If you only have one pedal in your arsenal, chances are it’s some sort of overdrive. Fuzz, boost, overdrive and distortion pedals are the most popular stomp boxes out there, and for good reason. If you don’t have the luxury of being able to crank up a great tube amp to excessive volume to get the world’s sweetest lead tones — and few of us do — you need one of these machines to dirty up your sound and help generate the singing, saturated, sustaining sound that so many styles of electric guitar playing require.

Despite their popularity, however, the distinctions between the different pedals in the “OD” category can get blurred. While each of these pedals helps you get cranked-up tone at the stomp of a switch, each type works its magic in a different way, and many from within the same type can function very differently.

Let’s break down the overdrive category to define, dissect and demystify each effect in the group.

Boosters

Among the simplest and oldest of overdrive-inducing pedals is the booster, which, at its heart, is just a straightforward preamp that’s placed in front of an amp’s input. These are used to increase the guitar’s signal — either to create a loud, but relatively clean volume lift for solos, or to kick the amp into overdrive.

Many types of boosters first became popular in the mid ’60s, as elements within their design — flaws, you could argue — produced far less than the clean boost that was intended, and instead induced tonal enhancements that players came to love. Early examples such as the Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster and Vox Treble Booster and Bass/Treble Booster owed their creamy, thick sound to a single germanium transistor, an archaic component that is still used as the magic ingredient in many current boosters (and fuzz pedals, as we shall see).

Note that these didn’t merely boost treble as the name might imply. They did help highs push through, but they boosted other frequencies as well, and the “treble booster” tag was partly a sales point in an age when “more treble” was often the call of players muted by high-load guitar cords and murky live mixes.

In addition to boosting the signal, the germanium transistor added a little midrange girth and high-end sweetening, elements that became crucial to the early lead tones of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Brian May and many others. These players used their germanium boosters to hit the front ends of a Marshall or Vox amp with a little extra oomph in order to kick it into a singing and more harmonically saturated tube overdrive.

As such, pedal and amp work together as one instrument, and few boosters are used purely for their own inherent tone, but rather for the way they perform in conjunction with a particular amplifier. Plenty of mass manufacturers and boutique makers offer contemporary versions of such vintage-styled boosters, but a different breed, the “linear” (or “clean”) booster, is also popular. These purport to retain the full frequency range of the guitar signal, and simply make it louder. In the process, they can also help overdrive a tube amp in the same way as many vintage units.

Fuzz

The real godfather of the dirt boxes — the fuzz pedal — arrived even before the booster, and it was initially intended as an effect that would let a guitar player mimic the raspy, reedy tone of a saxophone. One of the most famous fuzz-guitar parts of all time — the signature riff to the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” — was originally recorded by Keith Richards as a “holding track” for a horn section that would eventually replace it. The “Satisfaction” riff was recorded through an early Maestro Fuzz-Tone, and it is archetypal of the fuzz sound, as are many of Jimi Hendrix’s legendary solos, often recorded through a Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face.

Each of these pedals, and others like them — both old and new — owe their tone to a pair of the hallowed germanium transistors previously mentioned. These two components — along with a simple network to govern their functions and connect them to a pair of potentiometers for Volume and Fuzz (or some form of level and drive controls) — combine to unleash seven deadly sins’ worth of ungodly sonic mayhem on your tone, but it’s mayhem with a smooth, warm, and furry heart.

The very best fuzz pedals are beloved for their “playability,” meaning the extent to which their response and dynamics can be controlled by your pick attack and your guitar’s volume control.

Silicon transistor-based fuzzes followed germanium units, and these are known for their slightly harder and more crisply defined tones. This is not to say that silicon-based fuzzes are inferior, only different, and many notable players count themselves fans of each breed.

Unlike linear boosters, fuzzes slather a wealth of their own stink all over your signal (and that’s precisely the idea), but they can also be used to drive a tube amp into clipping. Ultimately, most great guitarists with definitive fuzz tones are using their pedals in both of these ways simultaneously to create a larger, more interactive instrument out of the individual components in their rig.

Overdrive

Just like it says on the box, an overdrive pedal seeks to replicate the sound of an overdriven tube amp. In the course of doing so, it often facilitates the real thing a little more quickly by pushing your amp into clipping a little earlier, just as a booster and fuzz will frequently do.

While fuzz pedals of the ’60s and early ’70s inherently sound very little like an overdriven amplifier — other than perhaps an amplifier in bad need of attention — it occurred to many players and pedal designers in the late ’70s that it would be useful to have a box that sounded like the warm, tubey crunch of a mildly pushed amp.

The granddaddy of overdrives is the Ibanez Tube Screamer TS808 (and its Maxon equivalent), manufactured for Ibanez by the Nisshin company from 1979 to 1981 (both small- and large-box versions). The TS808 and the TS-9 and TS-10 that evolved from it were adored by players who wanted less than the extreme hair of the fuzz pedal, but more than the pristine clarity of a clean amp.

Several name players — Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson among them — also used Tube Screamers for their amp-boosting functions, and the low-gain/high-volume control settings that facilitate this have become popular with many guitarists.

DOD, MXR, Boss and others issued formative overdrives, and the genre continues apace today as probably the most popular single breed of pedal. Maker after solder-dazed maker has chased the ultimate in transparent, tube-like, dynamic overdrives. It’s interesting to note that the majority of these pedals achieve their overdrive tones quite differently.

Some makers praise and utilize the “vintage” JRC4558D dual op amp (as used in the most lauded of Tube Screamers), while others declare any op amps to be the death of transparency and dynamics, and go the discrete-circuit route instead. Whichever way you go, a good overdrive is one of the cornerstones of any comprehensive pedalboard, and an extremely useful tone twister.

Distortion

Like going from a ball-peen hammer to a 10-pound sledge, a distortion pedal seeks to reproduce the full-stack tube-distortion rage that the kinder, gentler overdrive pedal barely hints at. In doing so, most distortion pedals also emulate the high-production-value version of this sound, rather than merely enhance the amp tone it starts with, complete with a scooped-EQ curve and liberal helpings of compression.

There are many flavors of distortion available, of course, but by its very nature this pedal aims to achieve its “sound in a box,” rather than partner up with a good tube amp to sound its best.

An iconic example of distortion can be heard on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ where Kurt Cobain used a Boss Distortion DS-1. Although the DS-1 preceded it by a year or so, the ProCo Rat, released in 1979, is usually considered the seminal heavy distortion pedal. (The MXR Distortion+, released in 1973, is really more of an overdrive pedal.)

Every major pedal maker on the market today offers their own renditions of this sonic fury. Most distortion pedals employ a combination of op amps and silicon diodes to do their dirty work, some using the latter in asymmetrical circuits to produce a more jagged and edgy form of clipping.

Whatever gets you to your own flavor of filth, you will most likely want to use your booster, fuzz, overdrive or distortion early in the pedal chain. If you are using more than one pedal, a quick rule of thumb says to put the milder, or cleaner, OD earlier in the chain. On the other hand, there are always notable exceptions. Wah-wah pedals usually like to go before fuzzboxes to work their magic, and messing around with the “accepted order” of other ODs might produce results that give your tone the extra zing you’ve been looking for.

“I use open and alternate tunings to get music out of the guitar,” says fingerstyle master Martin Simpson. “Do you want to move people? You can’t be struggling with holding down the damn strings. Alternate tunings can help you unlock chords and melodies that might be difficult or impossible to play in standard tuning.”

With its evocative and enigmatic sound, DADGAD is one of the guitar’s best-kept secrets. Blues and folk guitarists often delve into open D (low to high, D A D F# A D) and open G (low to high, D G D G B D) tunings, but only the most intrepid pickers investigate DADGAD.

Yet Simpson, one of the world’s preeminent DADGAD players, insists that it’s not a difficult tuning.

“DADGAD’s open A, D and G strings are the same as in standard tuning," he points out. “That means 50 percent of this tuning is completely familiar to you.”

For that matter, he notes, the tuning is inherently beautiful.

“It’s quite easy to get gorgeous sounds,” Simpson says. “I’ll show you two ways to approach DADGAD, but first, just listen to the open strings.”

These open strings are shown, from low to high, in FIGURE 1. To move from standard tuning to DADGAD, simply drop the first and with strings down a whole step to D, and then lower the second string, B, a whole step, to A.

FIGURE 1

DEMYSTIFYING DADGAD

“The first thing you’ll notice,” says Simpson, “is that DADGAD is neither major nor minor—you can go either way. Open-D and open-G tunings push you in a particular harmonic direction, whereas DADGAD is delightfully ambiguous. To play songs, you need I, IV and V chords, right? In DADGAD, you can play rich harmony by merely fretting one note with your index finger [FIGURE 2].

FIGURE 2

“For a I chord, you get D5. There’s no 3, so melodically you can go major or minor. All the strings are open, except the third, which you play at the second fret.

“Now simply move your index finger over to the fourth strings and you’ll get A7sus4—a vibey V chord that uses five strings. Again, there’s no 3, so you have a nebulous sound. Finally move your index finger to the fifth string and strum the same five strings. Here we get Gsus2 with B, the 3, in the bass. This is our IV chord.”

Once you’ve moved back and forth through the chords to hear their sound, play FIGURE 3. With little effort you can adapt this arpeggiated IV-V-I progression to fit dozens of folk and country ballads.

FIGURE 3

Carefully follow the picking-hand fingering. Like a classical guitarist, Simpson uses his thumb (p), index (i), middle (m) and ring (a) fingers for chordal passages. In addition to opening your ears to the lush melodic and harmonic possibilities of DADGAD, this lesson’s exercises will invigorate your fingerstyle chops.

LINGERING FINGERS

“The next step,” says Simpson, “is to ornament three ringing chords with scale-tone runs. You can fill out D5, Gadd2 and A7sus4 using notes from this D major scale pattern.”

As he plays FIGURE 4A, Simpson is careful to keep all the strings sustaining as long as possible. In the upper octave, played on the top four strings, he leaves his fingers on fretted notes long after they’re attacked. This “park your fingers until needed elsewhere” technique creates a jangly harp-like effect. For instance, if you keep your 3rd and 4th fingers planted on F# and C#, as indicated by the “hold” markings in FIGURE 4B, you’ll wind up with FIGURE 4C’s deliciously dissonant four-string cluster. The two minor seconds (F#-G and C#-D) lend a welcome clang to the otherwise straight-laced D major scale.

FIGURE 4A

FIGURE 4B

FIGURE 4C

This is an essential technique. Simpson often creates piquant harmony within a melodic passage by sustaining a fretted note against an adjacent open string. The resulting intervals—typically major or minor seconds—add ear-tweaking tension to a line. To make this work, you need to arch your fretting fingers so they don’t impede the open strings’ vibrations.

FIGURE 5 illustrates the process. When you hammer onto F# (the and of beat three), hang onto it until you need to pull off to E (the and of beat four). For your efforts, you’ll be rewarded with a cool minor second—open G against F#—in the middle of your run. Repeat the Gsus2-D passage until the notes ripple smoothly through your instrument.

FIGURE 5

In a similar vein, FIGURE 6 moves from A7 to Dadd4. This time, the minor second occurs at the end of the phrase. “You’re accomplishing two things with this progression,” says Simpson. “You’re learning where the scale tones lie in DADGAD, and you’re introducing the 3 into the chorus—C# for A7sus4 and F# for D5.

FIGURE 6

“It doesn’t take much to embellish the three chords we’ve learned,” he adds, playing FIGURE 7. “A simple bass line can create momentum and keep the harmony interesting.” In bar 1, be sure to sustain D5’s top three strings against beat two’s ornament and beat three’s C#.

FIGURE 7

“You can learn so much about arranging for guitar by experimenting with different registers,” says Simpson. “Listen to these voicings [FIGURE 8]. Can you hear what happens when I pay C# in the bass as opposed to the melody? The difference is enormous.”

FIGURE 8

Here’s a tip: Whenever you discover a new DADGAD voicing, try shifting any note up or down an octave. Some fingerings will “click,” and you’ll quickly multiply your harmonic options. “By changing registers,” Simpson adds, “You’ll begin to realize what bass and melody each contribute to an arrangement.”

OLD WINE, NEW BOTTLES

“We’ve been looking at DADGAD through the lens of our I, IV and V chords,” says Simpson. “But there’s another way to understand it. Up to this point, our examples have involved a new way of thinking, yet DADGAD’s open A, D and G strings are the same as in standard tuning! That means 50 percent of this tuning is completely familiar. If you’ve learned triads in standard tuning, you can apply this knowledge to DADGAD.”

In FIGURE 9, the C, G and D triads sound special when accompanied by the open first (D), second (A) and sixth (D) strings. As notated, use your thumb to strum the triads—this keeps them physically distinct from the picked open strings. Once you can loop the two-bar passage smoothly, try developing our own p-i-m-a patterns.

FIGURE 9

“You can fret major and minor triads on the fourth, fifth and third strings,” Simpson says. “And you don’t have to play all three strings. Can you see where these shapes come from?” He plays FIGURE 10A. “I’m thinking Bm, A, G and D, but I’m only playing the top two notes of each triad.”

FIGURE 10A

To visualize these intervals as part of a triad, refer to the brackets in this example. As you slide from position to position, keep the top strings ringing—these recurring fourths (A-D) supply a hypnotic drone.

“Now here’s where the tuning really opens up,” Simpson says. “In DADGAD, we have three D strings. Whatever happens on the fourth string can be fingered an octave lower on the sixth sting or an octave higher on the first sting—at the same fret.”

FIGURE 10B shows what happens when you play the previous example but drop the fourth string’s notes down an octave, to the sixth string.

FIGURE 10B

FIGURE 10C moves these tones up an octave, to the first string.

FIGURE 10C

“Now you have several news ways to play along the fretboard in DADGAD,” Simpson says. “Simply find your triads, and then experiment with moving the middle note to one of the outside strings. Imagine the possibilities!

“Also, we have two A strings in DADGAD, so we can shift the bottom voice of any triad up an octave. Just move the note from the fifth to the second string.”

