Guitar　　Today we tell about a very popular musical instrument. Listen and see if you can guess what it is.　　If you guess it was a guitar, you are correct. The Museum of Fine Arts in the eastern city of Boston, Massachusetts, recently began showing a collection of guitars. The exhibit is called Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar. It shows how the instrument developed during the past four centuries.　　Probably no other musical instrument is as poplar around the world as guitar. Musicians use the guitar for almost every kind of music. Country and western music would not be the same without a guitar. The traditional Spanish folk music called Flamenco could not exist without a guitar. The second of American blues music would not be the same without the sad cry of the guitar. And rock and roll music would almost be impossible without this instrument.　　Music exports do not agree about where the guitar first was played. Most agree it is ancient. Some experts say an instrument very much like a guitar was played in Egypt more than a thousand years ago. Some other experts say that the ancestor of the modern guitar was brought to Spain from Persia sometime in the twelfth century. The guitar continued to develop in Spain. In the seventeen hundreds it became similar to the instrument we know today.　　Many famous musicians played the instrument. The famous Italian violinist Niccolo Paganinni played and wrote music for the guitar in the early eighteen hundreds. Franz Schubert used the guitar to write some of his famous works.　　In modem times Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia helped make the instrument extremely popular. One kind of music for the guitar developed in the southern area of Spain called Adalusia. It will always be strongly linked with the Spanish guitar. It is called Flamenco.　　One guitar in the Boston Fine Arts display was played by Les Paul. It is a very old electric guitar. Mister Paul began experimenting with ways to make an electric guitar in the nineteen thirties. The Gibson Guitar Company began producing its famous Les Paul Guitar in 1952. The instrument has the same shape and the same six strings as the traditional guitar, but it sounds very different. Listen to a Les Paul recording. It was the fifth most popular song in the United States in 1952.　　The guitar has always been important to blues music. The electric guitar Mister Paul helped develop made modem blues music possible: There have been many great blues guitarists. Yet, music experts say all blues guitar players are measured against one man and his famous guitar. That man is B-B King. Every blues fan knows that years ago B-B King named his guitar Lucille. Here B-B King plays Lucille on his famous recording of The Thrill Is Gone B-B King’s guitar, Lucille, is so important to American music that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC has asked for it. They want to display the large, beautiful black guitar in one of the museums because it is a part of American culture.　　Another famous guitar in American music also has a name. It belongs to country music star Willie Nelson. His guitar is as famous in country music as Lucille is in blues music. Its name is Trigger. Trigger is really a very ugly guitar. It looks like an old, broken instrument someone threw away. Several famous people have written their names on it. A huge hole was tom in the front of it a long time ago. It looks severely damaged. But the huge hole, the names and other marks seem to add to its sound. Listen while Willie Nelson and Trigger play of, Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground.