Learning to play guitar is to some extent about eye-hand coordination. Ironically, that can be more difficult for anyone who grew up in the post-video games era.
continue reading "Playing Guitar: Getting Started"

Like a lot of things in the music world, finger exercises are a very individual thing. Some can do without them completely, but for most players some kind of exercise is a great help to developing good technique.
continue reading "Finger Exercises To Suit Your Style"

Guitars are crafted by professionals known as luthiers. What those experts know (among other things) that the beginner learns is the wide range of woods used and how they affect the overall sound of a guitar.
continue reading "Woods For Tone and Beauty"

Though the primary sound of an acoustic guitar is produced by vibrations from the soundboard (top), something has to set that wood oscillating. And, of course, since the wood is a fixed shape and material it can inherently only produce one basic sound. The infinite variety of guitar music is the product of its strings.
continue reading "Strings, Music Makers"

Electric guitars have components that are absent in most acoustic guitars. One of the most basic is the pickup. That’s a small electrical device, often near the center of the soundboard, that ‘picks up’ the vibrations produced by the strings and transmits them down wires to be amplified.
continue reading "Pickups, What They Are and What They Do"

One thing that is obvious about the modern world is the enormous variety of taste in music. Rock gets the most attention, of course, but there are millions who enjoy jazz. Many others prefer flamenco and there are those who enjoy music that’s difficult to classify.
continue reading "Different Types for Different Styles"

There are in the market today over a thousand guitar manufacturers, many offering hundreds of models old and new. With all that to choose from, no one could cover any but a few in a small space.
continue reading "How To Read Reviews"

Gibson Guitar company has been making guitars since the 1920s, when they evolved from a producer of mandolins. Though celebrated even then, it was in the 1950s into the 1960s and beyond that the company really hit its stride from a design point of view.
continue reading "Gibson, Guitar Champion"

Stratocaster, Telecaster… names of legend. These electric, solid-body guitars are at the pinnacle of the luthier’s ancient art thanks to modern technology.
continue reading "Fender, Mind-Bending Superiority"

To say where a lute - or any of the other dozens of similar instruments - leaves off and the guitar begins is an impossible exercise.
continue reading "A Brief History of the Guitar"