Explore the haunting sounds of acoustic slide guitar with this complete video guide by David Hamburger.
Learn Jontavious Willis’ Take on “Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home”
An Introduction to Bottleneck Slide
Editor's Picks
Adam Perlmutter is the editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine and has written hundreds of articles, reviews, and song introductions (as well as expertly engraving and transcribing the music for a comparable number of lessons and compositions.)
It’s impossible to choose favorites, but here are a few lessons he’s worked on recently and suggests you check out.
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers shares three new solo guitar arrangements of Christmas Carols: "What Child Is This?," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and "Jingle Bells."
If your child (or grandchild or other kid in your life) has expressed an interest in playing guitar, you may be wondering if they’re too young to begin lessons.
Space can be good, but if you want to create a bigger sense of dimension, adding in chords as responses to single-note licks can give you a new depth and texture, while creating an additional level of call-and-response.
Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” has nary an acoustic guitar in its swirling arrangement, but the song, in the guitar-friendly key of E major, lends itself nicely to an acoustic treatment.
Fingerstyle guitarist Steve Baughman shares an open-d acoustic guitar arrangement of the beloved Christmas carol "Silent Night" that lends itself nicely to slide treatment.
Look at how to play into the downbeat to create momentum in your fingerstyle blues soloing and explore different kinds of resolutions—short, long, and delayed.
This blues lick is fairly easy to play on guitar, and when played well can create a very evocative sound that will add movement and interest to your accompaniment.
Dudley Hill was a beloved guitarist in the Pacific Northwest with great rhythm and time. Here's how to play his version of the tune "Sally Ann" on guitar.
In this guitar lesson you'll learn economy picking, which includes alternate and sweep picking styles, as well as legato techniques for your fretting fingers.
Unorthodox tunings made it possible for Nick Drake to create complex harmonies from one- and two-fingered chord shapes, freeing him to concentrate on his highly detailed picking patterns.
In this guitar lesson, learn how to use bluegrass flatpicking to add riffs and fills on top of your playing to create the exciting sound of multiple instruments.
About Acoustic Guitar lessons. Learning to play the guitar takes more than just figuring out what fingers go on which frets and which strings to pluck or pick. You need to absorb these mechanics, for sure, but you also need to know how different techniques fit together and how you can put them to use in service of making music with soul and spirit. Memorizing your favorite players’ licks and arrangements is an essential part of the process, too, but all that work doesn’t truly pay off until you’ve internalized the moves and made them your own. The players and teachers whose words and music are shared on this site understand these facets of learning and offer unique, in-depth lessons. Here, you’ll find riffs and exercises, full songs to play, technique tips, listening suggestions, and advice on how to practice as well as what to practice. We’ve been publishing high-quality guitar lessons since 1990, written and developed by some of the best guitar teachers around.
