Change the mood and spice up your tunes with parallel major and minor keys By Jimmy Brown Impart a touch of sadness or melancholy to an otherwise happy and predictable-sounding progression
How to play 5 classic Christmas songs on guitar - with tab and chords By Jimmy Brown In the spirit of the Axemas season, we’ve compiled a handful of select solo guitar arrangements of popular Christmas songs
Get a private blues lesson from ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons By Guitar World Staff Billy Gibbons teaches you the blues tunes that inspired him to play guitar
Play better than ever with these 5 essential guitar warm-up exercises By Stéphane Wrembel Gypsy jazz guitar master Stéphane Wrembel offers some terrific exercises that will help you develop fret-hand strength
Learn to supercharge your blues solos by seamlessly switching between major and minor pentatonic scales By Andy Aledort All of the greatest blues and rock guitarists - such as T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, Albert King, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix - routinely incorporated this technique into their solos
Take your improvisation to the next level by listening to your own playing and reacting to it By Dweezil Zappa Dweezil Zappa offers some phenomenal spontaneous soloing strategies
Steve Howe lesson: Learn how to play Yes's Starship Trooper, Siberian Khatru and Mood for a Day By Guitar World Staff Steve Howe shows you how to play the key riffs to several Yes classics
Make your compositions soar using augmented climb progressions By Jimmy Brown How to inject a sense of drama into your songwriting
Give your fingers a workout with this monster three-notes-per-string lick By Glenn Proudfoot If you get your fingers used to the wide intervals in this lick, the creative possibilities are endless
Open your mind to new sounds with these symmetrical fretboard patterns By Dweezil Zappa Dweezil Zappa shares ideas for fresh melodic shapes
Learn the hallmarks of the hugely influential guitar style of Mountain's Leslie West By Andy Aledort Take a look at Leslie West's heavy, dense guitar work in this lesson
Why using the major third is crucial for your blues-based solos By Andy Aledort When soloing over dom7 chords, the inclusion or substitution of the major third in a minor pentatonic line always sounds good
Improve your shredding skills by connecting string-skipping patterns By Sammy Boller These patterns are easy to link up with your pentatonic scales, and can be very useful for adding some flash into your riffs and solos
How using the augmented chord in a minor drop progression can change your songs By Jimmy Brown Paul McCartney, David Gilmour, George Harrison, Tom Petty and many more have done this in their music, so why shouldn't you?
Add tension to your solos with the atonal 'X' scale By Blake Scopino This flexible scale sounds great in a modal jam or fusion context
Go beyond the normal boundaries of the minor pentatonic scale with this lick By Glenn Proudfoot Improve on different techniques, and give your fingers a workout, with this Monster Lick
This compositional trick has been used to great effect by Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, The Eagles, Queen and many more By Jimmy Brown Learn how to walk down scales with contrary motion
Dave Mustaine lesson: Learn about exotic voicings, major and minor diads and "upside down" chords By Dave Mustaine Learn some more about exotic voicings, plus major and minor diads, from the Megadeth frontman
Robert Johnson: Unlock the guitar mysteries of the Delta blues great By Andy Aledort Learn the variety of picking techniques and tunings that Johnson used to craft his timeless, deeply emotional music
This monster lick takes the blues scale to ferocious new places By Glenn Proudfoot It's amazing how the same six notes, when played with a new spin, can have such a dramatic impact
