Part of my job as a guitar teacher is curating songs that my students might like to play. While some students know exactly what they want to learn and enthusiastically pursue every item on their ever-growing “to-learn” list, others just …
How to Buy Your First Guitar
So you’re ready to start learning guitar (or maybe it’s your kid or another family member). Now you’ve got to buy one, and you have no idea what to look for. Fear not! This guide will help you find exactly …
Guitar Lessons for Beginners
Learning a musical instrument isn’t always easy, but if you put the work in then the rewards are enormous. The guitar has an innate appeal, being arguably one of the coolest musical instruments you could ever pick up, but it …
How to Read Guitar Tabs
When you first lay eyes on them, guitar tabs seem about as easy to understand as quantum physics. For a beginner first picking up the instrument, learning how to read guitar tabs is an essential skill, because they’re the most …
5 Beginner Electric Blues Licks
When I have a student interested in learning blues solos on electric guitar, these are the five lick-building blocks I give them. Each exercise is only two or three notes, but they can be linked in endless combinations to create …
4 Fingerings for the Open A Chord
If you’re busy learning your open chords, it’s likely that you’ve harbored ill feelings toward the A chord at some point. The conventional fingering is tricky because you need to cram three fingers into the space of one fret on …
Chord-Changing Exercise
Here’s a little chord-changing exercise that will help you move between chords much faster. If you’ve been frustrated by how long it takes your fretting fingers to make the switch from one chord to another, this exercise is for you. …
Mistakes Are Good for You
Huh? Read that title again. Mistakes really are good for you. Every mistake you make is a little red flag saying, “Want to become a better guitarist? Spend some time right here! Fix me!” Check out this now-famous video of …
The Guitarist’s Essentials
I don’t like rules. These are not rules. These are my top pieces of advice for guitar students of all ages and skill levels. I use these strategies relentlessly in my own playing. Use a Tuner Keep your guitar as …
How to Practice Chords: Hit the Bullseye
Practicing guitar chords is very much like practicing darts. When playing through songs, you often need to strum a chord the instant your fingers land on the strings. There’s no extra time to make adjustments and get the chord re-fingered …
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