Get a Free
DIGITAL EDITION OF The 2016 Gear Guide!
Lessons
15 Cheap Ways to Improve Your Tone
Your guitar playing starts with your sound. After all, it’s your sound that the listener reacts to before you’ve played even five notes. Here are 15 quick and easy ways to get your tone in shape...
Fundamental Movements Every Guitarist Should Know
Whether it's turning a doorknob or stirring coffee, guitarists frequently use a host of imprecise analogies to illustrate their hand movements. These everyday images may seem helpful on the surface...
Zakk Wylde's Blazing-Fast Chromatic Blues Shred Lick
Black Label Society frontman and former Ozzy Osbourne shredder Zakk Wylde recently visited Guitar World HQ to shred through a bluesy chromatic lick in E minor.
Top 10 Lessons Learned As a Session Guitarist
This week I offer some lessons I've learned in the past 35 years to get you prepared for—or maybe even help you survive—the world of playing sessions for a living.
A Guide to Symmetrical Scales
I recently gave you a 30-minute guitar workout designed for guitarists with limited practice time.
James Taylor Shows How He Plays “Country Road”
Yes, here it is straight from the man himself. He tunes to dropped D and demonstrates his hammer off method for performing this classic.
Devising an Unconventional, Acrobatic Guitar Riff
A Periphery riff that people often asked me about is the bridge section to “The Bad Thing,” from our 2015 album, Juggernaut: Omega.
The Power of Bluegrass Crosspicking
If you're a fingerpicker, this sort of thing is easy. And if you're Count Rugen from The Princess Bride, it's especially easy because you have six fingers. But even if you're a more commonly...
Meet the A Mixolydian Mode, Up and Down on Each String
When jamming, guitarists are always challenged by the task of creating interesting, evolving rhythm parts behind a soloist. In my experiences, I have found the study of modal chord patterns and...
A Beginner's Guide to Quintuplets
Recently, I've been experimenting with five-note patterns, or quintuplets. A quintuplet is when you fit five notes where usually you'd fit four. For example, you can fit 20 16th-note quintuplets in...
Seven Habits That Will Make You a Better Guitarist
You don’t just have to practice when there’s a guitar in your hands. There’s plenty of time in the day being wasted that you can use to improve your playing. Whenever you have a spare few seconds...
Glen Drover's Mysterious Harmonic Minor Walkdown
In this lesson, Drover teaches a "mysterious" harmonic minor walk down in the key of E. This lick can be played by using alternate picking, or alternatively as a blazing-fast legato run. Check out...
Add Some "Speed" with This Simple Shred-Style Lick
In its most basic form, the lick is a sequence of six notes played as a sextuplet or two sets of triplets (depending on the tempo). The notes are played on the same string, which makes it very easy...