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The Guitar Foundation of America began its existence on September 2, 1973, at the end of a three-day National Guitar Convention sponsored by the American String Teachers Association (ASTA). A group of about sixty guitarists from the United States and Canada convened in Santa Barbara for the purpose of "constituting ourselves (i.e. all concerned guitarists) as a non-profit national society affiliated with ASTA, and to decide collectively on the course we shall take as a society." On that Sunday afternoon, Articles of Incorporation and bylaws-written and proffered by Thomas Heck-were ratified, a Board of Directors elected, and an Executive Committee appointed.
In October, the newly founded GFA filed incorporation papers with the State of California seeking nonprofit status. Its mission as stated in the Articles of Incorporation was: To cultivate, promote, foster, sponsor, and develop understanding, taste, and love of the musical arts and especially to promote interest in the classic guitar and similar string instruments; to foster the study of the classic guitar in private studios and at the elementary, secondary and college levels, and to encourage the development of innovative curricula in support of these ends; to promote the guitar as an ensemble instrument particularly with other string instruments; to encourage composition, arrangements, and publications of ensemble music involving the guitar; and to support scholarly research into the guitar's history and literature; all of the foregoing purposes being limited to nonprofit educational, cultural, scientific and charitable ends.1
In this article, I recount the events that led to the first ASTA National Guitar Convention and review the central themes and developments that shaped the GFAs earliest years, including the launch of Soundboard. For more detailed profiles of principal figures behind the creation of the Guitar Foundation of America, see my accompanying article "Founders of the GFA," beginning on page 16 of this issue.
I. Thomas F. Heck
GFA origins go back to Tom Heck and his academic work at Yale in the late 1960s, which culminated in his seminal 1970 PhD dissertation, "The Birth of the Classic Guitar and Its Cultivation in Vienna, Reflected in the Career and Compositions of Mauro Giuliani" (Figure 1). Years later he wrote:
In the course of my research during 1968-70, I had amassed nearly the complete works of...