To get a feel for this, first play FIGURE 11A, which features an ascending chromatic line on the fifth string. Now play FIGURE 11B, an extrapolation of this line. Notice how the notes on the fifth string are doubled an octave higher on the second string.

FIGURE 11A

FIGURE 11B

Take the time to create your own moves on the fifth, fourth and third strings, and then shift one or two voices to a different octave. Be patient. Sooner or later, the sonic and visual logic will reveal itself.

MINOR MATTERS

So far, we’ve explored DADGAD in a major context. FIGURE 12 illustrates how DADGAD can work equally well for minor riffs and progressions. As you play this D minor riff—keep it slow and steady—notice how the tuning lets you create lush harmony using only one finger. In this two-bar phrase, we cruise through Dmin11, Gsus2, F6/9, Bbmaj7/6 and C6/9sus4 with minimal fret-hand movement. The action is in the flowing picking-hand patterns.

FIGURE 12

Though DADGAD excels as an impressionistic folky tuning, Simpson proves it’s also potent for blues.

“I play [Howlin’ Wolf’s Willie Dixon–penned] ‘Spoonful’ in DADGAD,” he says, picking FIGURE 13’s syncopated riff. “Unless you hit the third string, it’s the same as open-D tuning.”

FIGURE 13

FINAL POINTERS

Be sure to try DADGAD with a capo. “It sounds wonderful at the 7th fret,” says Simpson,”in the register of a high-tuned five-string banjo.”

He also offers this advice for arranging songs in DADGAD:

“Usually I start with the bare melody. If you incorporate open strings, single-note runs can sound chordal, even through they’re not. Then I look for harmony. When I find it, I’m so happy. I work melodies into intervals and then intervals into chords. I get where I want to be through the sheer joy of examining all the internal mechanics. It can take years to really learn a tune, but I like to let the music prepare itself. It’s a different form of discipline.”

WANT MORE? TRY THESE FOUR TIPS!

1. Exploit Drones and Suspensions

DADGAD is highly effective for creating a rich, orchestral range of sounds by allowing open strings to ring against moving fretted notes. A practical approach is to barre the lower three strings to create a fifth and slide this formation around the neck while letting the higher three strings drone open, suspending sounds in the air as you play.

2. Utilize Third-Less Fingerings

Jimmy Page utilized ascending series of third-less D5, D(#5), D6, and D7 fingerings in DADGAD to create the iconic, exotic riff for Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir.” Give it a try.

3. Adjust String Gauges

When dedicating an instrument to DADGAD, standard guitar string gauges can sometimes feel inadequate due to the lowered tension on three of the strings. Acoustic virtuoso Pierre Bensusan compensates by using medium gauges on the plain strings and light gauges on the wound ones, specifically employing an acoustic set gauged .053, .042, .032, .022, .017, and .013.

4. Like It? Commit to It!

While alternate tunings offer immediate gratification, switching between them can hinder fretboard mastery. Pierre Bensusan became so frustrated by the limitations of multiple tunings that he adopted DADGAD as his exclusive standard in 1978, twisting its uncolored sonic framework to suit all his improvisational needs.

Every professional guitarist starts a session the same way: by warming up.

Whether you’re playing a gig or recital, planning a monstrous guitar practice session, or preparing to impress your friends at home with your killer chops, a precursory limbering up session is mandatory. A thorough warm-up will help bring your playing to peak level and prevent hand injuries.

Here are 11 ways to get your hands and fingers ready for action, both off and on the guitar.

GET ’EM HOT

Here’s an excellent way to get the blood circulating in your fingers and hands and make everything nice and loose.

Simply head to the nearest sink and crank up the hot water. It doesn’t have to be that hot—you don’t want to scald yourself—but it should be warm enough to get your hands loose.

While running your hands under the water, stretch out your fingers. Don’t apply any external pressure to your hands or fingers; simply stretch them out just as you do when you’re playing.

Now before “prune hands” take effect, let’s start working on the warm-up execises.

GET A GRIP

Before you do anything else, spend one or two minutes reacquainting your fretting hand with the guitar. Play a variety of familiar chords in different positions across the neck. Start with open-position shapes such as C, D, E, A and G major, along with Em, Am and Dm. This simple exercise helps wake up your fingers, reestablish your sense of the fretboard and prepare your muscles for the work ahead.

Next, move on to major and minor barre chords, playing them at various points along the neck. Take your time and enjoy the process. The goal isn’t speed or precision; it’s simply to reconnect with the instrument and develop a feel for the strings, the fretboard and the amount of pressure needed to fret notes cleanly.

This is also a good opportunity to check for tension in your hand, wrist, forearm and shoulder. Stay relaxed and use only as much force as necessary. Excess pressure wastes energy and can lead to fatigue, while a light, efficient touch will help you play more comfortably and consistently.

Ready? Let’s move on to the next part of the lesson.

FOUR-FINGER EXERCISES

The four examples that follow are designed to loosen up all four of your fret-hand fingers as well as your picking hand.

Before you get started with the specifics of each example, there are a couple of general rules to follow for all the exercises here.

First, always start at a slow tempo to ensure that you’re playing the music correctly, and then gradually increase your tempo as you progress. Remember: it’s always better to play something slowly and correctly rather than quickly and sloppily.

Second, alternate picking (down-up-down-up, etc.) is essential for all of the single-note exercises in this workout. This technique may seem difficult at first, but you’ll develop much more speed and accuracy in the long run.

FIGURE 1 is a relatively simple starter—a pseudo-chromatic line in 5th position. We’ll use this example as our “base” pattern for the three examples that follow. Pay strict attention to the fingering, making sure to use all four fret-hand fingers (including the pinkie) for each string grouping. Once you’ve got this base pattern down, move on to its more extensive—and more challenging—offshoots.

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 2 is a “double-back” pattern reminiscent of a Charlie Parker–style bebop line. Notice how it develops independence between your first two (index and middle) fingers and your last two (ring and pinkie) fingers. To extend the exercises in FIGURE 1 or FIGURE 2, simply shift the entire pattern down one half step (one fret) at a time.

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3 kicks things up another notch by applying the original base pattern to sequential strings (E A D G). (From a harmonic standpoint, this one probably won’t win any Prettiest Ballad awards, but remember that the goal here is to warm up your hands and fingers.)

FIGURE 3

Once you’ve completed the initial four notes, simply invert the pattern, playing in a descending fashion. This completes the motif. To get the fullest impact possible, try this one on all three sets of these four adjacent strings.

FIGURE 4 adds notes between those that compose the base pattern. An octave is added between the first two notes, a minor 6th between the second two. This example is a great dexterity builder and, again, you should move it up and down the fretboard.

FIGURE 4

CHORDAL WARM-UPS

Feeling loose yet? Good. Let’s get back to doing some more chord work.

Have you ever seen a show in which the lead guitarist does nothing but solo? Me neither. So obviously at some point you’ve got to be a rhythm guitarist. Since rhythm playing varies so from genre to genre, I’ve included a nice cross-section of different chord voicings that will get both of your hands active. Even if you don’t jive with the style of a certain exercise here, try it anyway. It may open some new paths in your musical evolution.

FIGURE 5 is a descending open-chord sequence in the key of C, shown here as an arpeggiated exercise (though strumming your way through is also a viable option). For the sake of variety, try transposing this chord sequence to other keys as well. For instance, this same chord sequence in the key of G major would be G–D/F#–Em–D–C–D–G.

FIGURE 5

FIGURE 6 is a great power-chord workout that doubles as a dandy barre-chord workout. Try it with the power chords first, and then extend them to full barre chords simply by adding the notes in parentheses.

FIGURE 6

FIGURE 7—a James Brown–style funk rhythm using E9 and E13 chord shapes—is a great workout for your pick hand. Work through the rhythm slowly until you perfect it, and then gradually bump up your tempo. For some tonal variety, try moving the exercise to different areas of the fretboard. For instance, if you wish to play this as a typical blues sequence, such as a I–IV–V progression, you can play the IV chord—in this case, A9—with the root on the 12th fret. The V chord, B9, is located on the 14th (or 2nd) fret.

FIGURE 7

STRING SKIPPERS

Now that your pick hand is moving, let’s kick it into high gear, this time with two devilish string-skipping exercises, each written here as a three-notes-per-string pattern in A major (A B C# D E F# G#).

FIGURE 8 is simple enough in nature. Start on the low E string with the first three notes of the scale and then skip to the D string for the next three notes. At that point, backtrack to the A string, which you skipped, and continue the pattern in the same fashion. Use alternate picking throughout, even when skipping strings. That is, start by picking the first three notes (on the low E string) in a down-up-down sequence, and then pick the first three notes on the D string in an up-down-up sequence. (Repeat this picking pattern for the skip from the A string to the G string and so forth.) Taking this approach makes for a challenging sequence, but you’ll be rewarded in the long run.

FIGURE 8

FIGURE 9 is a pivot-picking, or pedal-tone, exercise. The concept here is to return to the root of the scale between the other scale tones. This technique is used often in classical music, both in ascending and descending fashions. Each of these string-skipping figures is pattern based, so try using various scales or modes to maximize your warm-up.

FIGURE 9

THE FINAL STRETCH

FIGURE 10 uses some stacked power chords (or sus2 chords) to great effect. These chord shapes are a staple of quite a few rock classics. Thumb placement is key here. For instance, since the first chord covers a four-fret distance (the 5th fret to the 9th fret), your thumb should be centered on the back of the neck at the 7th fret. This allows you to reach back to the 5th fret and forward to the 9th without shifting your hand position.

FIGURE 10

The same can be said for FIGURE 11, which covers a whopping five-fret span. This exercise is based in A minor, and as a bonus it makes for a pretty crazy soloing line if you so choose.

FIGURE 11

That concludes our warm-up exercises. Note that we aren’t suggesting you should perform each of these guitar exercises before you play, but working through at least two or three will benefit your playing, whether you’re hitting the stage, the studio or the rehearsal room.

Marcus Deml is a Stratocaster-wielding virtuoso with a massive tone and amazing technique to boot. Our sister title Guitar World called his last album, Pure, "among the most breathtaking instrumental releases you’ll hear in 2025."

Marcus attended the legendary GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology) in Los Angeles, studying with Paul Gilbert, Scott Henderson and Frank Gambale, who inspired him to woodshed for up to 12 hours a day. The hard work paid off as Deml has since recorded on more than 500 albums as a session musician. He’s also helped found the band Errorhead while maintaining an impressive solo career.

Deml’s unique Stratocaster-based electric guitar playing style has a balance of energy, excitement and intent that nods toward the blues-rock influences of Gary Moore and Jimi Hendrix. There is also harmonic sophistication and phrasing intelligence reminiscent of Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather and Larry Carlton.

Marcus has graciously contributed this video article based on his dynamic and expressive approach to string bending. Each idea is derived from the the E Major scale (E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#), although he chooses to use this collection of notes to highlight either C# Aeolian (a minor sound) or A Lydian (a major sound).

Once you are familiar with each concept or technique, aim to come up with a similar idea of your own, perhaps modifying the initial idea to fit a different chord or rhythmic feel. Creating variations is a very powerful strategy for integrating new ideas into your own style. Enjoy!

Example 1a: A major bending lick

This first example features A Lydian (the fourth mode of E major). Marcus skilfully implies this by defining an A major 7 arpeggio (A-C#-E-G#), although he omits the perfect 5th interval (E). Extra interest is provided by bending up to the major 7th (G#) from the tone below (F#), the major 6th.

Marcus resolves the phrase to this note, adding judicious vibrato and expression. He then moves the arpeggio motif through other possible choices in this tonality. If you're looking to use bends to get in and out of melodic notes, this is a great approach to explore.

Example 1b: C# minor bending lick

There’s a definite David Gilmour influence to this second variation, based around a C# minor tonality. Here, you're bending between the b7 (B) and the root (C#), and then between the b7 (B), and major 2nd (D#).

In total, you're bending four semitones (a major third), so preserve your hands by allocating the heavy lifting to a turn of the forearm, reserving finger manipulation to intonation fine tuning. Fretting the notes further toward the fingerprint, rather than the fingertip, will push unwanted bass strings out of the way, and give added purchase against the tension of the strings pushing against your bends.

Example 2: Arpeggio based lick with bends

Here Marcus is mixing C#m9 arpeggio ideas (C#-E-G#-B-D#) with pentatonic blues-based material. It includes a great Hendrix-inspired exchange bend in bars 2–3 that swaps between the second and third strings. Mixing legato phrasing, sweeping, bending, sliding and rapid pull-offs, he creates a cohesive musical line that typifies his entire style.

Example 3: A Lydian bending lick

Here, Marcus highlights A Lydian. He reinforces this by focusing on its two most crucial notes: the major 7th (G#), and the augmented 4th (D#). Notice how he uses his first finger for the semitone bend between G# and A on the second string.

He then shifts position when moving to the first string so he can use his stronger third finger for the tone bend between C# and D#. Pay attention to all the articulation nuances as the variety of vibrato, the micro pauses, rakes and attack all provide character and individuality.

Example 4: C# minor blues phrasing with b5

You're in blues territory here: Marcus integrates slides, bends and hammer-on and pull-offs for a snappy C# minor blues line (C#-E-F#-G-G#-B). Blues guitar licks are often associated with two-notes-per-string shapes, favoring the first and third fingers. However, this line illustrates the potential to play more notes on a single string and how to use each and every finger.

Another takeaway here is the value of knowing the guitar fretboard well. Deml fluently connects multiple scale positions with complete authority and control.

Example 5: Allan Holdsworth–inspired playing

Marcus begins this Allan Holdsworth–inspired collection of lines with tremolo bar scoops, initially derived from chromatically decorated C# minor vocabulary. Toward the end of the phrase, he leans on legato ideas derived from the symmetrical augmented scale (C#-E-F-G#-A-C).

This scale, one of Allan’s favorites, is built on the alternate intervallic structure of minor third and minor second (three frets, one fret, three frets, one fret, etc.). Marcus configures these three-notes-per-string to facilitate fluidity and speed with hammer-ons and pull-offs. You can also configure this as a two-notes-per-string diagonal pattern, a favorite device of another terrifyingly good player, the late Shawn Lane.

