Latest articles by John Wheatcroft
Michael Landau has made harmonic changes his calling card – and this lesson in his soloing style demonstrates how you can, too
Landau’s articulate playing and reference-quality tone makes him one of guitar’s unsung GOATs
Expand your lick vocabulary and boost your improv skills with this Bruce Forman-inspired lesson
Bruce Forman is a jazz guitar master, and these four mini-pieces in his style walk you through soloing strategies and chord choices, sharpening up your technique along the way
Pat Metheny called him “the father of modern jazz guitar” – here's how Jim Hall revolutionized modern jazz
Hall's genius with a guitar had profound implications for the jazz band format, as six-strings replaced piano in the rhythm section
What is the Steely Dan “Mu chord”? Breaking down the left-field chord voicings that will open up your harmonic world
This deep dive into the Steely Dan chordal approach is a masterclass in Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s supreme harmonic awareness
Pat Metheny called him “one of the brightest new talents on the instrument” – learn Dan Wilson’s remarkable phrasing
Wilson is a mind-blowing talent, and here he opens his box of tricks to share some licks that will improve your understanding of melodic minor modes
5 blues guitar rhythms every guitarist needs to know
Every guitarist can improve their rhythm game. As Steve Lukather says, “I’ve been paid to play rhythm guitar 90% of the time. It’s harder than it looks”
Dean Brown was a fusion master who played with everyone from Marcus Miller to Eric Clapton
Session ace, author and teacher, and a guitarist who put mind, body and soul into his playing, the late Dean Brown was a fusion legend. We pay tribute to his physical style
10 Eric Johnson techniques that will take your solos up a notch
The Texas virtuoso has a phenomenal command of touch, tone and technique – find out how you can apply his playing approaches to your own style
Learn how to fuse jazz, blues and rock guitar in this Jimmy Herring lesson
Herring marries the harmonic sophistication of jazz to the power of rock and blues, and this lesson will knock your picking articulation and chord changes into shape
“Django stretched the guitar imagination to its limit. He was the fastest, the most creative”: What Django Reinhardt can teach today’s blues players
Idolized by B.B. King and George Benson, Django Reinhardt was gypsy jazz guitar’s most legendary player. Improve your jazz vocabulary with this primer in his pyrotechnic style
Robben Ford has been sideman to stars from Miles Davis to Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and even Kiss – and he's an expert in fusing the worlds of jazz and blues guitar
Improve your voice leading, chordal vocabulary and harmonic tension and release now as we put Ford's style under the microscope in this in-depth lesson
“He is the fastest and cleanest and has more technique than any other”: Jimmy Bryant was one of the very first Telecaster heroes. Learn how his trailblazing playing shaped the guitarists who followed
Effortlessly mixing jazz, country and blues, Bryant was one of Albert Lee’s great influences, and his style remains a white-knuckle ride of technique and imagination
With over 700 recorded versions in the last 45 years alone, Silent Night is one of the world's most popular Christmas carols – learn a spellbinding solo jazz guitar arrangement inspired by Larry Carlton and Django Reinhardt
Get to grips with a Christmas classic that will improve your chord-melody chops and impress your family
“I’m basically a blues-rock guitar player that got wise to some other stuff”: Greg Koch is one of guitar's great showmen – and his licks are phenomenal
Strap yourself in, it's time for our lesson in the art of Greg Koch – the funny guy with a staggering command of a huge range of styles
With credits spanning Miles Davis to John Mayer, John Scofield is one of jazz guitar’s most idiosyncratic players – and his mind-bending solo phrasing is a must-learn
A John Scofield lesson is a lesson in melodic choices. In this tab and audio lesson, we dive into his genre-spanning style to hone your jazz chops
Pat Metheny is a true master of guitar, and every player can learn from his awe-inspiring fusion approach – expand your chops with these key concepts
We put Metheny's blues motifs, subversion of genre, his use of slurs and slides, unisons, and the targeting of crucial chord tones under the microscope – tabs and audio included
Blues guitar techniques you can learn from Telecaster master Roy Buchanan
Take a deep dive into the style of one of the best players to have ever picked up a Telecaster, in a lesson that will whip your hybrid picking chops into shape in no time
Add fire to your pentatonic phrasing with this lesson in Jimi Hendrix's soloing approaches
We might never reach Hendrix levels of god-like genius on the guitar, but how he phrased his leads is a lesson to us all. Here, we look at four examples that will expand your blues vocabulary
Make your blues swing with this guide to Honky Tonk hero Billy Butler’s techniques
A hero to the great Danny Gatton, Billy Butler was a trailblazing player, and this lesson into his jazzy blues style will underpin your technique and improvisational sensibility
Joel Hoekstra video masterclass: learn eight-finger tapping with the legendary Whitesnake guitarist
This lesson is a veritable boot camp for two-handed tapping and will bring you up to speed for those occasions when it is time to let it rip
Take your playing from blues to jazz and back with this lesson in the great George Benson’s style
Explore George Benson's bluesier side with these blues-jazz phrases and double-stop chord voicings, and learn how to combine them in a way that's rhythmically captivating
Guitar wisdom you can learn from Berklee professor and John Mayer mentor Tomo Fujita
Using the jazz melodic minor scale as a launch pad, this lesson unpacks some of Professor Fujita's signature approaches to melding blues with jazz, and finding new avenues for musical exploration
Show-stopping techniques you can learn from Paco de Lucia, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin
This lesson takes a deep dive into the styles of the virtuoso trio responsible for one of the greatest fusion albums ever made
