The City’s secret guitar gods are being offered the chance to perform in public as instruments are left at various London locations in a follow-up to the street pianos project.
A dozen acoustic guitars, each tethered to their own boat-like house — complete with books of boating songs and sea shanties — will be available for anyone to have a strum during the City of London Festival. Paul Gudgin, the festival’s director, said: “The street pianos taught us that people welcome the invitation to make music spontaneously, regardless of their level of ability. Often, people perform for their own enjoyment. Now we’re inviting everyone from bedroom guitarists to rock gods to play our weather-proof guitars in well-known City locations.”
He said “time will tell” whether the guitars survive the experiment but John Hornby Skewes, who have made and supplied the instruments, said they had done a two-week test of their Pilgrim design to check its sturdiness.
Venues for the project, which runs from tomorrow to July 17, range from Paternoster Square to Old Billingsgate and Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street stations.
Street guitars could prove even more popular than the street pianos which have drawn mass crowds in recent years. Research has shown that the guitar is the most popular instrument played in the UK, with some 2 million active musicians.