Example 6: Three-note pattern with bending

To close, here's a rapid-shifting pentatonic lick connecting the same phrase in three different octaves, negotiating these transitions with assured and aggressive slides. The initial demonstration is played at a slow speed and then increased in tempo. While the example uses C# minor pentatonic throughout (C#-E-F#-G#-B), it ends with an idiomatically appropriate C7#9 (C#-E#-G#-B-Dx), otherwise known as the Hendrix chord.

Marcus Deml in action

Marcus Deml: “Persecución”

Featured on Marcus Deml's latest album, Pure, “Persecución” is a shining example of his uptempo blues-rock playing that highlights the precision in his fast runs and the expression of his string-bending technique.

Jennifer Batten sure has been busy over the decades: monumental world tours with Michael Jackson, performing and recording with Jeff Beck and releasing a stunning portfolio of her own albums.

As one of the world’s most accomplished performers of two-handed tapping, Batten is well known in guitar education circles and hosts masterclasses and clinics all over the world. She has also released critically acclaimed instructional products, including Two Hand Rock (Hal Leonard), Ultra-Intervallic Guitar Licks and Truefire courses.

In 1979, Batten became the first woman to graduate from the Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT) in Los Angeles. Two guitarists made a huge impact on her playing during her time as a student there. One was fellow classmate Steve Lynch, whose two-handed tapping techniques were quite advanced.

The second was her lecturer, Joe Diorio, a pioneer in the use of wide intervallic ideas to create progressive and modern-sounding lines designed to push the boundaries in jazz and bebop. Batten worked tirelessly on making these sounds her own, and following graduation, she was appointed by the school as their first female instructor.

For this bespoke Guitar Player tutorial, Batten has kindly contributed a trio of licks that evoke her time as a student at GIT. First, she looks at a Diorio-inspired line based around A minor pentatonic, but phrased in a non-bluesy way by using consecutive 4th leaps. Her second example is a bebop phrase in E minor, perhaps inspired by Joe Pass, who was also a regular visiting instructor at the school. And her final example showcases the tension and release produced by superimposing two major arpeggios a tritone apart, reminiscent of saxophonist Michael Brecker and pianist McCoy Tyner.

Batten plays and then analyses her three licks, explaining the underlying concept and the suggested harmonic application for each. While these ideas are undoubtedly inspired by jazz, she delivers them with an energetic high-gain rock tone that makes them shine. In keeping with the rhythmic backing, she slightly swings the 16th-note phrasing here, so pay attention to the feel and listen closely to pick up crucial articulation details.

We suggest learning these examples exactly as written to begin with. Once you’re fluent and familiar with each, you can get to work creating variations and transformations. You should try moving each idea through a selection of different keys, or perhaps try them over different chords. Aim to find each line in a different area of the fretboard, or consider changing the rhythm, tempo or time feel. Your aim here is to develop fluency so you can improvise in the moment, using each concept as inspiration for any number of musical ideas reacting to any musical scenario in real time.

Example 1: 4th based intervallic lick for A minor

Batten starts with an A minor line inspired by her teacher and mentor at GIT, Joe Diorio. The majority of the melodic material is based around A minor pentatonic scale (A-C-D-E-G), with just one additional 2nd interval (B) at the end of bar 2, allowing you to use this phrase in either Dorian (A-B-C-D-E-F#-G) or Aeolian scenarios (A-B-C-D-E-F-G).

The interest here is largely provided by the intervallic contour of the line. You'll begin with two chains of four consecutive notes, all positioned a perfect 4th apart (A-D-G-C, E-A-D-G), although the last note of each group is displaced down by an octave. As Batten suggests, keep each note distinct and clear by articulating with a roll of the finger, so that the notes don’t bleed together, especially when using distortion.

Example 2: Rock-meets-bebop lick for E minor

This second example moves to E minor and showcases how Batten reflects her bebop influences, albeit using an overdriven rock tone.

In the first bar, you're moving a six-note phrase up in octaves, derived from E minor pentatonic with an added second (E-F#-A-B-D). Toward the end of this opening bar, Batten starts to add more chromaticism, initially by surrounding the root (E), with the semitone below (D#) and scale tone above (F#), a common move in bebop, before descending chromatically between the root and 5th (B). She ends the line with a bluesy slide-and-bend combination, adding the b5 (Bb) into the mix.

Example 3: Ascending A and Eb triad licks for A7

This final example illustrates how Batten creates tension and release while outlining an A7 tonality (A-C#-E-G), initially by alternating between two major triads (A and Eb) situated a tritone (diminished 5th) apart.

First, she ascends A major (A-C#-E), before moving the same pattern up by one string and a fret, to play Eb major (Eb-G-Bb). When considering these intervals against A, this provides b5 (Eb), b7 (G) and b9 (Bb). The second bar is based around a decorated A major triad, descending chromatically from the 5th (E) to the major 3rd (C#), before approaching both the root and 3rd with the consonant scale-tone found above (2nd to root: B-A, 4th to 3rd: D-C#).

Batten reflects on her time at GIT

"From 1985, I taught a couple of different classes at GIT. One was to help kids stay up or catch up with the curriculum, but the class I remember most was called open counseling, which was basically a free-for-all where they could come in at random and jam and ask questions.

“Every single day I felt like I told them everything I know about music. I would go home exhausted, feeling like there was nothing left of me. So I worked really hard to always have something new to deliver.

“I also put a lot of effort into bringing in alternate approaches, like breaking up teaching with reading about two-headed aliens out of the Weekly World News. This is because I was aware that you just can’t focus on learning hour after hour without getting burnt out. So these little breaks were a way to provide a little time out.

“As it turns out, that is the perfect way to learn, because the brain can only truly focus on something new intensely for 15 to 20 minutes before it starts spinning out. Later I learned from a brain science course that when your mind goes onto something else after learning something new, it’s actually finalizing what you just learned in the background.

“I hit that realization when I learned a Joe Pass chord solo and brought it in. That is some pretty rich stuff to expect them to remember more than a few bars without having time to absorb it.

“After 20 minutes I could see the players eyes rolling back in their heads, so I knew they needed a break! So really, those classes were a combination of entertainment and teaching. I think that combination is the best way to learn anything in the end."

Michael Jackson - Beat It (the solo)

Here's Batten playing Eddie Van Halen's famous “Beat It” solo with the legendary Michael Jackson. She played lead guitar on all three of his world tours between 1987 and 1997.

Allen Hinds is no stranger here on GuitarPlayer.com. His legato tutorial and interview about his GIT days and studying alongside Jeff Buckley have been seen by many around the world.

But these are just reflections on his colorful career as both a sideman for artists like Gino Vanelli or Randy Crawford and his many solo albums (we particularly like 2011's Monkeys and Slides). Schooled, intuitive and open minded: These are the components that sum up his stunning musicianship.

For this video article, Allen focuses on his favorite chords that straddle jazz, fusion and blues rock. Instead of just playing numerous random chords though, Allen takes a more considered, real-world approach. For many of his examples, he takes a vibrant-sounding chord and recycles it by elaborating and/or changing the context. This is achieved by keeping the bass note the same, shifting the shape up and down the neck, or keeping the chord fragment the same but changing the bass note.

When talking about chords, Allen often refers to its voicing. Put simply, this references the notes in the chord in the order and register in which the notes are played.

For the purposes of this article, it's helpful to talk about chord notes in terms of their intervallic property. So here's a quick reminder of all of the interval names: root, minor 2nd, major 2nd, minor 3rd, major 3rd, perfect 4th, augmented 4th/diminished 5th, perfect 5th, augmented 5th, major 6th, minor 7th, major 7th and octave.

For the higher extensions, simply add the number 7 to the 2nd, 4th and 6th intervals. So a 2nd becomes a 9th (2+7=9), a 4th becomes an 11th (4+7=11), and a 6th becomes a 13th (6+7=13).

As many of the examples are performed free time, we have provided notation with the most obvious rhythmic subdivisions. When practicing, we recommend getting familiar with Allen's fingerings and the sound of the chords, rather than getting caught up in playing the examples verbatim.

Allen — whose electric guitars include signature Xotic models, like the Strat-style California Classic XSC-AH and Tele-style XTC-AH and XTC-AH2— plays with a clean tone throughout, with plenty of ambience and chorus. Whatever you choose, we’d recommend you dial in your favorite clean tone so you can hear all notes clearly.

Example 1: Drop D chords

Allen starts out in a drop D tuning — standard tuning with the sixth string detuned from E to D (D A D G B E). This allows him to add an extra bass note on the bottom, which would be hard to do otherwise.

Here the same fingering is recycled through three positions. With the open D bass note, a Dmaj9 chord is produced. By using a barre, a great-sounding minor 11 chord fingering is produced. Allen plays this one in fifth and second positions, creating Gm11 and Em11, respectively.

Example 2: Gm9/Gm11

Allen retunes to standard tuning, and shares a great-sounding open-position chord. He starts out calling this one Gm9, but after analyzing the notes and intervals (root, b3, 5th, b7 and 11), he updates the name to Gm11. He likes to incorporate open strings as much as possible as they provide extra sustain, as well as a chorusing effect not found on other instruments.

Example 3: D minor

Allen views the guitar neck as a slide rule and often repurposes nice-sounding chord shapes up and down the fretboard. Here you are shifting the lowest three notes of the Gminor9 chord from Example 2 up to the 10th fret. This creates a rich-sounding open-voiced D minor triad.

Example 4: Smooth chord movement

Using the D minor triad chord from Example 3 as a starting point, Allen demonstrates how this fingering can be modified. The key here is to use your ear as a guide and change the intervals by one or two frets at a time.

Allen uses the same strings and fingers, and it frees him up to create the part, with the theory analysis coming later down the line if required. Dominic Miller also used this concept when creating the memorable chords in Sting’s “Shape of My Heart.”

Example 5: Staggering notes in chords

Allen often staggers out the intervals within a chord's fretting. This provides many melodic options and can facilitate sophisticated sounds. Allen uses a fingerstyle approach, employing the thumb, first finger and third finger to pick out notes on the fifth, fourth and second strings. The first and third fingers can then be used to play the first and third strings together. This example is fun to play and sounds quite pianistic.

Example 6: Amaj9 - Fdim7/A

Here Allen shares one of his favorite major7 chord fingerings. To create this, he combines the E and A shapes to provide a pleasant-sounding open-position grip. This chord can transition into a great-sounding Fdim7/A. To make the notation easier to work with, we have notated only the two chord fingerings in the tab.

Example 7: Tight chord voicings

For this next example, Allen uses the sixth interval played on the first and third strings as a foundation. This leaves the second string free to sandwich in a crunchy second interval. All of the fingerings here are performed free time, so we have used the most logical rhythm to make the notation user-friendly.

Example 8: Tight chord fingerings v2

Here is another permutation of the idea in the previous example. Again, the sixth interval is played on the first and third strings. This time, however, the note on the second string is placed higher up. This creates a different type of dissonance and is a great way to improve your chord vocabulary without studying lots of music theory.

Example 9: A13

This is a chord fingering that Allen has used for years: a great sound with just enough jazz in it. The A13 chord has almost every note of the A Mixolydian scale (A B C# D E F# G) despite this being hard to achieve on a six-string guitar. This fingering is successful as it contains the root, b7, 9, 3rd and 13.

Example 10: Amaj7b5 or Amaj7#11

To create new sounds, Allen keeps the A bass note the same and simply moves the fingering up the fretboard. If the shape from Example 9 is played with the first finger on the 4th fret, a Lydian type sound is created. As Allen explains, this one is an A major triad with the 7th (G#) and #11 (D#) added.

Example 11: Asus4b9

If you move up another semitone, keeping the A bass note going, an A Phrygian (A, Bb, C, D, E, F, G) sound is produced. The core chord that goes with the harmonized A Phrygian mode is Am7b9. This chord is rarely used due to its dissonant nature (the Bb rubs against the A root note). Here the b3 (C) is replaced by a 4th (D), which helps the chord's overall sound.

Example 12: Am9add6

Allen moves the shape up another two frets for a tasty-sounding Am9. As this chord is constructed from the root (A), b3 (C), 5th (E), 6th (F#) and 9th (B), we can refer to it more concisely as Am6/9.

Example 13: A7#9#5

If you move the same shape up another fret so the first finger is on the 8th fret, a really strong voicing for an A altered dominant chord is produced. The intervals here are the root (A), 3rd (C#), #5 (E#), b7 (G), and #9 (B#), creating A7#9#5.

Example 14: A7sus4b5

If we move the same shape up another two frets, so the first finger is on the 10th fret, we get A7sus4b5 chord. This is often used as a substitution for Am7b5.

Example 15: A7sus4b5 - D7alt - G6/9

In this example, Allen takes the opportunity to demonstrate how the A7sus4b5 chord can function as the first chord in a II-V-I progression in G. The chords are A7sus4b5 – D7alt – G6/9.

D7alt is short for D7 altered, implying that chord tones such as b5, #5, b9 and #9 could be included (often at the player's discretion). Here the alterations are #5 (A#) and #9 (E#).

Allen links these three chords with a simple melody built from notes near to each chord. It’s a great way to smooth over tense- or advanced-sounding chords.

Notice the G6/9 chord is without a G note and features stacked 4th intervals that fit well on the frets. Not all chords need the root note in them (and that can often be played by the bassist anyway).

Example 16: Bbmaj7sus2/D

This is another of Allen's favorite voicings, as it has an open sound and can be many different chords if the bass note is changed. Here the D is in the bass and this is the third of the chord. The other intervals in play are the root (Bb), 2nd (C), 5th (F) and 7th (A). So we can refer to this chord as either Bbmaj7sus2/D or Bbmaj9/D.

Example 17: Em9

This one sounds especially effective and the secret is the dissonant-sounding b2 interval (F# and G) sandwiched between perfect fifths (E-B and G-D). The easiest way to play the b2 interval with chords like this is between the third and second strings. If the root note is changed to a G, a rather pretty Gmaj9 sound is produced.

