Soundboard Scholar

A Peer-Reviewed Journal of Guitar Studies

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Volume 11, Issue 1 (2026)Read More

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Articles
8 August 2025

Ferdinand Rebay and the Sonata Paradigm

Luiz Mantovani
With an output of over thirty sonatas or sonata-structured works, Viennese composer Ferdinand Rebay (1880–1953) may be considered among the most significant composers of guitar sonatas; as yet, however, little has been written to place Rebay’s sonatas in historical context. Departing from a review of a guitar concert held in Vienna in 1925, which clearly indicates a shift in the perception of the instrument’s role and capabilities among mainstream audiences, I begin this investigation exploring the guitar club environment in German-speaking territories around the turn of the century, with a focus on the activities of the IGV (Internationale Gitarristenverband; International Association of Guitarists). Equally important was the implementation of the guitar curriculum at the Wiener Musikakademie in 1923 by Jakob Ortner (1879–1959), because it opened a window for chamber music collaboration and attracted the interest of non-guitarist composers such as Rebay. I highlight the role of Rebay’s niece, guitarist Gerta Hammerschmid (1906–1985), as an advocate for her uncle’s music—speculating, however, that her controlling attitude may have limited Rebay’s music from reaching beyond its Viennese sphere. After examining the constructed values of the post-Beethoven sonata and its domestic ramifications in the nineteenth century, I delve into Rebay’s extensive collection of sonatas, especially those for chamber music ensembles, and discuss its reception among Viennese musicians and critics alike. A final section outlines some of the main characteristics of Rebay’s sonatas by providing a structural overview of a significant subset—namely, the six sonatas for woodwind instruments and guitar—and demonstrating their connections to the Romantic amateur chamber sonata.
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Articles
12 January 2026

The Six-Course Guitar in Spain: Some Considerations of Repertoire and Musical Practice

Thomas Schmitt
The six-course guitar is still a little-known instrument. One need only look at books on the history of music to verify that claim: there is hardly any mention of it, nor are its composers or repertoire often cited. In fact, researchers have given far more attention to other plucked-string instruments than to the six-course guitar—whether for reasons of tradition or ideology—leading to a major gap in the literature. The repertoire of the Spanish Golden Age, to take one example, has been thoroughly explored, in the domains of both vocal and instrumental music (as in the vihuela). Similarly, there is quite a lot of research on the five-course Baroque guitar (as exemplified by Gaspar Sanz and Francisco Guerau): witness the several commercial and critical editions available. And there are plenty of studies of composers such as Fernando Sor and Dionisio Aguado—who are, moreover, already known to people outside our specialized field of the history of the guitar. Perhaps the lack of documents, printed scores, or manuscripts associated with the six-course guitar has hindered research into the instrument. Some documents held in public libraries are available online; others, such as those in the private archive of Navascués, can be accessed only with great difficulty. It is therefore not surprising that today we are familiar with names such as Luis de Narváez or Gaspar Sanz, while composers such as Juan de Arizpacochaga, Isidro Laporta, or José Avellana are completely unknown. The purpose of this text, therefore, is to present the six-course guitar, its particularities, and its function in a society that could be characterized as bourgeois.
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Current Articles

From the Archive1 January 2026

Left-Hand Technique and the Limits of the Possible

Ricardo Iznaola
This article conceptualizes classical guitar left-hand technique through a physiomechanical framework that places coordinated movement—particularly shifting—at the center of technical practice. Challenging traditional positional doctrines that privilege static hand forms and digital independence, the author argues that such approaches often disregard the functional anatomy of the limb, resulting in inefficiency, unnecessary tension, and potential injury.   Advancing the principle that form must follow function, the study proposes shifting as the fundamental technical category governing all left-hand procedures. A systematic typology—interpositional, intrapositional, and compound shifting—serves as the basis for analyzing arm-wrist-hand coordination across diverse technical contexts, including extensions and contractions, barrés, slurs, vibrato, and complex chordal and scalar textures. Particular emphasis is placed on alignment, rotational freedom, and the timing of preparatory movements as conditions for both ergonomic efficiency and musical continuity.   A final section explores the application of this framework to passages demanding exceptional virtuosity, demonstrating how physiomechanically informed coordination can resolve extreme technical challenges while preserving fluidity of motion. By reframing technical security as the product of organized movement rather than fixed positional strategies, the study offers a dynamic model of left-hand technique that aims to help players discover their full potential as virtuoso performers.
From the Archive7 February 2026

Mignone, Fernandez, Guarnieri: Brazilian Guitar Music after Villa-Lobos

Fabio Zanon
This article challenges the widespread perception of Heitor Villa-Lobos as an isolated peak in Brazilian musical culture with no natural successors. The author focuses on the composers who followed Villa-Lobos – Francisco Mignone, Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez, and Camargo Guarnieri – arguing that their works deserve far more attention in international concert life, not least their contributions to the guitar repertoire.  These twentieth-century Brazilian composers are situated within a broader historical narrative that traces the impact of European colonial models, the delayed and contested formation of musical nationalism in Brazil, and the shifting aesthetic and political conditions of the twentieth century. Analytical discussions of representative guitar works reveal contrasting approaches to nationalism, instrumental craft, and expressive intent. The article concludes with a selective survey of Brazilian guitar music composed since the mid-twentieth century, providing a categorized list of repertoire deserving of wider attention.

