The earliest known music for the guitar was written for a Spanish form of the instrument known as the vihuela. “El Maestro,” by the Spaniard Luis Milan, was published in 1535 for the use and enjoyment of Spanish courtiers and aristocracy. Seven books of music survive, written in tablature. This early form of music is a sort of diagram showing each string of the guitar and indicating where it should be stopped along the neck. Above the diagrams are notes indicating time values, or how long each note should be sounded. The diagrams show pieces of varying degrees of difficulty, including a series of regal dances known as pavanes.

Ten years later, Alonso Mudarra published a music book called Tres Libros de Musica en Cifras para Vihuela. This book contains several sophisticated, sometimes even dissonant, pieces that include a recurrent bass line that gives the music a syncopated, energetic feel.

By the early seventeenth century, there were a number of books and primers on playing the guitar, particularly in France, where the instrument had become popular. Adaptations of lute music and arrangements of dances and fantasias encouraged the use of the guitar as a member of an ensemble or as an accompaniment to songs.

Early guitars had gut strings in courses or pairs, with a variety of tunings. A four-course guitar had ten frets and was often tuned to either FCEA, GCEA, or CFAD. The top three stings were tuned in unison, while the bass string (either F or G) was tuned in octaves, or eight notes apart.

The music of this period was not played with the same rigid structure as classical music is today. There was room for improvisation, particularly when it came to variations of melodic phrasing and ornamentation. Advanced players, as always, could perform florid single-note passages and counterpoint and figured bass runs. Generally, however, the fashion for most guitar players of the time was to play rather basic music, mainly strummed chord patterns.

By 1600, the five-course guitar had replaced the earlier four-course and six-course guitars. The tuning also became more standardized, predominantly ADGBE. The Italian guitarist Giovanni Paolo Foscarini wrote some sophisticated new pieces for the instrument in the 1630s, while a fellow countryman, Francesco Corbetta, became one of the foremost guitar virtuosos. Corbetta traveled widely throughout Europe, popularizing the instrument.