning (EADGBE) became the most popular tuning for guitars across Europe |
| 1790 | Guitars started adopting the design of modern instruments and became known as the European romantic guitar. The invention of the 6‑string romantic guitar is credited to Gaetano Vinaccia. Construction used transverse bracing to support the soundboard. Fingerboards changed from tied gut frets to fixed metal frets and headstocks began to use mechanical tuning gears, rather than traditional violin pegs |
| 1796 | Christian Frederick (C.F.) Martin Sr. (1796‑1867) was born in Markneukirchen, Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire (now in Germany). He would go on to found C.F. Martin & Company in 1833 |
| 1806 | German composer and pianist, Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770‑1827) declared that, “the guitar is an orchestra in itself” |
| 1811 | At the age of 15, C.F. Martin Sr. started to work as an apprentice to renowned Austrian luthier Johann Georg Stauffer (1778‑1853) in Vienna, Austria |
| 1825 | French luthier François René Lacote (1785‑1871) began developing the modern guitar. He used metal frets, fixed bridges with ivory saddles, bridge pins and tuners arranged in slotted headstocks. These design innovations enabled greater volume for public performance and elements of his work are still evident in today’s classical guitars |
| 1827 | Austrian luthier, Johann Anton Stauffer (1805‑1871) – son of Johann Georg Stauffer – worked with guitar virtuoso Rinaldo Luigi Legnani (1790‑1877) in Vienna to develop milestone acoustic guitar designs, some of which remain familiar today |
| 1833 | C.F. Martin Sr. emigrated from Germany due to bitter disputes between the Violinmakers’ Guild and unregulated cabinetmakers. Martin moved to America and founded C.F. Martin & Company in New York to build guitars |
| 1834 | The earliest known Martin guitar was hand‑built in New York by founder C.F. Martin Sr. and is currently held in the American Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City |
| 1839 | C.F. Martin Sr. relocated his family and his guitar manufacturing business from New York City to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, USA. A new Martin factory was built on the outskirts of the town and is still there today |
| 1842 | C.F. Martin Sr. introduced X‑bracing (rather than fan, transverse or ladder bracing) on the Martin Size 1 guitar. X‑bracing strengthened the guitar tops making them better able to cope with the pressure and torque of steel strings (more than twice that of gut strings), first introduced in the 1850s and 1860s |
| 1852 | Spanish luthier, Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817‑1892) experimented with enlarging the guitar’s body, refining the pattern of fan bracing and reducing the thickness of the soundboard used in classical Spanish ‘flamenco’ guitars. His innovations led to the formation of the Spanish School of Guitar Making. He started a business building classical guitars in Seville, Spain until he closed his shop in c.1870 |
| 1853 | The earliest known recording of a classical guitar played by Adolphe Giacomelli was captured on a phonautograph device invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817‑1879) in 1857. The sound waves were recorded as a line traced on paper or glass blackened by smoke. The tracings were visual representations of sound that could not be replayed |
| 1854 | C.F. Martin Sr. introduced the large ‘O’ (Concert) model guitar and the company began to regularise Martin’s ‘O’ body size classification. Previously, Martin guitars were named from 1 to 5 (largest to smallest) |
| 1856 | Orville H. Gibson was born in Chateaugay, New York, USA. He would go on to found the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company in 1902, predecessor of today’s Gibson Inc. |
| 1857 | Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. was founded by clock maker Matthias Hohner (1833‑1902) in Trossingen, Baden‑Württemberg, Germany. The company is known simply as Hohner today |
| 1871 | Spanish luthier, Antonio de Torres Jurado began his ‘2nd epoch’ of guitar making from 1871 until his death 1892, based in Almeria, Spain |
| 1873 | The roots of Epiphone began in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now Izmir in Turkey) when the Stathopoulo family moved from Greece to Turkey and luthier Anastasios Stathopoulo (1863‑1915) started making fiddles (violins) and lutes |
| 1875 | The Thomas Organ & Piano Company was founded by Edward Thomas in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada to make keyboards. Later, the company would become significant for importing VOX products into north America |
| 1877 | C.F. Martin introduced the large ‘OO’ (Grand Concert) model guitar and the company continued to standardise the system for naming Martin’s body shapes/sizes (completed by 1898) |
| 1877 | The first proper recording of a guitar was made using Thomas Edison’s (1847‑1931) newly invented phonograph cylinder equipment, the first device capable of both recording and replay |
