William Foden: Concert Guitar in America’s Fretted-Instrument World

In 1939, the guitarist and teacher George C. Krick worried that younger players were overlooking an American musician still living among them. International guitar virtuosos were attracting attention, but William Foden had already spent decades performing, arranging and teaching. Krick’s profile in The Etude was an affectionate corrective from someone who knew Foden as both teacher and friend.[1]

That is a useful place to begin. Foden’s story complicates an overly simple history in which American classical guitar suddenly appears with Andrés Segovia. Before that international celebrity, there were American studios, touring players, publications and audiences. Foden helps us hear this earlier world on its own terms.

A violinist finds another voice

Born in St. Louis in 1860, Foden began studying violin as a child. Guitar attracted him during his youth, and his teachers included Jeremiah McGrath and William O. Bateman. Krick’s 1930 account describes a young musician already interested in directing an ensemble and studying musical theory. The attraction of guitar grew within that broader musical education.[2]

Krick associated Foden’s performing repertoire with Sor, Mertz, Giuliani and Ferranti. In 1911, Foden toured with mandolinist Giuseppe Pettine and banjoist Fred Bacon, later establishing himself as a teacher and composer in the New York area.[2] A guitar soloist in this setting belonged to a lively community of fretted instruments.

Guitar, mandolin and banjo in the same musical world

The combination of guitar, mandolin and banjo may surprise a listener who encounters classical guitar chiefly in a solo recital. The touring partnership is a reminder that our present-day categories do not always describe earlier musical life well.

A 1910 item in The Cadenza records Krick’s performance of Foden’s fantasia on themes from Weber’s Der Freischütz and his subsequent arrangement for Foden to appear at the next American Guild convention in Philadelphia. It is small but valuable evidence of how repertoire and reputations circulated: a pupil played a teacher’s music, colleagues heard it, and another concert followed.[3]

Foden’s career therefore belongs to more than a list of notable soloists. It belongs to a network of teachers, organizers and players who gave one another opportunities to be heard.

Familiar songs, enlarged possibilities

Krick’s 1939 profile identifies Foden’s arrangements of Alice, Where Art Thou? and Annie Laurie among a larger body of song transcriptions. He describes a recurring design: an introduction, the tune, variations and a finale. He also notes Foden’s use of tremolo, with rapidly repeated melody notes above a thumb accompaniment.[1]

This design gives the listener both a landmark and a journey. The introduction establishes an atmosphere; the theme supplies something recognizable. Variations can change the texture, move the melody to a different register or surround it with decoration. The finale brings a sense of arrival.

Tremolo addresses another expressive possibility. Since a guitar note fades after being plucked, a rapid sequence of repeated notes can create the impression of a sustained melodic thread. The accompaniment continues underneath, making one instrument seem to contain both singer and accompanist. Evenness and balance are crucial to the illusion: repeated attacks must support the line rather than fragment it.

Krick admired Foden’s tremolo intensely. His enthusiasm is evidence of a pupil’s experience and of Foden’s reputation, rather than a neutral basis for ranking every guitarist of the period.[1][2]

A teacher explains the right hand

Foden’s own writing gives us a different kind of evidence. In the October 1923 Crescendo, his “Guitarists’ Round Table” column discusses right-hand technique. He recommends learning alternation early, but explains that a passage may call for repeated use of one finger when the others need to remain ready for a chord. He also considers the thumb’s movement after a stroke and the relation between finger direction and tone.[4]

The example reveals a practical teacher. A rule is useful because it solves a musical problem; the passage itself determines whether that rule needs adapting. The goal is coordinated playing that sounds intentional.

Foden was addressing readers who might never enter his studio. A magazine column made a technical discussion part of a wider musical conversation. The printed question and explanation connected isolated practice rooms with a teacher’s accumulated experience.

A method that could travel

Foden’s Grand Method for Guitar appeared in two books, with publication records identifying Book I in 1920 and Book II in 1921.[5][6] California State University, Northridge’s account of American method books places it alongside the work of Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, describing an early-twentieth-century continuation of the pedagogical tradition associated with Carcassi.[7]

A method book creates continuity between generations, but it also reveals decisions particular to its author. Foden’s practical magazine advice helps us understand why the method mattered: the book offered space to develop explanations that a short column could only introduce.

His influence also continued through pupils. In 1960, Guitar News reported a celebration of Krick’s sixty years of guitar teaching and identified his friendship and study with Foden.[8] The historical chain is tangible here. A teacher influences a player, and that player goes on to teach for decades.

What Knoxville readers can take from Foden

Foden’s relevance to our East Tennessee guitar history lies in the larger American culture of teaching and musical association that preceded local organizations such as Knoxville Classical Guitar.

His work also makes an illuminating companion to Justin Holland’s. Both lives direct our attention toward the arrangement and the lesson as important creative work. A beautiful performance can inspire someone to begin. A teacher, a useful publication and a place to share the music help that person continue.

Foden’s story invites us to value all of those contributions together. The concert stage is one part of guitar history. The life of the instrument also continues wherever a melody is thoughtfully arranged, a technical problem is clearly explained, or an experienced player helps someone else hear what is possible.