Most Popular Articles

Articles
7 January 2022

Guitar Thinking

Jonathan De Souza
Playing the guitar develops physical skills but also ways of listening and thinking about music. For example, guitarists often conceptualize chords as two-dimensional shapes—an approach that is foreign to pianists. What does it mean, then, to think like a guitarist? This article approaches “guitar thinking” through music theory and cognitive science. Psychological experiments help to reveal auditory, visual, and tactile aspects of guitar playing and to show how guitarists respond to the instrument’s affordances (i.e., its possibilities for action). Additionally, recent research in music theory models fretboard space and examines patterns of body-instrument interaction. To demonstrate this mode of analysis, the article discusses Leo Brouwer’s Estudios sencillos, nos. 1 and 7. Ultimately, this investigation suggests that the guitar is not only a tool for producing musical sound; it also produces musical knowledge.
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Articles
1 January 2016

Henry Worrall (1825–1902): Anglo-American Guitarist

Robert Ferguson
Anglo-American guitarist Henry Worrall appeared on the American scene just as the guitar reached a plateau of popularity. As vital as the guitar itself, the prevailing social, philosophical, and aesthetic tenets of Worrall's era also wove a unifying thread through his life, career, and oeuvre. His immersion in both the graphic and musical arts; his straddling of vernacular and high culture; his connection to nature and especially agriculture; his nationalist and regionalist sympathies; and his fondness for folk, popular, and heroic musical themes all drew from and evinced a Romantic worldview. Here, Ferguson discusses Worrall's professional life.
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From the Archive
31 December 2021

The Guitar in Nineteenth-Century America: A Lost Social Tradition

Peter Danner
This article is one of a series of five by Peter Danner on the history of the guitar in the United States from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Written between 1977 and 1994, these articles first appeared in early issues of the GFA’s magazine Soundboard. They are reprinted here in tribute to Danner’s pioneering contribution to guitar research and to bring them to the attention of a new generation of scholars. The author has generously provided a newly written introduction to the series.
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By Invitation
31 December 2021

On the Need for a Scholarly Edition of Tárrega’s Complete Works

David Buch
In this guest editorial, the author provides evidence of the unreliable nature of the majority of Tárrega’s first editions, and the substandard quality of most modern editions. The author argues that in light of the recent availability of formerly inaccessible primary sources, the time is right for a scholarly edition of Tárrega’s complete works with state-of-art editorial methods.
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Articles
1 January 2017

Andrés Segovia’s Unfinished Guitar Method: Placing His “Scales” in Historical Context

Andreas Stevens
For over sixty years, guitarists of my generation have been familiar with the so-called Segovia Scales--the systematic scale fingerings advocated by the Andalusian maestro. They have been an influential--some might say a definitive--bestseller since their first USA publication in 1953. Countless guitar students have incorporated them into their daily practice routines. For the publisher, Columbia Music Co., they seem to be the goose that laid the golden egg. Are they everything that Segovia wanted them to be? Two books of recent date on guitar technique attest to their enduring value and relevance. Thomas Offermann wrote in 2015: "The fingerings of the scales used here mostly correspond to those of Andrés Segovia." revised edition of the 1953 publication came out in 1967. It was republished in 2011 and has remained in print. The original preface by Segovia was partly removed and replaced by a "Historical Note" by Thea E. Smith, the granddaughter of the publisher, Sophocles Papas. She attested that they were "one of the best-selling guitar publications of all time.
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Articles
1 January 2017

A Newly Discovered Letter of 1827 by Fernando Sor

Erik Stenstadvold
This article discusses a hitherto unknown letter, written by Sor in Saint Petersburg in April 1827. It provides new insight into the publishing and personal relationship between Sor and his Paris publisher, Antoine Meissonnier, to whom the letter was addressed. We learn about three airs with variations Sor was busy composing at the time; he was particularly pleased with the variations Meissonnier later published as op. 30. The letter also mentions some unknown Sor works, including a book of drafts at Málaga, and it reveals that Meissonnier had published, without Sor’s knowledge, music that he had received from sources other than the composer himself. Furthermore, Sor blames Meissonnier for having published in his name two minuets that were not actually composed by him, and for releasing as a solo piece the guitar part of a duo for flute and guitar. Finally, the letter reveals Sor’s negative attitude toward the engraving by M. N. Bates of his portrait—the only sure pictorial record of Sor we have. The article also sheds new light on the relationship between Sor and the young ballerina Félicité Hullin and the rupture between the two in 1827.
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