The Guitar in America offers a history of the instrument from America\'s late Victorian period to the Jazz Age. The narrative traces America\'s BMG (banjo, mandolin, and guitar) community, a late nineteenth-century musical and com-mercial movement dedicated to introducing these instru-ments into America\'s elite musical establishments. Using surviving BMG magazines, the author details an almost unknown history of the guitar during the movement\'s heyday, tracing the guitar\'s transformation from a refined parlor instrument to a mainstay in jazz and popular music. In the process, he not only introduces musicians (including numerous women guitarists) who led the movement, but also examines new techniques and instruments. Chapters consider the BMG movement\'s impact on jazz and popular music, the use of the guitar to promote attitudes towards women and minorities, and the challenges foreign guitarists such as Miguel Llobet and Andres Segovia presented to America\'s musicians. This volume opens a new chapter on the guitar in America, considering its cultivated past and documenting how banjoists and mandolinists aligned their instruments to it in an effort to raise social and cultural standing. At the same time, the book considers the BMG community within America\'s larger musical scene, examining its efforts as manifestations of this country\'s uneasy coupling of musical art and commerce. Jeffrey J. Noonan, associate professor of music at Southeast Missouri State University, has performed professionally on classical guitar, Renaissance lute, Baroque guitar, and theorbo for over twenty-five years. His articles have appeared in Soundboard and NYlon Review .

Offering essays by the world's top experts in a full-color, coffee-table quality book, this is the first work to tell the complete story of the classical guitar and its repertoire, players and makers - from its 19th century European roots to modern international interpretations. This handsome softcover volume features lavish photography of classical guitars made by the best luthiers in the world. Additional essays cover use of the classical guitar in pop music, different playing and teaching techniques, the collectors' market, and the science of the guitar. It also features profiles of legendary artists such as Andres Segovia, Julian Bream and John Williams, plus a full discography, a glossary, an index, a bibliography, and a guitar measurement chart.