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As we reach the end of the Guitar Foundation of Americas fiftieth-anniversary year, it's worth considering our organizations creation in 1973 within the larger context of the entire seventies decade. As recounted in this years March issue of Soundboard (vol. 49/1), the initial impetus for the GFAs founding goes back to Tom Heck's doctoral work and 1970 PhD dissertation, "The Birth of the Classic Guitar and lts Cultivation in Vienna, Reflected in the Career and Compositions of Mauro Giuliani." As Heck wrote, "In the course of my research during 1968-70, I had amassed nearly the complete works of Giuliani in early editions, photocopies and Xeroxes, and felt that some kind of organization or place was needed to house and preserve these difficult-to-find musical materials." But Hecks monograph wasn't just a catalyst for the founding of the GFA; it also marked the beginning of a decade of rigorous guitar research by numerous other top-tier scholars- Richard Hudson, Harvey Turnbull, Richard Pinnell, and James Tyler among them-who produced...