Example 18: E7(no3rd)

Allen shares a no-nonsense fingering for E7. This one has an ambiguous tonality, due to the third being omitted. The intervals here are the root, b7, and 5th.

Example 19: Blues Jazz Groove in E9

Here Allen demonstrates how one good chord fragment can be adapted and reused in a bluesy setting. The chords are played on the top three or four strings so you can funk out on it (and be cleanly heard above the rhythm section!).

Example 20: C/G - Dmaj7/A - Ebmaj7/Bb

Allen is fond of playing notes other than the root in the bass. Even a simple C chord can be thickened by adding the fifth in the bottom. Allen moves this shape around, creating a different vibe than if he'd used the root in the bass each time. The open third string's G note adds further color and serves as a pivot note in the middle of each chord's voicing.

Example 21: Bb6/9 - E6/9 - Bb6/9 - G6/9

These 6/9 chords are built from harmonized fourths (quartal harmony) and have a beautiful sound. The 6/9 chord is often used in bossa nova and jazz music as a colorful substitute for a maj7 chord. Here Allen cycles though three positions on the neck, keeping the chord fingering the same. Interestingly, you can use a sixth or fifth string root note and the 6/9 chord shape remains the same on the top four strings.

Example 22: Amaj9add6 (no3rd)

While we are in 6/9 chord mode, Allen also shares the closely related Amaj9add6(no3rd) chord. This type of sound is inspired by Joni Mitchell. The chord name may sound complicated, but playing-wise it's only one note different. To finger this one, it’s just a case of using the first finger to barre right across to the 4th fret on the first string.

Example 23: Bbadd9b5

This leads on from the previous fingering. This time we are letting the open fourth string (D) and open first string (E) ring out. The intervals in play here are root, 3rd (D), 5th (F), 9th (C) and b5 (Fb or E).

Example 24: Dsus2#11 - D

Allen further expands on ways to create the Lydian sound by moving between the 9th fret and 7th fret double-stop on the second and third strings. The D5 power chord remains unchanged underneath, and this provides a solid, consistent foundation. Moving between the two double-stops while keeping the D5 drone going provides a floating “Flying in a Blue Dream” vibe, à la Joe Satriani.

Example 25: E - F#/E - G/E - A/E - E

Here's another way to create a host of different sounds with one chord fragment. Allen lets the sixth, second and first strings ring while moving the classic E chord shape up the fretboard. Songs like the Who’s “I Can See for Miles” also use this concept to create a rich and spacey sound.

Example 26: A - D/A (repeated)

For this example, Allen once again demonstrates the power of alternating between chord fragments, while maintaining an A open-string pedal tone. Hammering onto the 7th fret adds to the delivery and may take a little practice to get the dynamics consistent.

Example 27: A/D - D (repeated)

Allen repurposes the previous example by changing the root note to D. The chord fingering and hammering remains the same. A/D (A chord on top of a D bass note) is the most concise way to label the first chord.

Example 28: Chord-tastic Finale!

To finish, Allen plays a flowing chord solo that incorporates several of the ideas covered previously. An ideal aim for you is to appreciate how each chord passage is linked with a single-line melody. If you are new to this idea, it may take a little practice to get used to. In the second-to-last bar, the Bbmaj7sus2/D chord is raised up a tone using a finger slide, but only the F note on the second string is re-picked.

Virtuoso Romanian guitarist Erlend Krauser originally came to prominence as the guitarist for the renowned big-band leader James Last. He joined Last’s orchestra in the early ’90s and stayed with him until his passing in 2015.

These days, Erlend is best known for his YouTube performances with the Kemper Profiler amp, as well as his portfolio of solo albums that feature beautiful compositions and staggering guitar playing. His most recent release, The Time of Talking Hearts, is available via his website.

From a technical perspective, Krauser plays overdriven electric guitar with his fingers, similar to Jeff Beck, Ritchie Kotzen and Matteo Mancuso. He mixes plucked notes with hammer-ons and pull-offs, whammy-bar scoops and two-hand tapping. It's an impressive display of high musicianship, exhibiting a masterful command of technique and expression.

In this unique video, Erlend demonstrates expressive and detailed soloing over a backing track in D minor. Against this track he gives us two extended performances full of intervallic tapping and legato lines with detailed articulation.

Erlend discusses his compositional process, highlighting how distinct elements can impact the sense of mood, emotion and drama as the music unfolds. Alongside the performances, he breaks down his playing approaches and technical concepts with four concise unaccompanied examples (all transcribed below).

These include articulating large intervals with tapping, mixing bends with tapped notes using multiple fingers, and adding expression with the whammy bar. He also explains how he interacts with a backing track by pushing and pulling his sense of time, moving on and off the rhythmic grid. Again, all of these examples are in D minor.

Example 1: Large intervals with tapping

One advantage of using both hands to articulate notes on the fretboard is that you’re not restricted to the reach of just the fretting hand. Here Erlend uses fretting and picking-hand hammers and taps to execute some beautiful intervallic ideas to create a smooth legato sound brimming with subtle whammy-bar scoops and vibrato.

You’ll need to keep a watchful eye and ear out for extraneous open-string noise: Erlend uses a combination of left- and right-hand muting, assisted with a string dampener at the end of the fretboard. The notes here outline an implied D minor tonality (D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C).

Example 2: Tapping, bends and whammy

Here Erlend demonstrates an effective method of embellishing a note by combining tapping with bending, and then quickly replacing this tapped note with a second tap, one or two frets higher to match the range of the previous bend. He then quickly releases the bend to end at the same pitch.

This is much easier to see than describe, so make sure to pay attention to the video example. The end result is not dissimilar to the bends John McLaughlin employed during his Mahavishnu period, although Erlend has uniquely modified this approach to incorporate tapping.

As Erlend points out, much of the heavy lifting from a bending perspective is undertaken by the fretting hand, rather than the tap. Once again, you're based around a D minor note pool.

Example 3: Whammy bar scooping into a note

While this musical example is short and sweet, there is plenty to take away. Erlend holds the whammy bar between his third and fourth fingers, allowing him to use the heel of the picking hand to assist with muting. This also gives him the option to articulate any picked notes with his thumb, first or second fingers.

With just one solitary D note to listen to, you're focusing on the minutiae of the articulation. Krauser depresses the bar before picking and then releases the tension to bring the note back to pitch. Once there, he adds vibrato to add color. All of this expressive detail happens in just a second or two!

Example 4: Whammy bar vibrato, scoops and dips

This example is focused on the expressive detail within Erlend’s beautifully melodic and nuanced phrasing. Pay attention to the small but critical modifications he makes to his picking-hand technique, either by holding the bar between his third and fourth fingers or by releasing his grip slightly for a rapid turn of the wrist to provide a more extreme scoop into a note.

Erlend also employs the back of his second and third fingers on his picking hand to bounce off the bar, mixing these techniques effortlessly and gracefully all within four short bars. Again, you're in D minor, although the note selection implies a harmonic shift to G minor (IVm) and A7 (V7).

Erlend Krauser in action

Hymn Of Joy

Erlend plays the first song from his latest album, The Time of Talking Hearts. His emotive tapping, legato, vibrato and whammy bar skills are to the fore in this exquisite performance.

Jimmy Westerlund is a busy man. He's the guitarist and producer of One Desire and lead guitarist on the latest album by legendary AOR rock band Giant. If you like soaring guitar chops in the style of Steve Lukather, Neal Schon and (of course!) Dan Huff, Giant’s Stand and Deliver shows Jimmy's sophisticated phrasing and thick rock tone in spades.

For this video, Jimmy is tuned down a half step, to Eb tuning. To get into this, simply drop every string down a semitone (Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb). Our notation suggests you detune to Eb to play along, but it is shown in standard E tuning because that's easy to read and understand. Just imagine you’re playing in E after detuning and all will be well.

Contextually, the chords in his bespoke backing track are all from the key of E minor. To complement this, he uses the E minor pentatonic (E-G-A-B- D) and the E natural minor scale (E-F#-G-A-B-C-D) throughout the first two sections of the solo. To keep you on your toes, the third section moves up a tone, to the key of F# minor, so the F# minor pentatonic (F#-A-B-C#-E) and F# natural minor scale (F#-G#-A-B-C#-D-E) are used.

The electric guitar is a very expressive instrument, and Jimmy sells every phrase with a variety of techniques and articulations. These include runs with fast picking, string bending, pedal tones, double-stop string bending, finger slides, whammy-bar scoops, finger vibrato and tapped harmonics. He makes using the whammy bar look easy, but if you are new to the idea of scooping into notes and adding vibrato, it’ll take a bit of practice to get it sounding controlled and consistent.

Jimmy's guitar of choice here is a Fender Stratocaster with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup in the bridge. He manipulates the guitar's controls to access a wide sonic palate, moving between the neck and bridge pickups depending on where he is on the fretboard and what is played.

Tone-wise, Jimmy has dialed up a rich and thick overdrive with reverb ambience and delay added. To clean up the sound, the guitar's volume control is rolled back to make the articulation of more intricate passages clearer.

If you want a similar tone, dial in a crunchy overdrive tone from your amp or pedals and then add a liberal amount of delay and reverb for an arena rock vibe.

Once you’ve learned the phrases in Jimmy's solo, it would be a good pursuit to expand your fretboard skills by playing them in different keys.

Hopefully there will be new techniques and licks in here for you to perfect. If you find some you like, memorize them and use in your own solos. Enjoy!

Example 1: Section 1

Jimmy's solo starts with a melodic motif that is augmented with the whammy bar. If you let the notes in bar 4 ring together while scooping the whammy bar, a cool dissonance is produced. This is followed by a fiery descending picked run in bar 5. Think G major pentatonic (G-A-B-D-E) with an added C note.

The opening motif is repeated in bar 6 and punctuated by a dramatic-sounding string bend in bar 7. For this, Jimmy grabs the second string as he bends the first string up and then picks both. This produces a wild double-stop bend reminiscent of Stevie Ray Vaughan. The section is topped off with another fiery run in bar 9, and some tasteful licks to take you into Section 2.

Example 2: Section 2

For this section, Jimmy switches to the neck pickup for a warmer tone and rolls the guitar volume down. This cleans up the fast hammer-on and pull-off trills. The articulation of the motif in bars 7, 8 and 9 is enhanced with whammy-bar vibrato.

In bar 10, the guitar volume is tuned up full and the bridge pickup selected for a big rock tone. Certainly, this allows the tapped harmonics to really sing out. To articulate these, tap down on the second string directly above the 17th and 12th frets while fingering the 5th fret. Tip: Tap at the actual fret wire for best results, not either side of it.

To finish off the section, Jimmy plays repeating patterns that exploit the open second string as a pedal tone. The open first string is used at the end as a drone to thicken up the melodies played on the second string.

Example 3: Section 3

For the final section, you change gear by moving into the new key of F# minor. The opening bends are played with conviction and augmented with finger vibrato. Then there's a stunning descending run that uses the F# natural minor scale (F#-G#-A-B-C#-D-E) as a foundation. Take this slowly, learning the fingering and honing the picking requirements in bite-sized sections before tackling it at speed.

At the end of this is a classic Lukather-ism: a fast and precise zoom down the fretboard for a low note. It sounds exciting and is full of attitude.

The solo finishes with tasty riffing on bass notes that alternates with double-stop chord fragments.

Virtuosic, expressive and sophisticated: All the hallmarks of great AOR soloing. Enjoy!

If you’ve ever wanted to improve your fingerstyle blues playing with direct guidance from a modern-day master, this tutorial presented by Eric Bibb is for you.

Eric is a Grammy-nominated acoustic blues stylist who has performed and recorded with a wide range of blues, folk and roots musicians, including Taj Mahal, Mavis and Pops Staples, Bonnie Raitt and Charlie Musselwhite.

At age 11, he got some sage advice from Bob Dylan, who told him, “Keep it simple, forget all that fancy stuff.” Eric took that to heart, building on a “less is more” philosophy that emphasizes steady, alternating bass lines combined with intricate, often arpeggiated melodic playing on the higher strings.

Here, Eric takes some time out from his 2026 tour to share five of his favorite fingerpicking exercises on acoustic guitar. These examples outline ideas he uses all the time and are also elements he has gleamed from earlier roots legends such as Mississippi John Hurt.

As a jumping-off point for the examples, Eric isolates various parts of the blues, such as the move from chord I to chord IV (the first change of any blues progression), and the turnaround (usually featured at the back end of a blues progression). This will allow you to focus in on specific techniques and sections of blues progressions without getting overloaded with long parts to learn.

Integral to all this is a versatile fingerstyle approach that combines driving bass lines with a syncopated melody. While the bass line and melody can often be simple in nature, when combined they produce a composite guitar part that’s perfect for singing or soloing over. In short, you’ll be crafting your skills at being a one man blues band.

Eric begins with his guitar tuned to drop D tuning (D-A-D-G-B-E), with a capo on the 2nd fret. The low D on the sixth string makes playing octave bass lines easier, as no fretting is required. As for the capo, this changes the key without having to change the fingering pattern. Alternatively, the fret numbers in the tab will work in open position if you don’t have a capo, but they will just sound one whole step lower than what Eric plays.

As for the chord names, you’ll see two listed above the notation when the capo is used. For instance, Example 3 shows a D chord above a C chord, (C). The D chord is what you hear; the (C) refers to the chord shape you’ll play. As the capo is placed on the second fret, the C shape will sound as a D chord.

For the last three examples, Eric returns to standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) both with and without a capo. All tuning and capo directions are labeled in the tab/notation below.

Throughout this lesson, Eric talks through his approach to using syncopated melodies, which make his playing so appealing. The melody notes can fall on the beat and be played at the same time as the bass note. This is facilitated with a pinch of the thumb and first or second finger. The melody note can alternatively anticipate the bass note or be placed in between the bass notes for a more sophisticated sound.

