"I never said that 'Segovia was the first'..I said that he blew the lid off...meaning umm...'popularized' it by doing it. Virtually ALL contemporary classical guitar players today are standing on his shoulders...and the best have studied under him!"

This is, indeed, true.

The first time I ever heard a Segovia record was when a friend of mine played it. This would have been around 1950 or so, a couple of years before I first got interested in folk music and took up the guitar. I was surprised that the guitar could be used in this way—to play classical music. Or that there actually was classical music written for the guitar.

Since its inception during the Renaissance, the guitar in its various incarnations has faded in and out of popularity. I'm not sure who the great guitarists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods were, but during the early 1800s, mostly due to the activities of Fernando Sor, who toured extensively giving concerts and recitals, the guitar was very popular. Dionisio Aguado and Matteo Carcassi were also prominent guitarists at about the same time, and all three wrote guitar methods and studies, used by serious classic guitar students today. Francisco Tàrrega came later and wrote much music for the guitar.

Andrés Segovia and Emilio Pujol came later still, but Pujol confined his activities to Europe, whereas Segovia toured all over the world and introduced many Americans, who previously associated the guitar with Gene Autry and Les Paul, to the guitar as a classical instrument.

So Andrés Segovia was, indeed, "the first to blow the lid off using a guitar for 'classical' music" for twentieth century American audiences.

Prior to this, there were small, esoteric groups of classic guitar enthusiasts all over the United States, such as the Classic Guitar Society of New York (who published the very high quality magazing, "The Guitar Review" quarterly, every issue a "keeper"), and later, the Seattle Classic Guitar Society (of which, I am a charter member).

I recall Segovia saying that the very existence of guitar societies around the country indicated the precarious state of the classic guitar in the minds of some people who are still surprised to learn of the musical capabilities of the guitar. "For example," he said, "you don't find violin societies or cello societies or piano societies. These have long been established in the minds of most people as serious instruments. That it is misunderstood by some may come as a result of their not being aware of how versatile the guitar is."

Sounds about right to me.

Things are getting much better. For example, the University of Washington School of Music, who at first refused me admission on the basis of my interest in the guitar, now has a thriving guitar department, headed up by recording and concert artist Michael Partington, and it's turning out young guitarists like Elizabeth Brown (one of my above links, the Sanz "Canarios") who also records and concertizes, switching back and forth between lute, Baroque guitar, and modern guitar, and teaches all three instruments at Pacific Lutheran University. And the Cornish College of the Arts, also in Seattle (and which I attended for two years), has both guitar and lute teachers in attendance.

GfS, regard my comments as a clarification and amplification of what you said rather than a correction.

Don Firth

P. S. I wish I could play the piano (my wife plays quite well, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, all those guys), and I have taken some piano lessons, but this was somewhat under protest. Both the U. of W. and Cornish required all their music students to be able to play at least some piano. I can see why. Music theory is not only auditory, but visual on the piano, whereas on stringed instruments such as the guitar or cello, it is auditory but not visually obvious.

But what with my class load, plus guitar lessons, plus voice lessons, AND piano lessons and practice, I was finding it tough to find enough time for vocal and guitar practice, not to mention learning new songs. And since I was starting to do some paid performing at the time, this was essential. I found myself resenting the imposition on my already limited time. This was when I dropped out of the U. of W. and continued my music studies with a private teacher of music theory and composition, Mildred Hunt Harris. She tailor-made her instruction to what I wanted to do, and I learned a great deal from her.

Since I had no plans to teach at an institution, I wasn't interested in the diploma. I just wanted the knowledge. Cornish also required some knowledge of piano, but the class schedules there were geared toward performing artists, so I had more time. Plus a far more sympathetic faculty. By then, I was doing a lot of performing, and they were willing to make some allowances.