Media & Videos

Season 1 opens with the map. Europe wrote the guitar's first answers — courses, six strings, Torres — then built for export from its violin towns, rebuilt itself after the war with accordion makers and refugees, lost the volume game to Japan, and came back one bench at a time. Five ages, eight stops, and the claim the season will test.

Why does a guitar built in Munich count as Spanish? Vol. 3 closes the introduction with the question every country episode depends on: what makes a school. Six forces — wood and climate, music, founders, teachers, borrowing and money — and how they turned one instrument into the flamenco guitar, the dreadnought, the Telecaster and everything in between.

Every country thinks the guitar is theirs, and every one of them is partly right. Vol. 2 follows the instrument around the world — the oud into Córdoba, the vihuela into Spain, six strings out of Naples and Cádiz, Torres in Seville, Martin across the Atlantic, Fender in a radio shop, and the whole thing copied, improved and rebuilt in Japan. One story, a dozen borders.