As Otto Ortman said in his pioneering study on the physiological mechanics of piano technique, "...the (piano) teacher, selling lessons in physiological mechanics hour after hour, day after day, should at least know the tools with which he works" (Ortman, 1929). Indeed, the study of how the internal workings of the player's body translate into beautiful sounds through his/her instrument has become more and more indispensable to the teacher of instrumental performance. The technical demands of the current repertoire, the perennially increasing standards of performance, and, not least, the high incidence of performance-related injuries, have created an inescapable necessity for better methods of instruction based on sound information gathered from current research in the areas of bio-mechanics and kinesiology.

In instrumental areas like string and piano playing, these investigations started much earlier than in the domain of the guitar. The recommended reading at the end of the book list some of these landmark studies. In the field of the guitar, though, it is only in very recent years that our methods have begun to apply the considerable amount of sensory-motor information gathered in this century.

The purpose of this text, therefore, is to provide a very basic introduction for guitar teachers and players to the anatomy, physiology and biomechanics of guitar playing. It is hoped that teachers of the instrument will find useful resources in this text to add to their daily pedagogical activities.

Ricardo Iznaola, 1998