🎸 National GUITAR Day 2025 – Feb 11

🎼 National GUITAR Day ORIGIN & HISTORY

Mmm hmm, there’s just something about hearing somebody riff out a rockin’ guitar solo. Who’s your favorite guitarist? Is it Clapton, Hendrix, Vaughn, Slash, Prince, Sting, or Van Halen? Maybe Jonny Buckland (shout-out to Coldplay 🙉), Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, or perhaps B.B. King? This list is endless because a master on the guitar can transform an otherwise bland song into an acoustic marvel. This is why National GUITAR Day exists and it’s celebrated on the 11th Day in February.

Let’s begin.

The guitar became THE iconic symbol of the 20th-century. What would jazz, rhythm & blues, and of course the King of them all – rock and roll do without our favorite stringed instrument taking center stage?

Stringed instruments first began to emerge in cave carvings dating more than 3,000 years ago during the Babylonian and Mesopotamian civilizations. They probably didn’t even exist outside of recorded history. The word “guitar” most likely derives from the ancient Greek word κιθάρα (kithara). Most agree that Europe’s lute and Arabia’s oud “played” the most significant part in the formation of the guitar.

LUTE

The lute was curved on the backside and had different sizes & shapes; usually strummed with the feather from a quill. It was a popular instrument for hundreds of years. The land of Egypt passed it down to the Greeks. And it was the Romans that introduced it to the rest of Europe.

OUD

The Moors carried the oud with them during the invasion of Spain in 711 AD. It too had a spherical body but it also had a much smaller neck as well. This Arabic instrument made a noteworthy impact on Medieval music and ultimately our beloved guitar.

CLASSICAL GUITAR

The end of the Renaissance showed that lutes were falling out of favor as many of them had up to 30 strings! The baroque guitar replaced the lute as the instrument of choice as you could actually tune it. Around the 15th or 16th centuries, Spain was developing something with an hourglass curvature where you could play with one hand over the hole opening. This was called the vihuela and is the predecessor to the modern guitar.

Spanish guitars were more refined in the 1790s. A Spanish musician named Antonio de Torres Jurado is often overlooked as the grandfather of the modern instrument we use today with his style of guitar made in the mid-1880s. Andres Segovia was an influential guitarist who took his design and established it as a concert instrument playing classical guitar music.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR

European immigrants carried steel-stringed versions to the New World of America. Two hundred years after its invention German lute maker, Christian Frederick Martin manufactured the first flat top acoustic guitar in America in the 1830s. His guitar had too much tension and the extra stress was compensated for with an X-braced body. But because of the tight steel strings, a pick was needed to strum it.

The legendary Orville Gibson introduces his archtop guitar in 1894 with the body more like a cello which allowed it to vibrate freely producing increased volume and a richer sound. His standard acoustic guitar was first adopted by jazz and country musicians then later by swing & big bands.

ELECTRIC GUITAR

For more than 20 years the predicament in the industry was how to exactly amplify the guitar. It was an electrical engineer, Adolph Rickenbacker along with Paul Barth, and George Beauchamp, initially favoring a Hawaiian-style lap steel guitar, who together finally solved the dilemma in 1932 with their “frying pan guitar”. Hawaii was the first to use this new-styled electric guitar. Later swing and jazz bands embraced it. Other companies besides Rickenbacker’s began making their own versions including AudioVox and Gibson.

In 1940, another legend Les Paul produced a solid body electric guitar. Of course, many wrongly state that Paul is the creator of the electric guitar but we know better. Finally, Leo Fender, who was making amplifiers at the time, came along and built the first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar with a single electromagnet in 1946 … and the rest is history.

🎵 HOW to Celebrate & Observe National GUITAR Day?

Not sure how to LOVE the day? We’ve got a few interesting ideas to consider that may help get you started.

Here are some activities that you can do on National GUITAR Day!

💙 SIGN up for guitar lessons

Why there’s no better time than National GUITAR Day to start. You’ve put it off too long. We know you think about it often and from time to time. Why haven’t you ever started that DVD lesson or got on Youtube to see what can be done?

💙 SHARE with others

Share the knowledge you’ve learned picking with others.

💙 SEE a performance

💙 RAISE Social Awareness

Use social media posts with the hashtags #NationalGuitarDay, #GuitarDay, #Guitar, #GuitarPlaying, #Music, #EntertainmentHolidays, #FebruaryHolidays, #Holiday, #FindADayToLOVE, #iHEARTdays to support the importance of celebrating, promoting, and sharing with the world why you ❤️ National GUITAR Day.

LEARN more about HOW TO PLAY GUITAR

MAKENZIE PERFORMING ON THE GUITAR

GUITAR FOR BEGINNERS

FIVE Fun Facts you never knew about National GUITAR Day

1. The world’s oldest guitar called a vihuela was created in 1590 by a Portuguese lute maker named Belchior Diaz. It’s survived with 10 strings and of course, the frets are similar to that of a lute. I wonder if it needs tuning?
2. Jimi Hendrix famously played his guitar upside down since he was left-handed. Nowadays left-handed guitars are made if the body you want is asymmetrical.
3. The root word for guitar can be traced all the way back to a type of harp used in Greece.
4. The 2004 Asian tsunami saw a fundraiser auction off the world’s most expensive guitar. All the great guitarists of the day made decorations on it and it sold for $2.8 million.
5. The largest playable guitar is about 43 feet long and was made by the Academy of Science and Technology in Texas USA. It took a year to assemble into the shape of a Gibson Flying V.

Famous PEOPLE also born on February 11th

• Thomas Edison

  American inventor who held 1093 patents in developing electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. Best known for creating the world’s first practical lightbulb (1879), the phonograph (1877), and projecting a moving picture (1896). Born 1847.

  THOMAS EDISON Quote

  “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

• Varg Vikernes

  Guitarist from Bergen Norway well known for being influential in black metal music. He later served 15 years in prison for murder and arson of four stave churches while expressing his pagan, neo-Nazi views. Born 1973.

  VARG VIKERNES Quote

  “Lead by example. Be better than those you despise.”

• Raoul Björkenheim

  American avant-garde jazz guitarist who attended music conservatories in Finland. Born 1956.

  RAOUL BJÖRKENHEIM Quote

  “Most of the music was created spontaneously and you get a sense of this ongoing conversation.”

Future DATES for National GUITAR Day

The Imp💜rtance of National GUITAR Day

Music is an essential part of our artistic and cultural expression, but no musical tool has shaped music narrative through contemporary history as much as the guitar.

Do You Play Guitar?