Nick Johnson: A Deep Dive into His Guitar Work and Techniques
Explore the world of guitarist Nick Johnson, reviewing his musical journey, guitar techniques, works, and where to discover his guitar lessons.
Guitar Learning & Techniques
Guitar Store Riffs: The Good, The Bad and The Classic
Explore popular and infamous guitar store riffs, their cultural context, and discover which tunes to play or avoid while testing guitars in a music store.
Mastering the B Flat Major Scale on Guitar: Tutorial, Diagrams and Theory
Expert guidance on how to play the B flat major scale on the guitar, featuring diagrams, finger positions, scale theory, and its application in various genres.
5 Simple Techniques Every Acoustic Guitarist Should Know
These are some of the most essential, bread-and-butter, don’t-leave-home-without-them type acoustic guitar techniques. You’ve probably heard them on many recordings. Let’s start with what I call…Pluck & DampThis is a fingerstyle technique that I like a lot. The alternate plucking and damping creates a very nice percussive groove that is just perfect for mid-tempo songs. … Read more
What is 12 bar blues?
The 12 bar blues is one of the most popular types of chord progression in contemporary music. As the name suggests, it features in blues guitar a great deal, It is also used very commonly in jazz, rock, pop, country and even heavy metal. A 12 bar blues can be played in any key, and … Read more
Complete Idiot’s Guide (CIG) to Guitar Exercises Review: A Guitar Book for Ambitious Players
The Complete Idiot’s Guide (CIG) to Guitar Exercises by Hemme Luttjeboer is a complete book of guitar exercises. It covers chord exercises based around the CAGED system, single note exercises employing scales and Arpeggios. The book also includes an introduction to fingerpicking with some right-hand exercises. While you’re likely to learn some basic theory while working … Read more
How to Play Power Chords
What is a power chord?Power chords are a basic element of modern electric guitar playing. They are found throughout all genres of contemporary music, and feature heavily in rock, alternative, punk and metal guitar, because they will still sound clear, bold and full through an overdriven or distorted amplifier. A power chord has only 2 notes … Read more
Tuning a Guitar – What should you tune to?
An electric guitar really does sound a lot better when it’s in tune. Even the nicest, priciest, most gorgeous fourteen thousand dollar special edition Les Paul will sound terrible if the tuning is out. If you’re not sure exactly what you should tune to, here’s a guide.What tunings are out there?Standard tuning on a guitar … Read more
How to Tune a Guitar by Ear
Electronic tuners are cheap, accurate and readily available. Even people with a very good ear will probably be able to tune faster with a tuner than by ear. You can even get pedal tuners, that you can step on to tune quickly and silently, before stepping on them again and being ready to play straight away, … Read more
What is a guitar pickup?
What is a guitar pickup? A guitar pickup is one of those little rectangular things on the body of an electric guitar, directly under the strings. It will either be covered in a metal case, or in a plastic bobbin with some metal pole pieces or a bar magnet exposed.What does it do?A pickup is what … Read more