Another technique to watch out for is when Eric uses his fretting-hand thumb to play the bass notes on the sixth string. The thumb hooks over the top of the neck and traps the sixth string. This may take a bit of practice to get right. Both the size or your hands and the size of the guitar neck are limiting factors.

Example 1: Moving between I (E) and IV (A)

Here, Eric is in drop D tuning (D A D G B E). To achieve this, simply drop the sixth string down a whole step, from E to D. You’ll also need to place a capo on the 2nd fret.

The bass notes are plucked exclusively with the thumb, and a light palm mute is used to increase the attack and thicken the tone. We recommend starting slowly and spending some time getting comfortable with the bass pattern.

The melody is played on the top three strings and fits in the gaps between the bass notes, resulting in a syncopated line.

Says Eric, “I syncopate a lot. I like to have that ‘hiccup’ in the playing. It’s just a little hipper, I think.”

If you’re new to this style of playing, you’ll find slow practice and perseverance are the keys to success.

Example 2: Blues turnaround in B: V(F#7) - IV (E7) - I (B)

This second example is a blues turnaround that can be used in the key of B (or A without the capo). Again, you are in drop D tuning with the capo on the 2nd fret. Use your thumb to fret the low F# notes (2nd fret, sixth string) in bar 1.

This example has a shuffle feel in a 12/8 time signature, making it easy to see how the rhythms (three notes per beat) tie in with the bass notes. Remember to experiment with a light palm mute to accentuate the bass notes with punch and warmth.

This is another example that benefits from being played slowly, especially when separating the bass line from the melody so you can achieve the most performance clarity.

Example 3: Moving between I (D) and IV (G)

Time for a tuning change as Eric opts for standard tuning (E A D G B E). To get into this tuning, simply bring the sixth string back up a whole step, from D to E. The capo can remain on the 2nd fret.

This time you’re starting with a C shape chord. Again, the bass notes are plucked exclusively with the thumb with a light palm mute. Notice that the eighth notes have a lilting, straight feel that provides a sense of summertime.

This example uses hammer-ons and pull-offs to create fluidity and a smooth tone. It’s well worth isolating the melody and ensuring that the legato phrasing is even with respect to velocity and timing.

Example 4: Bluesy picking with I (F#) - IV (B) - I (F#)

Once again, you’re moving from chord I to chord IV in B major (F# - B), but this time using E and A shape chords. This example uses a hammer-on idea that players like John Hurt made popular.

Start slowly and spend time getting the bass pattern dialed in. Again, the melody is played on the top three strings, and fits both in the gaps and on the beat. When the melody note falls on the same beat as a bass note, you’ll need to pick simultaneously with the thumb and second finger.

Example 5: Pick and strum with I (G) - IV (C) - I (G)

This final example is in the key of G and played in standard tuning, with no capo. In the video, Eric demonstrates his preference for the open G5 fingering. The picking pattern is a little unusual as it combines the thumb for plucking the bass notes with a down strum using the second finger.

The nail strum adds brightness and attack to the top three strings, and is a great way to push your projection forward. We have notated the bass note plucks with ‘p’ and the down strums with ‘m’ in the first bar, so you can clearly see how this part functions.

Eric Bibb in action

Eric Bibb – “This One Don’t”

This playful, yet powerful song is the first single from Eric’s latest album, One Mississippi. With Robbie McIntosh’s searing slide guitar, Greger Andersson’s harmonica, and the communal shouts of Shaneeka Simon and Sara Bergkvist Scott, it speaks directly to the times, reminding us that in a world full of noise and division, music — and a solid groove — still brings people together.

The Allman Brothers Band created some of the most iconic twin-guitar harmonies in rock history. But according to Warren Haynes, their magic came from something unexpected: imperfection.

Some of their most beloved harmony lines weren’t carefully composed or rehearsed. They happened spontaneously onstage, as Duane Allman and Dickey Betts reacted to each other in real time — and occasionally hit notes that weren’t technically “correct.”

““A lot of the twin lines that people recognize as parts of Allman Brothers songs actually came about during improv moments where Dickey Betts would start playing a melody and Duane Allman would start playing harmony with him,” Haynes says on the No Guitar Is Safe podcast. “If you go back and check out the live stuff — like At Fillmore East — and some of the stuff on Eat a Peach, the harmonies are not always perfectly parallel.”

That wasn’t a flaw. It was the point.

“They didn’t know exactly what they were doing,” Haynes says. “Duane just had a good enough ear that he would hear Dickey play a melody and then play a harmony to it. And one of them might change a note, and things might get a little squirrelly for a minute — but that’s okay. It wasn’t meant to be perfect.”

That philosophy would hit home for Haynes in a life-changing way when he recorded his first Allman Brothers album, Seven Turns. Haynes and Betts had written the instrumental “True Gravity” and worked out one harmony section meticulously.

They got it exactly right. But when Betts recorded his final take, he played a few notes differently. Haynes assumed they’d fix it.

“So I went to our producer, Tom Dowd, and said, ‘I think we should fix those two or three notes,’” he recalls.

Dowd had other ideas.

“He said, ‘Before we do, I want you to close your eyes and listen to the track as if you had never heard it before.’”

Haynes did.

“And it sounded beautiful,” he says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t change a thing.’ There are three notes that make the harmony weird — but if you don’t know that, it sounds great.”

The moment changed how he thought about music forever.

“What I learned — especially when I joined the Allman Brothers — is that perfection and beauty in music have nothing in common,” he says.

In fact, many legendary recordings contain mistakes their creators considered fixing.

“I talked to Booker T. Jones about recording with Otis Redding, and he said whichever version was Otis’s best take, that was the take,” Haynes says. “If it wasn’t your best take, too bad — because it was all about the vocal performance.”

Listeners, he realized, don’t hear music the way musicians do.

“They don’t know what we intended,” he says. “They only know what it sounds like hearing it for the first time.”

Haynes learned that lesson years earlier while listening to Johnny Winter’s album Second Winter. As a young guitarist, he heard one electric guitar passage that blew his mind.

“What the hell is that?” he remembers thinking.

Decades later, he revisited it — and discovered Winter had briefly played in the wrong key.

“But to a beginning guitar player, it sounded like psychedelic jazz,” Haynes says. “I’m sure he thought, ‘Oh, I should fix that,’ and somebody said, ‘It’s fine.’”

That, Haynes believes, is where the real magic lives.

Not in perfection — but in the human moments listeners feel, even if they don’t realize why.

To hear the full conversation, including Haynes demonstrating Allman Brothers–style harmonies and discussing his current tour, listen to the latest episode of No Guitar Is Safe wherever you get your podcasts.

“I’ve seen a lot of guys who don't use a pick — George Benson, Bruce Bolen, Jerry Reed, Roy Clark — but never, never me, man,” B.B. King told Guitar Player in 1984. “Always the pick. I'm really lost if I've got to play without it. I'm horrible at chords without one. I'm terrible at fingerpicking. In fact, I'm even ashamed to try it. But I do know how to use a pick.”

As B.B. himself admitted, he wasn’t a particularly fast player, simply because “I play mostly downstrokes,” he said. Furthermore, he added, “I use a medium pick that isn't very flexible at all. I'm old-fashioned: I was taught to hold it with two fingers in the first place, so I still do it that way most times. I hold it with my thumb and index, and control it with my middle finger.”

To that end, he was a hard player, attacking the strings of his electric guitars more ferociously than a jazz player and even many rock guitarists. “I fight the strings at times for presence,” he said, “to get that force.”

Despite this, B.B.’s playing was dynamic and tonally varied. He played guitar licks and solos like he was talking to you, with all the variances and nuances of speech. A key to this was his pick handling. As he told us, there are a range of tones you can create on a guitar simply by varying your pick’s angle of attack and where it lands on the strings .

“Most times when you're playing, you don't hold your pick completely flat against the strings, like a shovel against the ground,” he said. “You turn it and have it so that it's not exactly flat with the string, but has a little bit of an edge or angle to it.”

That’s how you get a mellow sound, playing midway between the end of the neck and the bridge.

“But when I want a real staccato sound. I play near the bridge and hold the pick flat so I won't get that ‘whoosh’ sound,” B.B. explained. “I take the extra effort to make sure I'm hitting the string where I want to hit it. and the way I want to hit it.

“It's almost like playing golf or pool: You've got a certain bit of English that you're going to use,” he added, referring to the spin a player will put on a ball to affect its course.

“Now, most of us that have been playing a long time do these things without thinking about them. If you're new at playing or haven't tried different ways of holding the pick, give them a try.“

Shane Theriot is nothing if not busy. In addition to session work (he's worked with great like Dr. John and the Neville Brothers), performing with Daryl Hall and recording his own albums, Shane creates content for his YouTube channel or runs his own interview-based riff-raff podcast. He's a good personification of the saying "Change is as good as a rest!"

Through his work, Shane has cultivated an expansive musical vocabulary that is as much about foot-tapping rhythmic phrasing as it is about harmonic savvy that draws upon jazz, rock and funk stylings.

For this article, Shane delves into one of the most frequently used modes, the Mixolydian (R 2 3 4 5 6 b7). This is a seven-note major-based mode because it has a major 3rd. But rather than having a major 7th interval (like the standard major scale), it has a minor 7th interval. Due to this, the Mixolydian is the most ideal mode to use with dominant 7th chords, as they have a major 3rd and minor 7th too.

Basing his introduction in the key of A, Shane says the Mixolydian mode fingering can be figured out by playing the A major scale (A B C# D E F# G#) and then flattening the 7th by moving its interval lower by one fret. As the A Mixolydian mode contains the notes A B C# D E F# G, it fits perfectly with an A7 chord because it features the notes A C# E G. An A Mixolydian fretboard diagram is shown below: The black circles are A notes, and the numbers reflect fretting-hand fingers.

With this fingering foundation, Shane is free to add chromatic passing tones. These can fill the gaps between A Mixolydian notes, adding a jazzy and sophisticated quality.

One of the most popular chromatic notes to add is the minor 3rd (C), which creates bluesy grit within the major-key sound. Typically, a minor 3rd is followed by a "resolving" major 3rd when playing lead phrases.

You'll see this minor/major 3rd interval interplay at work in Shane's examples, and he uses various articulations to move between the two. He cites legendary electric guitar player Joe Walsh as an influence; you can hear similar ideas from Joe in the James Gang song "Funk #49." If you're after the most common approach, hammer-on from the minor 3rd to the major 3rd.

The other chromatic note Shane adds is the major 7th interval, which can set up a four-note chromatic passage from the root note (A) down to the major 6th (F#), or vice versa. The A Mixolydian mode with the added major 7th creates an eight-note scale and is often referred to as the Bebop scale (A B C# D E F# G G#) due to its common usage in jazz.

If both the minor 3rd and major 7th are added to the Mixolydian mode, a big A Mixolydian hybrid scale is produced (A B C C# D E F# G G#).

Shane also covers various major triads to create riffs. In the key of A, you can lock in the sound of the Mixolydian mode by moving between the A major, D major and G major triads. These can be played over an A root to create the slash chords of G/A and D/A.

To demonstrate how playing in a closed position is advantageous, Shane moves into the keys of D and E. We have used the appropriate major-scale key signatures so you can see where the accidentals and chromatic notes are featured.

Another concept worth taking onboard is the use of smaller sections, or "cells." Shane demonstrates a few of these in the video lesson. Learning these smaller segments is the key to developing vocabulary for improvisation, as you can then jumble ideas up to create your own phrases on the fly.

From a guitar tone perspective, Shane selects either the bridge or middle pickup on his Ibanez guitar (a gift from John Scofield) and plays with a crunchy overdrive. Feel free to use whatever tone you want, as these examples have considerable flexibility.

Example 1a: A7 riff

In this first example, Shane isolates the A root note on the 5th fret of the sixth string by playing it with his thumb. A classic playing choice is to bend the minor 3rd (C) up to the major 3rd (C#). This interplay between the minor/major 3rd is an approach that is revisited throughout the video. Shane uses a choppy strumming style, and all the notes are kept short with fret-hand muting.

Example 1b: D7 riff

Shane moves the riff up to the 10th fret, into the key of D. This helps demonstrate the power of playing the bass note with the thumb as opposed to using the open fifth-string A root note. Once you have this under your fingers, challenge yourself in other positions and keys.

Example 2: A7 riff (on lower strings)

Here, drawing on Joe Walsh's influence, Shane demonstrates a similar idea to the first example, using the lower strings. This involves hammering-on from the minor 3rd to the major 3rd, 5th to 6th frets on the third string. This provides a double-stop of the dominant 7th and major 3rd: two essential intervals that define the Mixolydian sound.

Example 3. A7 riff (with triads)

This uses various triad chords over an A bass note. The A7 moves to the A major triad and then the G triad, moving between these two over an A bass note locks in the sound of A Mixolydian. The D major triad is also used and this rounds out a strong collection of major triads to create Mixolydian riffs.

Example 4a: Mixolydian-based lick

Now it’s time to look at ideas for lead licks. This example takes a basic descending fingering for A Mixolydian mode as a foundation. To this, Shane adds the major 7th to set up a four-note descending chromatic passage from the root note (A) to the major 6th (F#). The Mixolydian mode with the added major 7th evokes the A Bebop scale (A-B C# D E F# G G#) due to its common usage in jazz. Play it a few times and then try it out for your own lead lines.

Example 4b: Mixolydian based lick (extended)

Here Shane lets fly with some rapid-fire improvised ideas that demonstrate the potential of including chromatic notes into the Mixolydian mode. The main notes to look out for are the major 7th (G#) and the minor 3rd (C). In the second part of the lick, the open fifth string is left ringing out to provide context. This is well worth slowing down and taking in bite-sized pieces.

Example 5: A Mixolydian motif

This is inspired by melodic lines a jazz saxophonist would play. Shane employs the same three-notes-per-string fingering pattern as before, but this time he uses more hammer-ons and pull-offs to get a smooth legato sound. This line is made up of smaller sections, or "cells", and Shane demonstrates each one. Learning these smaller segments is the key to developing your own vocabulary for improvisation.

