The 50 Greatest Guitar Book, from guitarist, writer and educator, Shawn Persinger (a.k.a. Prester John) is both an indispensable reference and one of the finest tutorial books ever penned.
The newbie acoustic blues guitarist is faced with several choices when deciding to learn how to pick the blues in the old style.
As the first in a series of guitar instructional videos I’ll be presenting at Guitar International, I thought I’d start out with a video with about the classic Big Bill Broonzy song ‘Hey Hey’, in which I attempt to copy that swinging Chicago acoustic blues sound that he developed.
The use of pre-composed licks as an essential step in learning to play jazz, and especially jazz guitar, seems to be a foregone conclusion.
There’s no denying that the internet has changed the music industry, and indeed the way that musicians initiate communication with their audiences.
G-Men productions has announced the pending release of a new guitar app that will be sure to have the music community talking: The Johnny Winter App.
From the official music publisher of thousands of popular artists, songwriters, and composers, new music collections from Led Zeppelin – the blues-inspired rock band that significantly impacted rock music forever – are now available for guitar and piano. These include a guitar TAB book for the band’s 2007 reunion concert film Celebration Day, Platinum Album Editions in authentic guitar TAB for Physical Graffiti and Presence, and a piano sheet music anthology.
As guitarists, we have all benefited from moveable chord shapes and scale patterns. The fact that a single scale pattern, for instance, will retain its structure over a completely new collection of notes by simply sliding up or down the fretboard can be extremely useful, as well as practical in numerous playing situations. In fact, many guitarists make use of a wide variety of such patterns while improvising melodies without even thinking about what notes they’re playing.
Improvisation is an interesting subject for many guitar players. From my experiences as a teacher and from playing with other guitarists I’ve noticed that the majority of Rock/Metal players prefer to avoid improvising when recording/performing.
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I’ve heard that a few times, but it never sunk in until I took Tobias Hurwitz’s daily three-hour Advanced Rock class at the week-long Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop. If you’re a “play by ear” guitarist like me, I can’t recommend enough that you put your anxieties and prejudices aside and sign up for an intensive workshop like this one.
