These articles originally appeared in the August 2018 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
Here you’ll learn how guitar notation evolved into the sophisticated tool it is today, how it’s prepared for publications like AG, and most important, how you can use it to learn new music, whatever your style.
Here we cover the 3 main elements of an acoustic guitar amplification system: pickups, preamps/DIs, and amplifiers/PA systems.
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This waltz-time tale is quite straightforward and easy to sing and play, as the chorus and the verses follow the same melody and chord changes.
Leather has a distinct advantage for players looking for a pick that combines some of the power and facility of a plectrum with the warmth of fingertips on a string.
Peter Ciluzzi plays music in his dreams. He tells me this as we’re standing outside The Evening Muse in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he has just played a transcendent set. As an unseasonably chilly wind rushes down the street, the guitarist and luthier, who built guitars out of his Provincetown,…
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Prominent guitarists and educators offer advice on what it takes to become a more musical guitar player and improve your musicianship.
An automatic string tuner might sound like overkill for the average guitarist. But...
"Pachelbel's Canon" is an often-requested composition for gigging guitarists. Here's a compact arrangement that sounds just as good on the steel-string as nylon-string.
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It goes without saying that bluegrass dobro titan Jerry Douglas is no stranger to the bandstand. Still, even Douglas had to admit that co-hosting a “Guitar Mash” at Nashville’s City Winery on April 7, 2018, alongside longtime Paul Simon musical director Mark Stewart, was a whole new way to approach…
While having options is a good thing, it’s still important to take your time selecting a guitar teacher. Here's how to find the right guitar teacher.
Set aside just a few minutes a day to work on these steps, and you can make noticeable progress within weeks.
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Fender has refined its acoustic line and is now making perhaps the best steel-string guitars yet to carry the company’s name.
On a Monday night in Syracuse, New York, guitar cases line the walls of a hotel meeting room. Around 70 players, many cradling their instruments, are listening to a presentation by singer-songwriter Tim Burns, leader of the local Americana band Two Hour Delay. Burns is sharing ideas on how to back up another guitarist, and to demonstrate, he’s invited to the stage John Cadley, a veteran of the bluegrass/country scene in upstate New York and beyond (Lou Reid & Carolina once topped the bluegrass charts with Cadley’s song “Time”).
An outtake from 6- and 12-String Guitar from The Thousand Incarnations of the Rose: American Primitive Guitar & Banjo 1963–1974 shows the guitarist’s more contemplative side.
The ToneDexter learns how your guitar sounds through both a microphone and a pickup, and uses this information to produce a snapshot of your tone.
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The accompaniment part for "Night Lights" will have you breaking out of familiar patterns.
Introduced in 1968 as a special-order version of the 6-string F-50R, the Guild F-512 had varying appointments, including Brazilian rosewood backs and sides, before it became a regular model in 1974—and a go-to instrument for players such as Pete Townsend, Brian May, Tim Buckley, John Denver, and Dan Fogelberg.
Playing melodies in parallel sixths evokes the sweet sound of classic Memphis soul. Here's how to use sixths in a variety of musical ways
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THE PROBLEM Rhythm is a shaky area for you. You have a difficult time communicating a rhythmic idea unless you can play it; you have a tendency to fall into familiar, repetitive rhythms. THE SOLUTION Learn the fundamentals of rhythm, then work through exercises designed to improve your rhythmic cognition. Music…
