There would be many ways to establish the Beatles’ musical accomplishments, as varied as they are numerous throughout multiple domains. One could single out their formal innovations; rhythmic and metric design; melodic, harmonic, and contrapuntal arrangements of pitch; electronic enhancements; or their vocal delivery of poetry. For this chapter, however, I would like to examine their instrumental work, and look past their accomplishments on piano and other keyboards, drums and other percussion, harmonicas and other “sweeteners” – whether employed by themselves or by session players – to focus on their primary vehicles for instrumental performance: their guitars. To do so, we will look at both the tonal qualities of the instruments they utilized and the performance techniques they employed to get their desired sounds in particular songs. In order to achieve some comprehensive level of detail in our limited space, we will restrict our examination to the Beatles’ foundational early work through 1964, produced at a time when they learned their playing skills from a very wide variety of styles, but we will also note a few parallels to later work, as well as to other artists, when appropriate.