How to Buy Your First Guitar

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 …

Old Spice Guitar

How to Embellish Guitar Chords

Have you ever heard a guitarist take a song with otherwise plain vanilla open chords and squeeze new life out of them with subtle embellishments? In this article (and video series), I’ll show you how to spice up the same …

Hammock

This Should Be Easy, But It’s Not

Have you ever tried doing something new on the guitar, and it was far trickier than you anticipated? “This should be easy! Why can’t my fingers just do it?” Frustration aside, these are big moments in your musical development. Any …

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 …

Compass

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 …

Fretboard

Fretboard Twister

Here’s an awesome little finger exercise for guitar. I call it “Fretboard Twister,” because it works just like the popular Twister game. Instead of moving your hands and feet to different spots on a floor mat, you’ll be moving your …

Bullseye

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 …

Cycle of Fourths Combined

How to Memorize and Use the Cycle of Fourths

The Cycle of Fourths (a.k.a. “Circle of Fifths” or “Cycle of Fifths” or “Circle of Fourths”) is a representation of all 12 notes in the chromatic scale, arranged into a circle. It’s most commonly used to easily find the notes …