Sen-en-Mut's favorite musician was named Har-Mose. His instrument was a type of Lute, and it was buried at his side. This accident of history meant that this ancient, delicate instrument, made of wood and animal byproducts, survived the centuries, alongside the stone pyramids and temples of ancient Egypt.

The Lute of Har-Mose is the second-oldest extant string musical instrument in the world. The way it was designed, constructed, and played makes it a critical step in the long history of people and their guitars: it's not just a distant cousin of the guitar, it's almost a kind of prototype. It points us directly to the guitar, and the episodes to come, when we'll move through the ancient world and the Middle East, to North Africa and southern Europe, as we continue to follow the trail of the guitar's DNA and the cultures it helped to create.

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Click here to support A People's History of the Guitar! Even $4/month, or a one-time contribution, goes a long way. If you want to see where this goes as much as I do, it'll help me build this project, create more episodes, license music, conduct interviews, and reach more people.

I'm always interested in direct feedback and ideas, so get in touch at aphotguitar@gmail.com.

Click here to support A People's History of the Guitar! Even $5/month, or a one-time contribution, goes a long way. If you want to see where this goes as much as I do, it'll help me build this project, create more episodes, license music, conduct interviews, and reach more people.

No paywalls yet, but when exclusive content starts to appear, anyone contributing any amount in 2025 and 2026 (monthly or one-time) will have lifetime access to everything. Thanks for listening and for thinking about supporting A People's History of the Guitar.

Get in touch at aphotguitar@gmail.com

It's an odd word with deep roots, and the evolution of the word tracks with the evolution of the instrument itself. Join me for a slightly speculative, and ultimately inconclusive, exploration of one word that might have come from more than one place, because no word comes out of no-where.

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Learn about how to support the project here!

Check out all previous episodes below. Episodes appear in order of publication (oldest first rather than newest first) because that's how I want it, ya know? Anyway, to get a clearer sense of what this thing is about and where its going, start with episode one, below, and listen in order. But feel free to bounce around as much as you like, because you can do that without any interference from me. But maybe at least listen to Episodes one and five, OK?

Episode related playlist on the way!

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Learn about how to support the project here!

Check out all previous episodes below. Episodes appear in order of publication (oldest first rather than newest first) because that's how I want it, ya know? Anyway, to get a clearer sense of what this thing is about and where its going, start with episode one, below, and listen in order. But feel free to bounce around as much as you like, because you can do that without any interference from me. But maybe at least listen to Episodes one and five, OK?

Episode related playlist on the way!

Episode six is about how we learned to make a string and pull it tight between two fixed points to make a weapon. The bow and arrow changed the way we lived, ate, and killed each other. And the bow part of the bow and arrow might be a prototype for future stringed musical instruments (chordophones). That's because until we taught ourselves how to make string, and pull it tight enough to do something, we would never have learned to pull those strings tight enough to make pitched sounds when we pluck, strum, and bow them.

Without tensioned strings there are no bows and arrows. Without bows and arrows, there are no harps, lyres, lutes, shoelaces, or Diddley Bows. And there are no guitars. So let's travel from an obscure book from 1899 back to a hunter on a grassy plain 65,000 years ago, to a guitar player in New York in 1978, and think about why and how each of our guitar strings might have an ancient weapon inside of it.

Click here to support A People's History of the Guitar with a one-time or recurring contribution, or maybe both. If you want to see where this goes as much as I do, you can help me to produce unique new content and reach more people with a broader perspective on an instrument that changed the world.

Go back and check out the previous episodes in order if you haven't already, because this thing is initially best understood if you go from first to last. Thanks for being curious about what I'm trying to do here.

According to the Hornbostel-Sachs System for Musical Instrument Classification, the guitar is in the Chordophone category. And it wouldn't be there if it weren't for something we found, and manufactured, over tens of thousands of years, called cordage.

The story of cordage is under-told and overlooked, but it's everywhere, and it's one of our most important tools and materials. We take it for granted, but we shouldn't do that. It holds your shoes together. It's the stuff your clothes are made of. It's the thing that burns in the center of a candle. One type of cordage, called string, turns silent bows, boxes and slabs into stringed musical instruments, and that's why we're here.

Here's a link to a complete interview with a scholar mentioned in the episode, which should make for good supplemental reading.

Click here to support A People's History of the Guitar with a one-time or recurring contribution, or maybe both. If you want to see where this goes as much as I do, you can help me to produce unique new content and reach more people with a broader perspective on an instrument that changed the world.

Go back and check out the previous episodes in order if you haven't already, and thanks for being curious about what I'm trying to do here.

As we get into this long history, it's important to maintain a sense of humility.

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Here's a link to a brief and delightfully tension-filled conversation between Police drummer Stewart Copeland and Harvard Linguist/Psychologist Steven Pinker, referenced in the last third or so of the episode.

Episode playlist here. I'll be tinkering with these playlists periodically, so feel free to add them to your library and revisit from time-to-time.

This episode is about turning kinetic energy into mechanical energy into sound energy. It's about force. It's about electrical circuits and stone arrowheads. It's about how we learned to make fists and hold guitar necks. It's about Stanley Kubrick and the Ramones, and how we learned important skills from breaking things, blowing speakers, and abusing musical instruments. Some of it's about me in 5th grade, and it's all about the fact that the guitar is...inevitable.

Support the project!

Episode playlist here. I'll be tinkering with these playlists periodically, so feel free to add them to your library and revisit from time-to-time.

That one thing is our feet. Which is really two things.

When we began to walk upright, we introduced something new into our lives. Becoming bipedal, millions of years ago, gave us one of the foundations of music, and Disco, and CPR. It also helped to make our brains bigger, which made us smarter, and our walking feet and smarter noggins pointed us toward becoming musical beings.

Support the project here!

Episode playlist here. I'll be tinkering with these playlists periodically, so feel free to add them to your library and revisit from time-to-time.

Support the project here!

Episode playlist here. I'll be tinkering with these playlists periodically, so feel free to add them to your library and revisit from time-to-time.

In this introductory episode, you'll find out about what the podcast is about, why I decided to do it in the first place, and who the podcast is for. Spoiler alert: it's for everybody.

I'm just getting this going, and episodes are coming as I finish them. My goal is a minimum of three episodes each month. We'll get there, especially if you keep listening, and if you'll consider supporting the project, so support the project here!

Episode playlist here. Some guitar-based music that means something to me. I'll be tinkering with these playlists periodically, so feel free to add them to your library, and revisit from time-to-time.

If you want to see and hear where this goes as much as I do, I hope you'll think about supporting the project with a one-time or recurring contribution, or maybe both! Click here to help me create new and unique content, and reach more people. Thanks for listening, and for considering support for the project!