Uncovering Instrumental Identity: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Classical Guitar

Abstract

How does one describe the identity of an instrument? This difficult question requires a consultation of organological, musicological, and ethnomusicological perspectives. I argue that an instrument’s identity is multiple and constantly shifting, heavily dependent on time and geographic region. I consolidate elements of instrumental identity into two areas: morphological identity and technical identity. One covers how an instrument is constructed and operates, while the other addresses the variations that emerge with human interaction. I then apply these frameworks to the classical guitar, investigating how its identity has changed over time with these parameters in mind. This restructuring of historical, pedagogical, and performance-based sources presents the classical guitar’s identity as increasingly complex, and questions the assumptions used to interpret historical sources. This thesis calls for further interdisciplinary work to understand how instruments are defined and described in context, and uses the guitar as an example of instrumental identity as a stepping stone to rethinking how we tell the stories of our instruments.