A Brief History of the Guitar: Evolution, Composers, and Notation

What is a Guitar?

First of all, what is a guitar? There are many different types of guitars such as the acoustic, electric, jazz, flamenco, classical, gypsy jazz guitar, and more. However, there are three main criteria that all these types share:

1. The guitar must have several strings.

2. It must have a neck on which one can press the fingers to shorten the vibrating strings.

3. It must have a resonating body shaped like a figure eight (for non-electric guitars).

However, the guitar should not be confused with the family of lutes. The lute holds an important place in the world of plucked string instruments. There are over 55,000 pieces written for the lute—more than for the piano. That said, the guitar evolved alongside the lute in parallel and continued to evolve after the lute almost disappeared in the 19th century. The guitar’s evolution spans many centuries. I have chosen to focus on specific points that will help us understand how the instrument we know today came to be:

1. The predecessors of the modern guitar2a. The guitar over time and its important composers

2. Tunning

3. Notation

I won’t cover sculptures, engravings, and paintings of instruments similar to the guitar found in Ancient Greece and Egypt. It's important to note that some words from those times don’t carry the same meanings as today. Terms like guitarra, chitarra, guiterne, gittern described an instrument resembling a small tenor lute, known in the 16th century as the cittern.

Why is the word “cithara” so important? From a philological standpoint, the word cithara is related to the chest. Perhaps, as Alain Miteran suggests, because the instrument is placed on the chest, or because it resonates like our rib cage—perhaps symbolizing the language of the heart.

The Greek kithara, Etruscan lyre, Egyptian lute, and Hittite guitar all contributed to the creation of today’s guitar. In my opinion, the guitar is a multicultural instrument due to the influence of various cultures.

To conclude, let’s say that the guitar did not appear out of nowhere. Ancient instruments from antiquity and various cultures allowed the creation of the instrument we know today. Thanks to cultural exchanges, instruments had the opportunity to evolve according to the musical tastes of each era and society.

The History of the Guitar

Renaissance : The Renaissance guitar, already showing its characteristic shape, is a plucked string instrument like the lute (16th century). Royal household inventories from this time include guitars, indicating that they were part of the musical culture of European nobility and aristocracy. Given the number of guitar methods published for amateurs of various levels, the guitar must also have been part of the musical life of the non-aristocratic classes. A substantial repertoire of solo works written for the four-course Renaissance guitar survives, written in tablature and published throughout Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. This includes solo pieces, song accompaniments, dance music, and works for mixed ensembles.

As aptly noted:“Since the mid-20th century, the number of luthiers crafting beautiful replicas of such instruments and the number of amateur and professional Renaissance guitar performers have significantly increased, particularly due to the early music movement.”

The Renaissance guitar evolved at the end of the 15th century into a simpler construction known as the gittern. It differed from guitars in having a neck and resonating body carved from a single piece of wood, a shorter neck without frets, and a pear-shaped body rather than a figure-eight shape. Surviving Renaissance guitars with four double courses (tuned E, B, G, D) mostly date from the early 17th century—a time when the five-course Baroque guitar was already in widespread use.

One of the most important Renaissance composers for the guitar was Adrien Le Roy, one of the first to publish music for the instrument. Luys Milan, on the other hand, published the first ever printed piece for guitar.

Baroque Era : Generally larger than the Renaissance guitar, the Baroque guitar—which emerged around the 1580s—resembled the Spanish vihuela. Italian and French composers developed the repertoire during the 17th century. The five-course Baroque guitar continued to evolve in design and playing style until around 1800, when the six-string single-course guitar, similar to the modern classical guitar, became dominant.

Baroque guitars were part of aristocratic musical culture, yet were also enjoyed by non-aristocratic circles. A substantial repertoire of solo pieces remains, written in tablature and published throughout Europe between the late 16th and mid-18th centuries. These included solos, song accompaniments, dance music, and ensemble works. The 20th-century revival of early music led to a resurgence of luthiers and performers.

Important composers include Robert de Visée, lutenist, theorbist, and guitarist of Louis XIV—who even played in the king’s chambers. Lutenists were also known to be good spies due to the instrument’s quiet nature. The Spaniard Gaspar Sanz was influential with his three volumes Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española. Angelo Michele Bartolotti published a set of passacaglias in all keys in his 1640 Libro primo di chitarra spagnola, using techniques like rasgueado and pizzicato.

Classical Era:We now see the appearance of six single-string guitars. One theory is that this was to reduce costs. The classical guitar lost popularity somewhat, yet Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, and Dionisio Aguado composed high-level music. Sor’s most famous piece is Theme and Variations on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 9, which showcased the guitar’s virtuosity. Giuliani was also a cellist and played in Beethoven’s orchestra for the premieres of his 7th and 9th symphonies. Giuliani wrote studies, chamber works, and three guitar concertos. He was popular enough to inspire the first guitar magazine, Giulianiad. Aguado published a guitar method describing his invention, the Tripodion, which angled the guitar for better projection and comfort. He also introduced a raised bridge and saddle—features still used today. Aguado and Sor often played duets.