| 1879 | The ukulele, a member of the lute family, was first introduced from the Atlantic Portuguese island of Madeira to Honolulu, Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants. The ‘uke’ was an amalgamation of two other instruments of Portuguese origin, the machête and the rajão. The ukulele has been described as ‘the world’s happiest instrument’. C.F. Martin & Co. is the oldest surviving maker of ukuleles |
| 1880 | The first Mexican Mariachi bands and music were documented. Mariachi bands used the 5‑string Spanish vihuela and the ‘guitarrón mexicano’ (a large acoustic fretless bass‑like guitar) as well as the acoustic guitar, harp, violin and trumpet |
| 1881 | Musical instrument manufacturer, the Vega Company was established by Swedish immigrant brothers Julius and Carl Nelson in Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
| 1883 | Washburn Guitars was founded by American businessmen George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy in Chicago, Illinois. Washburn initially focused on guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and zithers. Washburn was the most well‑known guitar subsidiary of harp makers, Lyon & Healy |
| 1883 | German immigrant and businessman, Friedrich Wilhelm ‘Fritz’ Gretsch (1856‑1895) set up a shop in Brooklyn, New York City, USA to build banjos, drums and tambourines. The company, simply known as Gretsch, remains a family business as of 2026 |
| 1885 | Hawaiian-American musician Joseph Kekuku is credited with inventing the Hawaiian acoustic lap steel guitar in Oahu, Hawaii. He also invented the Hawaiian steel guitar playing style using a metal bar (slide), |
| 1885 | Henri Selmer Paris was founded by Henri Selmer in Mantes‑la‑Ville near Paris, France to make clarinet reeds and mouthpieces. Selmer wouldn’t start making guitars until the 1930s |
| 1887 | Karl Höfner GmbH & Co. was founded by German luthier Karl Höfner (1864‑1955) in Schönbach, Austria‑Hungary (now Luby in the Czech Republic). The business is now known simply as Höfner |
| 1887 | The business that would become Yamaha was founded as Nippon Gakki Co. by Torakusu Yamaha (1851‑1916) in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan |
| 1890 | Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado built an acoustic guitar that is widely regarded as the benchmark for the modern classical guitar. The majority of modern acoustic classical guitars adopted his designs |
| 1890 | American luthier, Orville H. Gibson (1856‑1918) settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA and started making musical instruments by hand. His first instruments were a 10‑string mandolin‑guitar and the first archtop guitar |
| 1890 | The first patent for an electric guitar, entitled, ‘Method of and apparatus for producing musical sounds by electricity’ was awarded to George Breed (1864‑1936). Breed was a naval officer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The invention predated patents from the big guitar manufacturers by several decades |
| 1892 | The Harmony Company was founded by German immigrant, Wilhelm ‘William’ Schultz in Chicago Illinois, USA, after he left the Chicago‑based harp manufacturing company, Lyon & Healy |
| 1893 | Legendary Spanish classical guitarist, Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987) was born in the Andalusian village of Linares in southern Spain |
| 1894 | Orville Gibson produced the earliest documented Gibson mandolin in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA |
| 1896 | Orville Gibson filed his first and only patent for the construction of a mandolin with a carved top and back, and with sides that were cut from a solid piece of wood rather than being bent from thin strips. The patent was granted in 1898 |
| 1896 | The Regal Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company was founded by Emil Wulschner as a private company in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA to manufacture stringed instruments |
| 1895 | After the death of C.F. Martin Jr. (‘Fritz’, the founder’s son) in 1888 at the age of 63, C.F. Martin & Company introduced its first bowl‑back mandolins |
| 1897 | The Japanese manufacturer, Nippon Gakki, which would later become the Yamaha Corporation, started making pianos and organs. Yamaha wouldn’t build guitars until the 1940s for the Japanese market and 1966 globally |
| 1897 | The first full‑length recording of classical guitar music was played by Luis and Simon Ramirez in Madrid, Spain. Recording technology evolved rapidly in the early 20th Century, making such practices commonplace |
“My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am” – Joan Jett (1958‑)
Final Thoughts on ‘A Timeline of Guitar History: Part I’
Phew! And that is only the start, folks. There is a lot more to come in Part II. As this article represents an unfinished body of work, there is no fully‑fledged ‘Final Thoughts…’ section this month. That will be reserved for the end of Part II. Please come back for more in the second instalment in August 2026 ceteris paribus.
