Striated muscle is the most abundant tissue in the body of vertebrates and it forms, together with the skeleton, the locomotory system required for movement. Research on the embryonic development of muscles has a long tradition both in classical embryology and in molecular developmental biology. While the gene networks regulating muscle development have been discovered mostly in the mouse through genetics, our knowledge on cell lineages, muscle morphogenesis and tissue interactions regulating their formation is to a large extent based on the use of the avian model. Here, I will present some of the contributions of our group to the field with a special focus on recent unpublished data on muscle cell fusion using the avian model.