The Instrument Inside: Treat Your Mind and Body with the Same Care You Give Your Playing
Developing a healthy and positive mindset will go a long way toward helping your musical success.
Sean McGowan
Sean McGowan's work focuses on jazz, fingerstyle, composition, and injury prevention for musicians. He is a professor of music at the University of Colorado Denver and has authored several instructional books.
Sean McGowan | How I Play | Improvising with CAGED
Learn how to use shapes you already know as a practical tool for soloing.
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Unlock the Deep Bass and Expansive Voicings of Low C Tuning
Here we’ll explore this tuning’s many sonic and practical advantages, including an expanded lower range and huge, lush, and easy-to-play chord voicings.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Harmonics and How to Play Them on Guitar
When played clearly, harmonics sound bell-like and chimey, and they sustain to add a harp-like effect to your sound.
Expand Your Range on Guitar with this Picking-Hand Fretting Technique
Sean McGown shows how to facilitate chord clusters and voicings that are normally impossible to play on the guitar without using a capo or alternate tuning.
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Play a Jazzy Fingerstyle Rendition of “Over the River and Through the Woods”
Originally published in 1844, the song remains a popular favorite among children and adults to celebrate Thanksgiving and the Christmas season.
Remembering Al Petteway, Prolific Guitarist and Teacher, 1952-2023
On September 25th, the acoustic music community lost a great luminary with the passing of guitarist and composer Al Petteway.
Beyond Flattops: The Magic of Archtop Guitars
Though long favored by jazz and swing guitarists, the archtop is currently enjoying a revival among roots and Americana musicians, flatpickers, and singer-songwriters.
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Generating Challenging Picking Exercises From Ninth Chords on Guitar
Let’s take a close look at a common extended chord—containing a note beyond the seventh, the venerable ninth.
Christmas Classics: Learn Three Unique Fingerstyle Arrangements
Learn sophisticated solo-guitar arrangements of "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "Joy to the World," and "Silent Night."
Try These Fun and Challenging Counterpoint Exercises on Guitar
Contrapuntal lines are not necessarily intuitive for most guitarists, but the approach is certainly worth the investment and yields dividends equivalent to sonic gold.
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30 Ways to Improve Your Acoustic Guitar Tone
Improve your acoustic guitar tone with these tips and techniques for fretting-hand, flatpicking, and fingerstyle playing for both your right and left hands.
The Blues in Jazz: Using the Classic 12-Bar Form to Learn Bebop Improv
Explore comping and soloing strategies over a standard 12-bar jazz blues progression, as well as chord substitutions and variations.
Try These Fun Guitar Exercises to Build Coordination Between Your Fretting and Picking Hands
Take a deep dive into building independence among the fingers of both hands.
Review: Santa Cruz Guitar Company Happy Traum Signature Model HT/13
Beautiful. Resonant. Comfortable. Balanced. Sweet. Loud! These were the words that immediately came to mind as I played the Santa Cruz HT/13 guitar for the first time
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How to Use Guide Tone Voicings in Fingerstyle Jazz
How to Use Guide Tone Voicings in Fingerstyle Jazz guitar lesson music notation
Gear Review: Henriksen The Bud Head Amplifier
In the not-too-distant past, acoustic guitarists and singer-songwriters were relegated to hauling around large PA systems replete with a mixer, power amp, speakers, stands, plus duffle bags stuffed with a wide assortment of tangled cables—all in an effort to simply be heard in a rehearsal, club, or coffeehouse.
Beyond Flattops: The Magic of Resonator, Baritone, and Archtop Guitars
The wide tonal palette of acoustic guitars includes archtop, resonator, and baritone colors. Here's more about the history, makers, and players of these instruments.
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Improve Your Technique by Practicing ‘Broken Thirds’ Scales
Scales are great for warming up and improving technical proficiency. Challenge yourself with new scales and patterns.
Learn a Sophisticated Guitar Arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful”
This solo-guitar arrangement moves twice through the song’s simple verse/chorus form, set in the key of E major. The first verse features contrapuntal motion with inner lines moving under the melody.
Guide Tone Voicings
Guide tones are simply the third and seventh notes of a chord (sometimes the third and sixth if the chord is a simple triad or sixth chord). Guide-tone voicings have long been popular with jazz musicians, including guitarists Grant Green, Jim Hall, and…
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Gear Review: Palmer Acoustic Pocket Amp
Most gigging acoustic guitarists know the importance of a great-sounding, reliable preamp/DI box. Not only will a DI allow you to directly interface with a house PA system via the XLR output, but the preamp can help you sculpt…
How to Play Thirds Up and Down Your Acoustic Guitar Fretboard
Lines based on thirds present great material for picking- and fretting-hand exercises, and also provide a solid foundation for melodic ideas and solos.
Gear Review: Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension Strings
When it comes to strings, guitarists seem to fall into one of two categories: some obsess about gauges and materials, while others tend to put on whatever is laying around or happens to be on sale at the local guitar store.
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7-Minute Jazz Guitar Lesson: Horizontal Approaches
A great way to break out of old scale and arpeggio patterns is by tackling one string at a time
