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Welcome to The National GUITAR Museum

The guitar is the most enduring icon in American history, and is the world's most popular instrument. The National GUITAR Museum is the world's first museum dedicated to the history, cultural impact, and excitement of the guitar.

We celebrate everything about the guitar: the way it's made, the way it's played. This Museum is for the people who play the guitar, the people who make the guitar, and the people who love its music.

We will be launching a Touring Exhibition called "GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked The World" that will tour the United States beginning in 2011. At the completion of the tour, one U.S. city will be chosen to become the permanent home of the Museum.

It is our goal to become more than a National GUITAR Museum; we're going to become the National GUITAR community.

About Us>>

This is where we'll talk about our collection and go into detail about everything from archtops and amplifiers to Spanish guitars and the SynthAxe. It will also be where you can post pictures of your guitar, ask questions about different instruments, and generally learn as much as you want to -- or stare as much as you want to -- about the thousands of makes, models, styles, and variations of the guitar.

A sample: A guitar designed by Alistair Hay, of Emerald Guitars, known as the Bahamut dragon guitar.

BahamutCropped

The NGM just gave away a brand new Fender Stratocaster Classic on August 16th. Click here and register for our future contests. You only need to register once and you're all set.

Traveling Exhibit explores the sound, science, history, and cultural importance of the world’s most popular instrument.

• NEW YORK, August 17, 2010 -- The National GUITAR Museum today announced that its touring exhibition, entitled “GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked The World,” will launch on June 11, 2011 at the Orlando Science Center in Orlando, Florida.

The 5,000 square foot Touring Exhibition will explore the history and evolution of the guitar—from lutes and lyres to modern high-tech instruments—and show how the instrument became the cultural symbol it is today. The exhibition will feature engaging, entertaining, and educational displays specific to the guitar, including historical artifacts, models, posters, video screens, interactives, and kiosks. Educational displays will feature everything from how vibrating strings create sound on to the electromagnetic properties of an electric guitar—and even address environmental concerns about how the wood used to make guitars has disappeared through the destruction of rain forests.

“The guitar is the most enduring icon in American history,” says HP Newquist, the executive director and founder of The National GUITAR Museum (NGM). It has been around longer than baseball, basketball, soft drinks, and sports cars. It’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t been affected by the guitar, whether as players or just fans of all types of music. And while this may be apocryphal,” Newquist adds, “it’s a widely held belief that the two most recognizable man-made shapes on the planet are those of the Coca-Cola bottle and the electric guitar.”

The Touring Exhibition will run in Orlando from June through September 2011. Additional venues are currently being scheduled.

Greatest Guitar Albums

Quick looks at two classic albums: Van Halen 1 and Todd Rundgren's Utopia.

Steve Fever

Have you ever considered how many great rock & roll guitarists are named Steve? There are so many that it's almost absurd.