Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

Between 1760 and 1860 the guitar was in a fervent state of metamorphosis and experienced an unprecedented rise in popularity among lower- and middle-class learners. In this period of popularity, a strong community of professional and amateur guitarists developed and music education began to transition from an apprenticeship-model to one which catered to a mass market of leisure learners. Twentieth-century research has revitalised the study of improvisation with a focus on the seventeenth and eighteen centuries. But scholars have neglected the specific teaching techniques employed in the nineteenth-century guitar methods and this dissertation analyses how amateur guitarists learned to improvise in the nineteenth century. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century guitarists were not so concerned with adequately performing musical ‘works’ as is the predominant focus of twenty-first century instruction. Instead, a wide variety of musical skill sets such as preluding and accompanying were cultivated, and the ability to improvise was a quietly understood...