Example 6a: A Mixolydian hybrid phrase

To finish up, Shane shares a pattern that is easy to play but sounds impressive, especially when played at fast speeds. Once you have this under your fingers, it’s easy to change various notes to create variations. In the notated example, notice the chromatic note of interest is the minor 3rd (C). Again, the minor/major 3rd adds considerable spice for a bluesy jazz vibe.

Example 6b: A Mixolydian hybrid phrase (extended)

This pivots over to the key of E Mixolydian so the main chromatic notes of interest are the minor 3rd (G) and the major 7th (D#). This features lots of great creativity so take your time getting the most from it.

About a decade ago, I took the fingerstyle plunge and got fake nails on the advice of Kaki King. She told me to get acrylics — the hardest and most durable nail — at a professional salon. She even specifically mentioned going to, and I’ll paraphrase, “a Vietnamese salon where all the ladies in your neighborhood with nice nails go.”

That’s exactly what I did. A few years later I encouraged Sonny Landreth to do the same. The electric slide star was complaining about his real nails not holding up on the road, and he was starting to play more acoustic as well.

What’s it like? Would we do it again? Read on.

Primary Pros

The main advantage to fake nails is that you essentially have five picks instead of one. Players that were already hybrid pickers, or perhaps full-on fingerpickers, will rejoice at the transformation.

It’s practically a sanctimonious feeling when you finally free your fingers. Your playing changes overnight. It’s like the difference between pedaling and riding an eBike.

Plectrum players will need time to adjust. You’ll feel like Edward Scissorhands at first.

I had to force myself not to play with a pick for about a year before it felt truly comfortable, but then it was like opening a door to a fantastical kingdom of finger freedom. A million new plucking approaches were literally at my fingertips. And of course, I can still pick up a plectrum and play that way anytime I want.

What’s the Biggest Difference?

Now that I’ve become accommodated to picking with my index fingernail, I don’t want to play with a pick most of the time. That’s the weirdest thing, because it’s a sideways brushing motion rather than a vertical attack like a plectrum.

However, you must get the shape of the nail just right, or it’s like playing with an odd pick. When I do use a pick nowadays, I prefer a small one such as a Dunlop Jazz III because it’s more like the size and thickness of an index fingernail.

I’ll still go with a pick when covering other plectrum players, such as when I’m doing Dickey Betts in my tribute to the Allman Brothers Band. It just sounds more appropriate and authentic, but otherwise going freehand feels fabulous, especially on acoustic.

Primary Cons

Of course, it takes time and money to maintain fake nails. The cost of doing so has doubled over the past decade. You also need to find a salon tech you like. Even though I’ve moved about 45 minutes away, I still go back to my girl Ha “Hannah” Nguyen, because she’s the only one that gets it just right!

Maintenance is a constant. The first week or two after getting the nails is the best, and then you must do some filing. You need a big thick file to bring down the overall length. I like mine medium to short. The longer they are, the more they affect the attack and brighten the tone.

You also need a little file for homing in on the shape, and for reducing the ridge that forms a little way up from the base of the fingertip as the real fingernail underneath grows and starts to show. For those final touches, it’s best to use a very fine file.

Ignore that ledge where the real nail meets the fake one at your own peril. When it becomes dramatic, that ridge acts like a little hook. Strings start to get caught under there and it can practically tear the fake nail off if you’re not careful!

It was a nightmare when COVID shut down the salons. Players like Peppino D’Agostino begin calling me asking what to do. James Taylor literally takes matters into his own hands. He’s got his DIY method down and always carries a box of nail stuff around. I don’t, so if something goes terrible wrong with a key nail at an inconvenient time or place, I’m kind of screwed.

That’s when I must grab a plectrum and play hybrid style, which is a whole different universe because all the plucking-hand attack digits change once the thumb and index finger are occupied with the pick.

Polish or No Polish?

I don’t always get my nails colored, but when I do, I go all in and get sparkling aqua gels! The advantages are mainly that they look cool, or at least lots of people tell me so and the ones who don’t think so keep quiet. And any kind of coating makes the nails last longer without chipping.

The disadvantages are that they cost a bit more and take a bit more time to do at the salon. There’s also a small playability factor. The nails are a little thicker and have a slightly dulled attack. Think of it like coated strings.

And when the colored finish starts chipping off, a tiny little ridge forms up near the top of the nail where the string attack eats away at the coating. It’s never a big deal, but the further that advances, the more you notice. You can file it down a few times but will eventually need a touch up or a new coat of paint.

Would You Do It Again?

Hell yeah. The heaven of having a whole clawed hand is worth the hassle in the end. I play things I never would have dreamed of playing before, without even thinking about it much.

I checked in with Sonny to see if he still has his fake nails as well.“Yes indeed,” he replied. “I got on the path right after asking you about them years ago and never looked back.”

Should You Too?

Only if you’re serious. Otherwise, it’s not worth the trouble. But if you are, then take the plunge. It’s a bona fide improvement and the right tool for the job, especially if you play fingerstyle, and even more so if you play acoustic, because those wound steel strings rip away at real nails relentlessly.

If you gig a lot, or even practice a lot before each gig, fake nails will be there for you when your real nails fail. That’s what made me pull the trigger. I had no nails at all once I got to a very big gig and I missed them so much that I took action. They are a pain in the ass and get in the way of lots of things including typing this column, but when it comes to playing the guitar, especially the acoustic steel-string, fake nails are a godsend.

There's a special vibe about funk. It's often not considered as virtuosic as rock, as emotive as blues or as intimate as folk. Rather, its selling point is all about the groove. Core to this is the rhythm section, which consists of drums, bass and electric guitar. If this trio of instruments is really cooking as a unit, the rest of the band — from keys and horns to vocals — gets to dine on the rhythmic ecstasy. James Brown knew this. So did Kool and the Gang, Earth Wind and Fire, and Chic.

Randy Jacobs knows this too.

More importantly, he knows what the guitar needs to do to be truly funky.

Respected for his work with Was Not Was, Randy has enjoyed numerous collaborations over the years with artists like Bonnie Raitt, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson and Billy Preston. His guitar grooves are both infectious and tight, something that holds true from his 1980s pop-funk playing through to his current blues-funk band, the Boneshakers, whose latest album is Live to Be This.

In this exclusive article, you'll see Randy play deep grooves with his thumb, Wes Montgomery style, and explain what he's doing to make them so powerful. But here's the twist: For each of the six examples, Randy uses only one drum and a bass groove featuring the notes E, A and B. With that as a bare foundation, he demonstrates how beneficial a broad rhythmic and harmonic vocabulary is by using 16th note–based grooves, muted strings and classic funk chords.

One groove, six different guitar performances — all killer funk.

Example 1: Spank a Lank groove

Here Randy lays down solid funk guitar, combining chord fragments, single-note popping and muted strokes. The picking-hand thumb is used for strumming, and Randy keeps his hand moving over the strings to ensure good timing. Although based in E Dorian (E F# G A B C# D), the briefly played Am9 chords dip into E natural minor (E F# G A B C D) territory.

Example 2: Dancing Shoes

Slash chords feature here, creating colorful movement: the G/E (G chord over E bass) to F#m/E movement sounds great. The A/B chord (sometimes also called B11) is used a lot in funk and R&B. For the embellishments in bar two/beat 4, simply hammer onto the 9th fret while letting the first string ring out. The second string can be muted by the fretting-hand fingers.

Example 3. Bluish Hump groove

This groove is inspired by bands like the Rolling Stones. Instead of using high-pitched chords, it features meaty low-string notes. The move from B to E/B is classic Keith Richards terrain. To play this, place a first-finger barre on the 4th fret, and then use the second and third fingers to add the E/B chord.

Example 4: I Can Smell It groove

Randy turns the funk up a notch more now by incorporating several concepts already showcased, including muted strokes, low-end riff work and funky chord fragments. To create the spank, he slides a tritone double-stop up a semitone, from the 4th fret to 5th fret, and then strums the open first and second strings. The B7#9sus4 chord is a classic sound used by many acts, including the Average White Band and Prince.

Example 5: Smooth Strum Funk groove

Here, Randy changes direction and uses smooth-sounding major 7 chords. To add more movement, he slides into the Emaj7 from a semitone below (Ebmaj7). This sets up a pleasing tension and release. The E/A chord provides a rich Amaj9 sound. Another vibrant choice is the use of double-stops. Randy slides a first finger barre between the 7th and 9th frets on the first and second strings. Slinky!

Example 6: Spankala groove

For the final fretboard funking, Randy mostly plays two notes of an Em9 chord for a big and confident sound. This can be changed to an Em7 by dropping the first finger off. To provide some light and shade, the Em9 chord can also be played in full. Randy allows the open first and second strings to ring when fingering the Bm11 chord, providing a very resonant sound.

In chess, American football and musical theater, there is a reverential term known as a triple threat. It refers to somebody with three outstanding and separate attributes that, together, put them at the top of their game.

It can also be applied to musicians such as Brett Garsed.

His triple threat comes from his skills at hybrid picking, legato and slide guitar. Fully primed with this tasty trio of techniques, the modest virtuoso positively oozes with precision and expression in equal measure.

But while his picking and fretting hands are phenomenal, this tutorial aims to both demonstrate his skill as a slide player and inspire you to push beyond the norms of slide guitar tropes.

This tutorial will uncover just how far you can actually go. So if slide is a style you already enjoy playing (or, indeed, plan to), this is especially for you.

And if you want to learn even more, check out Brett's new book, Modern Slide Guitar Techniques in Standard Tuning.

Brett's slide journey started as a teenager but changed after he saw Joe Walsh play "Rocky Mountain Way" on TV. Like Joe, he was using open E tuning (E B E G# B E). This gives a varied set of intervals between the strings, but many are unobtainable in standard tuning.

Unless you’re super resourceful and creative like Brett.

Frustrated with having to switch tuning or guitars, he explored blending slide playing with his conventionally tuned non-slide playing. Brett started holding the slide at an angle, aided by his decision to place the slide on his second finger. This allowed him, with some micro adjustments guided by his ear, to access open-E tuning intervals without having to change from standard tuning.

This discovery opened up a whole new vocabulary, allowing him to blend traditional open-tuning lines and pedal-steel ideas with melodic patterns and shapes in a fluid way, and without leaving standard tuning.

Before you tackle the examples, the two main considerations with slide guitar are tuning and muting. For the former, you could consider playing the following 12 exercises with static drone notes from a keyboard to help refine your intonation. Tip: Always aim to play above the actual fret wire.

As for muting, Brett lightly rests the third and fourth fingers of his picking hand on any unplayed strings. Unusually for a slide guitar player, he sticks to his regular hybrid-picking combination of pick and second finger (m) for most of these examples, bringing in the third finger (a) for three-note chords and arpeggios.

Brett's slide examples

Example 1: Straight and angled slide playing

The conventional approach to slide guitar is to position the slide straight across the strings, which is completely fine for single notes but gives you a limited range of useful intervals when considering double-stops and chord fragments, particularly in standar tuning. To provide a wider selection of intervallic options, Brett shows how he angles the slide to sound a minor third between the second and third strings.

Example 2: Bluesy descending phrase

Here an angled-slide technique is used to play a Joe Walsh–inspired blues line that the James Gang/Eagles legend would normally execute in open E tuning. However, in this case and for all of the examples that follow, Brett's using standard tuning. Take care to observe his picking-hand articulation too, as he chooses to use the pick and second finger (m) predominantly.

Example 3: Slide double-stops

In this example, Brett alternates between angled and straight slide placement to harmonize an E Mixolydian scale (E F# G# A B C# D) in diatonic thirds. Pay attention to the detail here and aim to capture some of the slides, vibrato and grace-note dips that all add to his bluesy delivery.

Example 4: Diminished phrase

Keeping with the minor-thirds theme, this spells out a symmetrical diminished-7th sound (F G# B D) by moving this fixed shape along a pair of strings in three-fret slides. Keeping to the E7th tonality, this could also be considered as four from the five notes found in E7b9 (E G# B D F).

Example 5: G and C chords as 6th intervals

Brett expands the double-stop concept here by skipping strings, allowing him to highlight the sixth intervals found at the heart of both a G and C triad. Here he’s selecting the second and fourth strings, muting the third string located between with the third finger (a).

Pay attention to the smoothness of his vibrato. It’s good to acknowledge just how many of these ideas end with a rapid descending slide to no fixed pitch. The little details definitely accumulate in terms of delivery and musical personality.

Example 6: 6th intervals in G (second and fourth strings)

Sticking with the sixth-interval idea, Brett neatly defines G Mixolydian (G A B C D E F) with an alternation between angled and straight postures, choosing between major and minor sixths. Adopt a muting technique similar to what was used in Example 5 to keep extraneous noise at bay.

Example 7: Sixth intervals in B Dorian (first and third strings)

With a switch of location and tonality, Brett neatly articulates a phrase in B Dorian (B C# D E F# G# A). Again, he's using diatonic sixths with a combination of straight and angled slide approaches, although this time these are situated on the first and third strings.

Example 8: 5th interval with slide

Returning to the second and fourth string, Brett angles the slide even further to span two frets, allowing him to articulate the fifth interval found between E (14th fret, fourth string) and B (12th fret, second string). Again, this could be relocated between the first and third strings using the exact same shape, situated one string down.

Example 9: Major triads with angled slide

As Brett states, it’ll take a bit of micro adjustment to get these fifths in tune, but once you achieve this, you can also add the third string to create a complete major triad. Notice the use of the third finger (a). These shapes can also be slid up and down the fretboard to articulate a shifting major sequence.

Example 10: B octave on second and fifth strings

"These are quite tricky to get in tune," Brett admits.

Taking the string skipping technique a little further, here he articulates an octave found between the second and fifth strings. This means two strings need to be muted between the desired notes. Brett uses his third and fourth fingers to achieve this. Take it slow, getting the right slide angle and muting the inner strings.

Example 11: Octaves on second and fifth strings

Once again, you’ll need to make some micro adjustments to get these octaves in tune, but once that’s secure you can start to move them horizontally along the length of the fretboard. Again, Brett’s sticking to the second and fifth strings here.

