The Guitar Journal
All about guitar.
Everybody wants to break out of the standard pentatonic box. While the standard pentatonic box is a great start for learning to improvise, particularly over the blues - it can soon become limiting. Here are three simple methods you can use to "break …
Continue Reading about Beyond the Pentatonic: 3 Simple Ways To Expand Your Blues Soloing
Fingerpicking can appear unapproachable for the beginner. I mean, there are a lot of complex picking actions, and it’s all happening simultaneously... and it can be overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be, though. In fact, if you have a good teacher, it …
Continue Reading about Fingerpicking for Beginners: Top 3 Courses to Get Started
One of the great things about guitar is that it's easy to get started playing songs quickly! Here are one hundred and sixty-two easy songs to play on guitar that you can get started with today. If you're looking for more complete lessons on …
Continue Reading about Top 162 Easy Songs To Play On Guitar (Yes, You Read That Right)
Looking for fingerstyle guitar tabs? There are a LOT of sites, stores, and blogs to sort through online. Here are the top sites and apps to get accurate fingerstyle guitar tabs. (There are some excellent free options, as well as paid options.) The …
Continue Reading about Fingerstyle Guitar Tabs: The Top 5 Sites and Apps
Berklee College of Music, the premier music college in the U.S. for students of popular music, uses a curriculum comprised of 10 guitar method books to move new guitar students from amateur to pro. Here's what they use. If you want to play …
Continue Reading about Berklee College of Music’s 10 Essential Guitar Books
Loog Guitars wants to teach your kids to play guitar by pairing hip little 3-string guitars with a gamified app experience. Does it work? I got a chance to review a Loog Mini and see if it helped my 4-year old daughter learn guitar. Test Driving …
Timbaland, the hip-hop artist and producer has released an instructional video series which is excellent, perhaps in ways it didn't intend to be. For those unfamiliar, "Masterclass" is an educational website that presents video series' …
Continue Reading about 3 Ways Timbaland’s Masterclass Sets A Guitar Player Free
Modern finger style guitar has grown in popularity over recent years, but what about fingerstyle guitar lessons? What's the best resource to learn fingerstyle guitar? Exciting players like Tommy Emmanuel, Andy McKee, and Antoine Dufour, have …
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Classical guitar is a beautiful combination of technique, composition, tradition, and passion. If you want to get started exploring the classical guitar, here are ten easy classical guitar songs perfect for beginners. Let's get …
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Who is Bryan Sutton? Primarily known as a flatpicked acoustic guitar player, Sutton also plays mandolin, banjo, ukulele, and electric guitar. He’s played with the likes of Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Hot Rize, Chris Thile, Tony …
Continue Reading about Flatpick Guitar Lessons with Bryan Sutton: Something For Everyone
TrueFire.com is a massive, online center for guitar lessons. It's what Guitar Player magazine has called, "the planet's largest and most comprehensive selection of online guitar lessons." And in the area of fingerstyle guitar, they deserve particular …
Continue Reading about Top 10 Fingerstyle Guitar Courses on TrueFire
Bluegrass doesn't have to be intimidating. When you listen to legends like Doc Watson and Tony Rice, it's easy to be intimidated by the lightening fast, single note lead lines or the intricate fingerpicking. But much of the acoustic guitar's role in …
Continue Reading about Top 10 Easy Bluegrass Guitar Songs For Beginners
Today I'd like to chat about the style of picking used in gypsy jazz guitar, otherwise known as 'rest stroke' picking.This picking technique is what allows gypsy jazz guitarists to produce such a strong sound on their instrument, and once …
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Today I'd like to share with you a very useful shape. One of the most versatile arpeggios you can learn as a gypsy jazz guitarist is shown below. The great thing about this shape is that you can use it to improvise over three …
Continue Reading about A Very Useful Gypsy Jazz Arpeggio (with TAB, picking, & fingering)