Just one final observation about pre‑20th Century guitar music before we move on. To me, sitting here in the modern‑day first world, one of the guitar’s major advantages over many other instruments is the player’s ability to bend notes. I don’t mean just subtle vibrato, I mean to really bend strings up one or more semitones and, more interestingly, to micro tones between the traditional fretted notes. Additionally, modern vibrato systems now let guitarists lower pitch, even enabling ‘dive bombing’ to zero string tension as well. In contrast, most, if not all classical and Spanish guitar music only uses the standard 12 notes and nothing in between. I know gut and nylon strings are not as pliable as metal strings in this respect but little or no attempt is made to exploit this wonderful versatility within classical guitar music. Ancient Middle and Far Eastern instruments were often fretless or had moveable frets to allow for micro and quarter tones, etc. Where would modern music be if we just used the limited conservative notes that Western music models provide? Just sayin’.
“That’s all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around. But too many people got in the way” – Syd Barrett (1946‑2006)
CRAVE Guitars’ ‘Album of the Month’
My main interest in musicology focuses on contemporary popular music that rose to prominence in the early to mid‑1950s and continues to this day and will undoubtedly stretch well into mankind’s future (assuming it has one!), long after I am dust. As such, I am no expert on earlier music or recordings, and my experience is necessarily very limited. I am also not a great fan of classical music (I’m just not, OK?!). So, I am not really in a position to assert any reliable opinions about the subject. Having said that, I have gone for one particular album that I hope is indicative of early virtuoso guitar music and entirely appropriate to this article. This month’s accolade goes to…
Andrés Segovia – Guitar Recital: Recordings 1927-1939 (1988): There are many, many compilations and recordings of the Spanish maestro of the classical guitar, Señor Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987). It is sufficient to say that pretty much any of the relevant compilations can provide an insight into Segovia’s virtuosic mastery of the instrument. The guy was undoubtedly a fretboard genius. The pieces here were written by a variety of classical music composers and played solo by Segovia. This EMI Classics release is presented over 2 CDs comprising 35 tracks covering 120 minutes, all in glorious monaural sound. I intentionally picked an early recording to reflect both the narrative of this article’s period and of early classical guitar music.
Given the age of the recordings, sound quality is pretty good, although the authentic tape hiss can become a bit wearing after a while. There are many other classical artists recording music by many composers over the last Century or so and there is no end to the number of albums both common and rare covering this material. I could equally have gone for something by popular classical guitarists such as Australian John Williams (1941‑) or Englishman Julian Bream (1933‑2020). My knowledge about classical guitar music is, however, extremely superficial, so I will just shut up at this point before I proclaim my ignorance for all readers everywhere to ridicule with appropriate prejudice. Perhaps I should set myself some (more) musicology homework! To all classical music fans, I apologise but it just ain’t my thang.
BELIEVE IN MUSIC!
“The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well” – Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987)
Tailpiece
Well, that is quite the start to this 2‑piece ‘meisterwerk’. I hope that there is something of interest in Part I and trust that it may whet your appetite for what is to come in Part II next month. Admittedly, the content of Part II is probably more familiar and therefore more relevant to many of us today. Unusually, for once, you also know what’s coming up next. As this is essentially work‑in‑progress, there is little point in dragging things out. So, I’ll say ta‑ta for now and I’ll hopefully ‘see’ you again in 1/12 of a year from now for the conclusion of this particular story. Finally, to end on a humorous note…
“I’ve had 3 wives and 3 guitars. I still play the guitars” – Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987)
Truth, peace, love, and guitar music be with you always. The CRAVEman, signing off for now. Until next time…
CRAVE Guitars’ ‘Quote of the Month’: “Words, however crafted are the vehicle used to convey imagination, thoughts and ideas. However inadequate words may be, they should be used wisely and not squandered”
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