Many musicians feel that without Segovia's efforts, the guitar would still be considered the equivalent of a honky-tonk barroom instrument. He is considered the father of the modern classical guitar.

Segovia was born in Linares, Spain, in 1893. When he was four years old, his uncle sang songs to him and pretended to strum an imaginary guitar. A local luthier (guitar maker) made an instrument for the child, and although his family actively discouraged Segovia, he single-mindedly pursued his studies of the instrument. While self-taught, he adopted many of the techniques and practices of Francisco Tarrega, the influential guitar maestro of the late nineteenth century.

In 1909, Segovia made his debut at the age of sixteen in Grenada at the Centro Artistico, and he performed his professional debut in Madrid in 1912. The guitar was widely believed to be incapable of proper classical expression, but Segovia stunned his critics with his skill. Starting in 1916, he began touring South America, and in 1924, he debuted in both London and Paris, becoming known as the “ambassador of the guitar.” Segovia made his American debut in New York City in 1928. He had a wide repertoire of lyrical works, which he played with great emotional expressiveness using fingernails on gut strings. He also demanded silence and concentration from his audiences.

The Messenger

As Segovia grew older, he came to consider himself the messenger who would bring the guitar to the world concert stage so that it could take its place beside the violin and the piano. Before long, composers like Hector Villa-Lobos began to compose original pieces specifically for the guitar. Segovia himself arranged many pieces from the classical canon for the guitar — most notably J. S. Bach, whom he resurrected from the shadows of the musical canon and turned into a popular twentieth-century composer — as well as lute and harpsichord music.

The central problem he faced during his early career was making sure the guitar's sound would fill a concert hall. Over the years, Segovia solved the dilemma by experimenting with new woods and designs, all to increase the instrument's natural amplification. The development of nylon strings gave the guitar more consistent tones, while projecting the sound much farther and being much less likely to break. During the 1940s, he adopted nylon for his strings rather than gut, starting a practice that continues to this day.

Segovia also standardized the way guitar fingering is notated on scores (by showing the string number written within a circle over a series of notes that could be played elsewhere on the instrument). He also settled the debate among classical guitarists about nails versus fingertips by popularizing the use of plucking the strings with the nails of the right hand.

Segovia played a Ramirez classical guitar from 1912 until the 1930s, when he met the German luthier (guitar maker) Hermann Hauser. Hauser was so impressed with Segovia's guitar that he changed the way he built guitars. Hauser presented Segovia with a new instrument in 1937 that the maestro used until the 1960s.

Segovia's Gift

Of Segovia's many gifts to the world, perhaps his most lasting was to make the guitar the popular instrument of the twentieth century. In addition to recording and performing, Segovia spent the remainder of his life and career successfully influencing the authorities at conservatories, academies, and universities to include the guitar in their instruction programs with the same emphasis given the violin, cello, and piano. He continued to give concerts into his eighties. His early struggles are recounted in his 1983 memoir, Andrés Segovia: An Autobiography of the Years 1893–1920. He died in 1987.