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NAMM 2022: Yamaha Guitars Recap
As an artist, I’m always fascinated by the design layouts and floor plans developed for trade show events. Display areas have to be visually appealing as well as functional, plus they have to be easy...
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The Joy of Playing Guitar Outdoors
One of my fondest memories of living in Nashville was getting together with my songwriter friends to play music on the weekends. We’d all gather at someone’s house with a dish of food, build a fire in...
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Electric Guitar Tonality
The dictionary describes “tone” as the quality or character of sound. Of course, the quality of a sound is in the ear of the beholder. Some of my friends revere certain guitar players, and often...
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Constructing Basic Guitar Chords, Part 1
When we invest our time in learning new chord shapes on the guitar, we broaden our musical vocabulary. Understanding that these shapes can further expand into new chords by simply moving one finger...
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Constructing Basic Guitar Chords, Part 2
In Part 1 of this two-part series, we showed you how to build the four main triad chord types and add the seventh degree to create major, minor and dominant seventh chords. We can further enhance the...
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How To Play Guitar Double-Stops
As a guitar teacher, I’m always taking inventory of the techniques and approaches I’d like to share with my roster of students. Those ideas need to have artistic value, cover a variety of musical...
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Secrets to a Successful Jam Session
There’s a sense of freedom and autonomy that I really enjoy as a solo performer, but I also really enjoy the camaraderie and energy of working with a band. I often get to jam with friends in social...
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Which Electric Guitar Body Type is Best for Your Music?
Let’s face it, guitar players love their gear! We collect instruments, drool over mystical hand-wired overdrive pedals, and create forums to discuss the latest modelers, vintage tube amps and guitar...
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Playing With Tempo
What’s the difference between a drummer and a drum machine? Two bars at the end of the song! I jest, of course, and have the utmost respect for my amazing drummer friends. But most musicians who play...
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The Future of Guitars
The past couple of decades have seen a ton of innovation in digital technologies such as modeling and AI (Artificial Intelligence), but what about guitars themselves? For this month’s posting, I...
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10 Things Every Guitarist Should Know
I’ve studied music both formally and informally for decades, and I don’t think I’ll ever come close to mastering the guitar. Philip Sudo, the author of the book Zen Guitar, states that even when the...
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NAMM 2023 Yamaha Guitars Recap
Flying into California always gets my heart rate going. It brings back fond memories of when I lived in Hollywood while attending the Guitar Institute of Technology (G.I.T.). In particular, there’s a...
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Raising the Bar: FG9 Acoustic Guitars
Yamaha released their first acoustic guitar, the FG180, back in 1966. These “red label” guitars found fame on the stage of the original Woodstock festival and were re-released in recent years with some...
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Using the CAGED System to Expand Your Guitar Vocabulary
Learning to play the guitar may be one of the most rewarding pursuits you’ll ever take on … but it may also be one of the most frustrating, for many reasons. When I started out, instructional resources...
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How Music Supports Core Academia
I wish I’d paid more attention in school. Much of my time in the classroom was spent staring out the window, drawing cartoons in my notebook instead of taking notes — the whole time wishing I could be...
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A Guide to Electric Guitar Pickups
We’ve discussed previously how multiple factors affect the tone produced by an electric guitar, from the soul of the player to the tonewoods used in the instrument’s construction … and everything...
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Five Reasons to Take Guitar Lessons
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that learning music theory will ruin your “feel.” Not true! In fact, learning music theory will only enhance it. That’s because it expands your...
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Five Surprising Ways to Find Gigs as a Guitar Player
I’ve always been an advocate of creating a job, rather than finding one. This gives you control over both the employment details and the job description, along with the ability to adjust each parameter...
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Elevate Your Guitar Playing in 30 Days
Let’s be honest: We’ve all purchased a new guitar in hopes that it will serve to magically transform our playing to new heights of expression. No doubt the exciting colors and sensual curves we love so...
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Nylon-String vs. Steel-String Guitars
With the start of another new year, we often make resolutions to lose weight, start a workout regime, learn a new language, or take on an exciting hobby that we’ve always wanted to try. While learning...
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