Romantic guitars introduced wound bass strings, allowing greater resonance. Guitarists hesitated to use them at first due to unwanted noise, unlike lutenists who had used them since 1650.

Romantic Era:As orchestras and pianos grew louder, the guitar struggled to compete in concert halls. Nonetheless, figures like Johann Kaspar Mertz (inspired by piano accompaniment styles) and child prodigy Giulio Regondi made lasting contributions. Regondi’s Rêverie is one of the first tremolo pieces—a technique unique to guitar that creates a floating melody over a complex bass.

The most important name for the modern guitar is Francisco Tárrega, who worked with luthier Antonio de Torres to redefine the instrument. Torres is to guitar what Steinway is to piano. Guitars became larger and louder, incorporating metal. Tárrega was one of the first to transcribe works from other instruments—like Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat and Bach’s solo violin fugues. Being a pianist as well, Tárrega’s writing shows this influence.

Niccolò Paganini, the greatest violin virtuoso of the Romantic era, was also an excellent guitarist. He said: “I am the master of the violin, but the guitar is my master.”

Modern Era:The modern classical guitar is usually made from Brazilian rosewood (back/sides) and spruce or cedar (top), with internal wooden bracing to strengthen and improve resonance. The top is flat, with a glued wooden bridge in the lower half. The neck and headstock are carved from one cedar block, with an ebony fingerboard and 19 metal frets. The fingerboard extends over the body at the 12th fret. The head holds three tuners per side, each consisting of a peg, gear, and shaft. Strings are nylon (introduced in 1945), with the basses wound in metal.

Andrés Segovia is credited for bringing the guitar from 19th-century salons to 20th-century international concert stages. He collaborated with many composers such as Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (who taught film composer John Williams), Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Joaquín Rodrigo. Villa-Lobos wrote a concerto, 12 études, 5 preludes, and more. Rodrigo composed the Concierto de Aranjuez, said to be the most performed guitar concerto of the 20th century.

Julian Bream and John Williams inspired new compositions and helped revive many forgotten composers like Agustín Barrios. One of the most significant 20th-century solo works is Benjamin Britten’s Nocturnal, Op. 70.

Today, composers like Leo Brouwer, Nikita Koshkin, and Sergio Assad continue to expand the repertoire. Despite waves of popularity, the guitar never truly disappeared like the lute or harpsichord.

Notation

Since around 1800, guitar music has been published in standard notation, which is now the norm. Before that, tablature was more common for fretted plucked-string instruments, which is why thousands of lute and early guitar works from the 16th–18th centuries are all in tablature.

Around 1400, Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press made wider book production possible. The polyphonic style of music also influenced notation’s evolution. In 1502, Petrucci and Attaingnant used movable type to notate pitch and rhythm. Each musical line had its own staff—useful for singers but limiting for instruments, hence the need for tablature.

Today’s tablature combines older French and Italian systems. It indicates fret position and string choice, with note durations above the lines (strings). The word tablature comes from the Latin tabulatura and was used in Europe around the 15th century. Even non-plucked instruments used forms of tablature—the oldest example being the Robertsbridge Codex (c.1360), possibly for organ or clavichord.

Alfabeto:An important innovation by Girolamo Montesardo in Nuova inventione d’intavolatura (1606) introduced shorthand notation for rasgueado (strumming). Each left-hand chord shape was labeled with a letter. Symbols above or below a line indicated strum direction. Variants used note durations via spacing or silence symbols.

Some pieces from the time combine alfabeto and staff notation. Composers like Foscarini and Corbetta wrote in mixed tablature and alfabeto—readable once understood.

After 1750, guitar music began appearing in standard notation, written one octave higher than it sounds. Today, lutenists still use tablature, while classical guitarists use modern notation. Tablature remains popular among electric guitarists. Jazz guitarists read lead sheets (chords + melody). The Nashville Number System uses Roman numerals to indicate chords, useful for transposing.

Conclusion

In today’s concert halls, the guitar’s biggest obstacle is projection. As music has grown louder, the guitar has remained suited for salons and intimate gatherings. Personally, I would say the guitar is a perfectly imperfect instrument. It can be colorful like an orchestra, the only one able to change timbre mid-phrase. It can accompany or play polyphonic music like the piano.

Guitar is easy to begin—but mastering it takes a lifetime. Thanks to amplification, the modern guitar has endless creative possibilities. Its voice continues to grow in our noisy world.