Example 12: Octaves on first and fourth strings

You can take this angled shape and locate it now on the first and third strings, giving you an octave shape that can be moved horizontally along the length of the fretboard. Get these examples nailed, then enjoy the sonic rewards — and the looks of surprise from other guitarists!

Slide Q&A with Brett Garsed

Slide guitar is often played with a high action, but your guitars are set the same for both slide and standard playing. What is your action preference?

I try to find a balanced action that lets me do my regular playing but is also high enough to allow me to play slide as well. It is a compromise that has to be made for the convenience of just carrying a bottleneck around instead of another guitar.

I use D’Addario NYXL .010–.052 strings these days. I used .011’s for quite a while but I prefer the lighter top three strings now. I find that the heavier bottom strings help to support the slide and prevent me from hitting the frets too much. That can happen a lot on the high E string so I have to adjust my technique quite a bit to try and prevent it.

You use a glass slide. What weight/thickness is it?

I use a Jim Dunlop 211 glass slide, and if I see one in a store I buy it as they’re not easy to find. They’re just the right weight and mass, and I really like the way they fit firmly on the top part of my second finger as the don’t come off and it also gives me more reach for the angling techniques.

I find glass and chrome sound very similar, so I’d like to try chrome again as I really like Paul Gilbert’s idea of using a magnet to attach it to the guitar, but I can’t find a chrome slide long enough. I’ll keep looking, and if I find one, I’ll have to ask Paul where he gets his magnets from!

What type of overdriven tone do you like best for slide as regards amp settings and maybe the guitar's controls?

I’m using the Axe FX III or the FM9 for my tone and I use the Euro Blue amp model which I believe is emulating a Bogner Ecstasy. I have just enough top end in my sound so I can use the front pickup with it’s tone control on 10. I have the tone control for the back pickup on 3 or 4 to tame that top end when I’m using it.

I’m using a Suhr Riot overdrive model which is in the Axe FX III and I really like it. Fuzz pedals sound great on slide but I don’t like them for non-slide soloing, so I prefer to use my regular tone all the time. That way, I can decide to play slide or not depending on my mood in the moment.

You've a slide book available. What's in it and where can people get it?

Modern Slide Guitar Techniques in Standard Tuning is released through the publishing company Guitar Vivo. I cover standard slide techniques and then go over angling techniques in great detail. There's a lot more content, in addition to these topics, as I have many ideas about slide guitar.

It was great fun to do, getting much of what I love about slide all into one book. The tuition books I do for Guitar Vivo also have accompanying video and I narrate them so there’s a visual aspect as well as full transcriptions of everything, including various improvised solos.”

Brazilian guitarist João Gaspar is known for his versatility and ability to blend traditional music with jazz, rock and contemporary styles. Through this fusion blend, Gaspar has developed a distinctive approach that combines rhythmic complexity with melodic sophistication while incorporating classic elements found in samba, choro, bossa nova and rhumba.

In this exclusive video, he plays a nylon-string guitar and a few clean-toned electric guitars for six different Brazilian examples. The nylon-string guitar is a classic sound linked heavily to Brazilian music. Early trailblazers such as Baden Powell and João Gilberto adapted fingerstyle nylon-string tone and fused it with Afro-Cuban rhythms and Brazilian music styles, helping to form a popular template for samba and bossa nova guitar playing.

For the electric guitar, a clean amp tone is ideal for extended chords and crisp rhythms that are easily heard and can cut through a typical song mix. However, when you tackle these six examples, feel free to experiment on whatever guitar you have available.

For each example, João first plays at an ideal tempo and then again slowly, so you have more time to watch the playing in detail. After this, he discusses and demonstrates the techniques, chords and general theory involved.

Certainly, if you hanker for new rhythms or sophisticated chord voicings, you'll go from simple open-position fingerings, such as Dm and Bbmaj7, right through to extended harmony that you’d expect to hear in Brazilian music (e.g. Gm13 and C#7alt).

To help you get these examples under your fingers, we've included key picking and strumming directions, as João is great with both fingerstyle technique and using a pick.

As ever, the devil is in the detail. With slow practice and an awareness of what you're aiming for, you'll soon develop a consistent feel and groove that people would like to dance to. Now, on to the examples!

Example 1: Rhythmic fingerstyle chords

This fingerstyle example uses the open first and second strings to enhance the fretted notes. First off, it's worth singing the rhythm to get the right feel, especially if it's new to you. We then recommend playing the rhythm slowly as you master the chord fingerings, then increasing the tempo. The pattern moves between great-sounding voicings of Emaj9 and B9sus4 (also referred to as A/B). The colorful Lydian chord at the end (Emaj7#11) is the icing on the cake and adds a little exotic tension.

Example 2: 16th-note strumming

This features a fingers-based strumming pattern that is repeated throughout. Start with a thumb pluck (shown as p under the tab), followed by a first-finger pluck (shown as i under the tab) and then a down-up-down strum (again, using the first finger).

The fundamental harmony is quite straightforward (it's a I-bVII-bVI-V progression), and the chords are played in the open position. However, the smooth Bbmaj7 and the spicy Asus4b9 are more jazzy sounding and help to enrich the progression.

Concentrate on the picking-hand strumming in bar 1 first as it's largely the same for each bar. Then work your way through each chord shape so they flow smoothly under your fretting-hand fingers.

Example 3. Funky single notes and chord bursts

This next example is pretty demanding, as it introduces a funky Latin flavor in the style of the great Brazilian guitarist and singer Djavan. The fingerpicking pattern uses a mix of syncopated muted strings and clipped single notes that dart around the main beats, so dial this in slowly.

The pattern starts with a muted hit down on the strings, followed by a muted pluck from the first finger and then a thumb bass note. Each bar is finished off with a four-string chord using down-down-up strums. Get this sorted and you'll sound very funky!

Example 4: Muted down picking

This example has a pop Latin feel, enhanced by extended minor-chord arpeggiating on a clean-toned electric guitar. The key technique to work on here is down picking accurately while maintaining the palm-muted down picks. You're after consistent dynamics and a warm tone.

Practice this slowly at first to improve precision and stamina and reduce strain. To finish, João breaks out of the patterns with a blues-style lick in G minor.

Example 5: Colorful double-stop strumming

This is a crossover of styles, with the harmony inspired by Ivan Lins and the rhythms of Djavan. The rhythmic accents are on beats two and four of the bar, with much of the playing involving double-stops (two notes sounded together). Again, João sings the rhythm before performing it.

The strumming is split across the bottom and top portions of the chord. This is reminiscent of funky strummers like Nile Rodgers, who break chord shapes into high/low string zones to create more variety.

Example 6: Funky and sophisticated chord syncopation

This final example is a fast jazz funk–style offering. The chords use extended harmony (e.g. 9ths and 11ths, plus altered chords), which creates a sophisticated sound. Observe that all the chords are mainly played on the top four strings. This higher string playing allows the guitar to sound bold and bright, cutting through the overall band mix — a key strength of experienced groove-based guitarists.

Don't overlook the ghost notes, as they are an essential ingredient, providing hi-hat–like percussion to the rhythm. Lastly, sliding into chords from a semitone below is an expressive funk element, and João uses it several times here.

Three Brazilian Groundbreakers You Should Know

João Gilberto

João Gilberto is widely credited with being one of the pioneers of bossa nova. He played intricate, subtle fingerstyle parts on a nylon-string guitar. His chord progressions often borrowed a lot from jazz-style harmony using mellow-sounding chords, including major 7, minor 7 and the 6/9 chord. Gilberto’s recording of "So Danco Samba" typifies the style, with Gilberto’s understated vocal floating on top of his gentle, yet rhythmically precise guitar accompaniment.

Djavan

Djavan is a widely celebrated Brazilian singer-songwriter known for blending jazz, funk, samba and pop. His smooth vocals, poetic lyrics and sophisticated sense of harmony have earned him a lasting place in Brazilian music history. One of his most famous songs, "Oceano," showcases a classic use of romantic lyrics and musical depth. This live version, reminiscent of the original studio recording, features a great nylon-string guitar solo from 2:28.

Baden Powell

Baden Powell was a groundbreaking guitarist known for fusing classical nylon-string guitar techniques with Afro-Brazilian rhythms, in the bossa and samba styles. His recording of "Canto De Ossanha," by Vinicius de Moraes, is a rhythmically intricate piece that blends samba and candomble. The syncopated guitar rhythms and dramatic vocals create a powerful fusion that has a haunting and intoxicating vibe.

Allen Hinds is an L.A.-based guitarist, renowned as much for instrumental albums like Monkeys and Slides (2011) as for a stylistic vocabulary that has served artists like Natalie Cole, the Crusaders, Roberta Flack and Randy Crawford over the years.

For this tutorial, Allen demonstrates his fretting-hand legato technique and the ways it can be used to inspire new ideas for your own playing.

For many of these examples, Allen takes inspiration from previous legato masters like Eddie Van Halen and Allan Holdsworth. Both players used classic legato techniques, such as hammer-ons, finger slides, wide interval stretches and string skipping. Putting their influence into new contexts, Allen demonstrates how to establish small motifs or patterns that can be learnt easily. Once mastered, they function as both warm-up exercises and approaches to develop your soloing vocabulary.

Allen advises that, once you've learned the short patterns, play with your timing and implement them into different rhythmic subdivisions. For this way of working, it’s more about opening up the possibilities than learning the exact licks per se. Allen finds that this conceptual approach helps students get out of ruts by finding new channels to explore without micro-adherence to every single playing nuance.

To cultivate an effective hammer-on technique you have to be accurate with where your fingers hammer onto the string. Too close or too far back from the intended fret will deaden the sound. With pull-offs, make sure to actively pluck the string with the fretting-hand finger to sound the lower note as opposed to just lightly lifting it off the string.

Also be careful with the timing of the pull-off pluck, as it is possible to pull the string sharp. This upward pitch bend is a sound that Allan Holdsworth didn’t like, so he famously preferred to hammer-on for all his notes, even during descending runs. Not easy!

To keep it simple, all of the examples are in A Dorian (A B C D E F# G) with the F# note providing the Dorian flavor within the minor tonality. This is a popular scale for blues, soul and fusion as it works great over a minor 7 chord.

As many of the examples are performed free time, the notation is the most obvious and easy to use as regards rhythmic subdivisions. When practicing along with a groove as Allen does, we’d recommend using the subdivision in the notation as a starting point and then changing it up as you get more comfortable. Also, the time signature and groove style could be changed later on for new lead ideas.

All of these conceptual frameworks will work in other tonalities, and Allan advises to try placing these patterns into A major for different results.

Allen also advises practicing with a clean tone. This helps to develop power and authority with hammer-ons and pull-offs, as the notes need to be clearly heard. Using distortion compresses dynamics, so it’s easy for a poorly sounded note to still sound acceptable. Now, on to the examples.

Example 1a: 4-note pattern phrasing

In this first example, Allen demonstrates how effective a simple pattern of four notes can be. Once the pattern of pick, pull-off, hammer-on, pick is established, it can be applied to any part of the A Dorian fretboard roadmap. As the position shift is implemented, a cool-sounding double note (last and first notes of each grouping) is produced.

Example 1b: Introducing string skips

Here, Allen transfers the pattern to the third string, jumping over the second string. This introduces a wider interval leap to sound more interesting. Again, knowledge of the A Dorian mode fingering roadmap is important. Combining these first two examples provides a great framework for improvisation.

Example 2: String jumping and sliding

In this example, Allen introduces a new pattern. It starts on the third string with a down pick, hammer-on and pull-off followed by a fifth string pick, pull-off and hammer-on. This can be shifted up the fretboard to get more mileage, and Allen uses a finger slide to shift position.

Example 3: Groupings of 4

Here’s a colorful four-note pattern that Allen demonstrates, with pauses to talk, as reflected in our notation. In terms of technique, the pattern is pick, hammer-on, pull-off and hammer-on. Again, this can be shifted around using A Dorian and a three-notes-per-string fingering roadmap.

Example 4a: Descending while ascending the fretboard

Allen is a fan of using position shifts to open up various fingering possibilities. This example was inspired by Allan Holdsworth when he descended in pitch but actually ascended the fretboard. Using a two-notes-per-string approach, this sounds fluid and smooth.

Example 4b: Longer descending phrase while ascending

Further possibilities of extended position shifts are shown here. To catch all the nuances, consider using the slow-down feature on YouTube's playback settings when learning this.

Example 5a: Legato with chromaticism

Chromatics can add spice and new color to lead lines, especially when placed in sequential patterns. Inspired by Allan Holdsworth, with a nod to Eddie Van Halen too, the pattern here is pick, pull-off, pull-off, hammer-on and then a picked note on an adjacent string. This creates an intriguing "outside" modern-rock and fusion-based electric guitar sound.

Example 5b: More chromatics for legato spice

Here Allen stretches out and demonstrates how the simple chromatic motif from the previous example can be used to create interest. Pause markings (fermatas = a curve with a dot underneath it) are used at the end of each phrase, reflecting Allen's presentation.

Example 6a: Finger slides

Finger slides are a great way to add fluidity to phrases. In this example, several semitone intervals are played using a slide to get into the final notes.

Example 6b: Slides and same-fret/different-strings shifts

For this example, the slide-and-stretch idea is used across all six strings. The basic pattern is down-pick, finger slide and pull-off, with the large interval leaps grabbing the ear. Again, it’s well worth digesting this one slowly. We finish on a pleasantly floating A7sus4 chord with no confirming minor (or major) third.

Example 7: Legato and note doubling

This is a great demonstration of finger stretching to produce double notes across the second and third strings. While demonstrated fast, it’s important to start slowly to bed it in well.

Example 8a: Four notes for a wealth of variety

While this contains only four notes, the 8th-to-12th-fret stretch adds big intervals, and the varied ordering provides a lot of color. With a mix of picked and pulled-off notes, it's fascinating to hear and fun to play.

Example 8b: Working the legato stretch

To finish, Allen takes the conceptual framework established in Ex 8a and incorporates the third string into the 8th-and-12th-fret mix. It's a unique way to sound fusion-like (due to the legato) and bluesy (thanks to the diminished 5th, b5). The occasional B note (12th fret, second string) adds a richer 9th interval when playing over the Am7 chord.

Steve Morse is a remarkable guitarist, with an equally remarkable career.

Over the past 50 years, he's performed in the Dixie Dregs, the Steve Morse Band, Kansas and Deep Purple, with whom he spent a colossal 28 years — almost double the tenure of founding member Ritchie Blackmore. In addition, he's played countless mind-blowing gigs and released numerous solo records over that time.

Steve has also collaborated with other heavyweight guitarists, including Eric Johnson, Albert Lee and Peter Frampton. In 2012 he was invited by Joe Satriani, John Petrucci and Steve Vai to join them on their G3 tour.

It's small wonder he was voted Best Overall Guitarist by Guitar Player for five years in a row, qualifying him for its Guitar Player Hall of Fame. As the crowning achievement, he has his own Ernie Ball signature electric guitar.

And now Steve has delivered a Guitar Player lesson just for you.

In this exclusive video lesson, Steve showcases five conceptual and technical approaches that he employs when improvising or arranging guitar parts. These include melodic arpeggios, 16th-note patterns, sextuplet-based picking, melody with ostinato bass and rhythmic variations. To close, he brings all these together for a final long cohesive etude that is both technically challenging and musically fulfilling.

Central to all the approaches is Morse’s stunning alternate picking prowess, which has long been admired and celebrated by countless guitar players the world over. Unfortunately, arthritis in Steve’s picking hand has caused him to have to reconsider and partially reconstruct his picking technique.

As a testament to his amazing work ethic and his considerable talent, he continues to sound incredible and his blazing picking and super precise articulation are still a joy to behold. This is also thanks to his positive outlook, which has helped him keep going when the going gets tough.

We’d encourage you to take inspiration from Steve's playing here and create a series of short exercises for yourself, one for each concept listed here and then link them all together. By creating a contextualized technical study you will develop your own personal interpretation of Steve's great techniques and approaches.

Tip: For each tab/notation example, click on the lower left symbol with four arrows pointing outwards. This will increase the size of the music, whether you're on a desktop computer or a smartphone.

Ex. 1: Melodic arpeggios

Steve kicks things off with an idea that combines a high melodic line with a broken arpeggio-derived supporting figures that move to follow the underlying harmony. The key to this concept is to be completely aware of the chord sequence. It’s also extremely helpful to acknowledge which interval you’re dealing with for every important melody note.

Like all things Steve plays, it’s clear that he has considered his fingering choices carefully, so it makes sense to at least begin here before modifying any of the fingerings to suit your preferences. The picking shown in the tab below is what Steve uses in the video, so start with this before considering other options.

Ex. 2: Upper melody with ostinato bass and chromaticism

Steve continues with the two-part theme here, although this time he’s supporting a shifting melodic line with a lower ostinato chromatic figure, giving the impression of a continuous stream of notes, although we’re leaping alternately between both parts. The rhythmic phrasing is of particular interest, as each phrase could be considered as a six-note group, traveling in 16th notes to create a six-over-four cross rhythm.

As with much of Morse’s technical articulation, we’re sticking to strict alternate picking here, with each and every note picked, with the exception of the grace note hammer-on for our final double-stop.

Ex. 3: Sextuplet-based alternate picking

More alternate picking here, although for this example Steve is playing an ascending linear group of six notes in sextuplets coming from the A Natural Minor/Aeolian scale (A B C D E F G). While he favors alternate picking, here he also provides us with some other articulation options, such as pick-hammer-hammer or pick-hammer-pick for each group of three notes arranged on each string.

Ex. 4: Melody with ostinato bass

This example shares some similarities with Example 2, as we’re revisiting the two-part theme, although here the melody note shifts while the bass notes remains stationary, moving only when required to outline and support the moving harmony.

Again, we’re looking at cross-rhythmic phrasing action: Here we see a three-note idea moving through a 16th-note subdivision. Steve is clearly aware of the intervalic relationship between melody note and supportive ostinato. Once again, his articulation involves using consistent alternate picking throughout.

Ex. 5: Melody with 16th note rhythm and triplet phrasing

For his final example phrase, Steve swings the 16th notes a little, providing a relaxed and bouncy feel to each line. This is also helped with the mixed articulations, blending pre-bends, bend releases, vibrato and slides throughout. Yet more cross rhythms are at work here, with each six-note melodic cell moving against an underlying 16th-note subdivision. This provides color with different accents and syncopations throughout the phrase.

You might find it easier to appreciate these syncopations in the final track, which brings all the previous examples together, as you will feel how these phrases sit against the stability of the backing track.

Ex. 6: The approaches all together

Steve rounds his video up by connecting all his examples together to create a cohesive whole. There are some very minor articulation embellishments here, along with a short outro phrase inspired by his first example, but reharmonized to articulate the closing chord changes.

We hope that you enjoy this collection of concepts, licks, lines and ideas and find creative ways to put it to use in your own playing.

Niwel Tsumbu is a Congolese-born musician with a distinct musical voice on the acoustic guitar which he has described as a melting pot of styles, fusing Congolese folk with global popular styles like jazz, rumba, classical and pop, to name but a few.

Having settled in Ireland, Tsumbu’s career has flourished in an environment that values artistic experimentation. He has become a beloved figure in the Irish music scene, celebrated for his collaborations with renowned artists like Sinead O’Connor, Glen Hansard, and the Crash Ensemble.

Further afield Tsumbu’s collaborations include Buena Vista Social Club and American folk artist Rhiannon Giddens, landing Tsumbu appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and various news channels, including CBS and France 24 in the process. Despite being an ardent collaborator, 2024 saw the release of Tsumbu’s first solo album, Milimo, which has received high praise from all corners of the jazz world.

The five examples included in this tutorial highlight Tsumbu’s technical style as a solo guitarist and highlight his expertise with Congolese rhythms.

Tsumbu plays all the examples at relatively fast tempos. To be able to perform at these speeds it's important to initially approach each at a slow tempo with your focus on the picking hand as that is where most of the technical demands are.

With the picking hand in mind, aim to employ a "golden hand position" rule where the thumb (shown as p under the tab) covers notes on the fourth, fifth and six strings, and the first (i), second (m), and third (a) fingers cover the third, second and first strings, respectively.

All notes are to be plucked free stroke, which means you pick the string and then the finger comes away, not resting on the next string down (this is called rest stroke). To accommodate this picking technique, hover the hand over the center of the six strings to maintain a static position as the fingers and thumb pluck.

To be able to speed up the tempos. ensure you pick with shallow and swift, but relaxed, movements. Being relaxed is crucial, as any tension in the fingers can cause the hand to cramp when pushing up to higher tempos.

As for the fretting hand, you can see in the video that Tsumbu flows with extreme ease between chord positions. He achieves this by using minimal pressure when holding notes. Some shifts may feel awkward, which makes minimizing pressure a challenge, so be sure to break short passages down into bite-size repeatable chunks to allow yourself to focus on this one aspect.

The examples

Example 1 - complimentary melody and bass in 12/8 time

While a 12/8 time signature was the simplest way to present this example, it could also be counted like alternating 4/4 and 2/4 bars. To get a feel for the syncopated rhythm, explore tapping it out with your hands, tapping the upper voice with the right hand and the lower voice with the left. The repeated picking patterns are rather intricate so be sure to practice slowly with a metronome sounding each main beat. Watch Niwel play this in the video below.

Example 2 upper and lower voicings in 7/8 time

This example in 7/8 time (7 eighth beats make up each bar) consists of ascending 8th notes with upper and lower voicings. The upper voice is the final three notes of each bar (the note stems are upward in the notation) and the lower voicing being the first four notes of each bar (these note stems are downward in the notation). Practice both voicings separately to get the best feel before joining them together. As with all the examples, listening and watching Niwel will greatly help how you interpret the tab and notation. See him play this in the video below.

Example 3 - doublestops in 9/8 time

Here you have double-stops (two notes played together) played in 9/8 time (9 eighth beats in a bar) with the intervals being largely 3rds or 6ths, the two sweetest-sounding intervals in music. Practice the double-stops as single notes, choosing the upper or lower note each time. This way, you'll enhance their clarity when you combine the two and develop a deeper appreciation of the melodic content.

Use your fretting hand's first finger as an anchor when moving between positions, keeping a loose thumb behind the neck of the guitar. Pick the lower voicing with the thumb (p), keeping the first (i) and second (m) fingers alternating in the upper voicing. Watch Niwel play this in the video below.

Example 4 - 10ths in 4/4 time

This has a 4/4 flow (four quarter beats to a bar) with an energetic rhythmic groove in the bass. Many of the double picked notes (e.g. bar 1, beat 1 - C and E notes) are 10th intervals: a third interval that is widened further by taking the 3rd up to the next octave. This is a very nice sound, common to guitaristic chord arpeggiating.

Maintain a stable picking hand position to keep the rhythmic groove consistent. Pick all lower voice notation with the thumb (p). Keep the melody lively by connecting all of the notes as legato as possible (played smoothly with sustain). Watch Niwel play this in the video below.

Example 5 - Ornate pull-offs in alternating 4/4 and 2/4 time

The snappy pull-off notes throughout this example are ear catching but can add tension to the fretting hand. Because of this, treat each pull-off instance as an exercise, practicing each one in isolation in three or four-note bursts, using a relaxed hand. Watch Niwel perform this below.

Niwel Tsumbu in action

Human Nature

This Michael Jackson song from the huge-selling Thriller album gets a wonderful solo guitar arrangement by Niwel here. He uses the fretboard well to cover the opening synth riff up high and then down to the lower frets to play chords and the vocal line. With a relaxed posture and intricate fingerpicking it's an excellent example of both his technique and musicianship.

Kanzenzenze

"Kanzenzenze" is a beautiful arrangement of a traditional African folk song. "It’s a song we’d sing as kids while playing a game," Niwel says. "You sit close to each other in line, pointing at your feet, singing while counting your feet with your fingers. Whoever the last note ends on, he or she is out."

Tears Of Joy

Niwel's tone and technical detail is to the foreground here with a piece that blends elements of world music, flamenco and jazz. Notice how clear his fretting hand pull-offs are alongside his fingerpicking chord fluidity.

John Etheridge has enjoyed a long career, having collaborated with many artists ranging from Stephane Grappelli to John Williams and Soft Machine to Andy Summers. He's also released much of his own music alongside leading his Hot Club inspired ensemble, Sweet Chorus and Frank Zappa tribute band, Zappatistas. His more recent release is Blues Spirits Live which features a variety of great performances including the classic Jeff Beck instrumental, "Cause We've Ended as Lovers."

In this tutorial, John showcases six conceptual approaches that he might employ when improvising. He begins with a trio of ideas against a II V I chord progression loop in the key of G major, specifically the chords of Am7, D7 and Gmaj7.

For the first example, he showcases the value of rhythmic placement and phrasing by simply using the G major scale (G A B C D E F#) throughout. Next, he adds chromatic passing tones to provide melodic tension and release, although still thinking in terms of the parental G major scale throughout. Chord by chord, you can consider this as A Dorian (A B C D E F# G) against Am7, D Mixolydian (D E F# G A B C) against D7 and G major/Ionian (G A B C D E F#) against Gmaj7. Notice all three modes have the same seven notes but they are ordered differently to match the underlying chord.

For the third II V I example, John ramps up the tension by juxtaposing the D Altered scale (D Eb F F# Ab A# C) against the D7 chord, using the intervals of b9 (Eb), #9 (F/E#), b5 (Ab) and #5 (A#/Bb), moving to more stable melodic choices when the chord resolves to Gmaj7.

The final three examples are based around static chord grooves. The first features the G Mixolydian mode (G A B C D E F) over G7, harmonized in diatonic fourth intervals and moved throughout the scale off each note. The concluding two examples shift to an A7 chord and introduce more melodic tension with the A Half/Whole Diminished scale (A Bb C C# Eb E F# G). This is a symmetrical scale based on a repeating pattern of semitones and tones, perfect for moving any idea up or down the fretboard in three-fret/minor third intervals.

As John is freely improvising for most of these playing examples, don’t get too caught up in the micro detail, especially from a rhythmic perspective. Figure out which elements of the examples you like the most and then work them into your own playing.

Performance examples

Ex. 1: Am7-D7-Gmaj7 progression, G major scale soloing

John begins by illustrating just how effective the G Major scale (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#) can be for soloing over the chords of Am7, D7 and Gmaj7. He’s using varied rhythms along with choice note selection and melodic development to maintain interest. Crucially, he wants to avoid making his improvisation sound boring by just going up and down the G major scale.

Watch him play example 1 below then tackle the accompanying tab and two G major scale diagrams which highlight the fretboard positions he plays in.

Ex. 2: Am7-D7-Gmaj7 progression, G major scale plus passing tones

Here, John highlights how expressive passing tones in a solo are by using the notes found in-between the notes of the G major scale.

With your own playing, it’s a good idea to go on the hunt for all the tone gaps in common scales like G major. These gaps are where you'll find chromatic opportunities, such as between G and A, or A and B. Remember, if there are seven diatonic tones within any major scale tonality, then there must be five chromatic connections too.

Watch John play example 2 below then check out the tab and the G major scale diagram which shows the fretboard position he's playing in. Where there are gaps between the fretboard diagram's notes, feel free to add in chromatic notes.

Ex.3: Am7-D7-Gmaj7 progression, using the D Altered scale

John now ramps up the tension and release by using all the available alterations over the D7 chord. Specifically, these are the b5, #5, b9 and #9 (Ab, A#, Eb & E#, respectively). Managing this type of information can prove difficult on the fly, but fortunately all of these notes are encapsulated in the D Altered scale (D Eb E# F# Ab A# C). As an aside, the D Altered scale (also known as D Superlocrian) is the seventh mode of Eb melodic minor (Eb F Gb Ab Bb C D).

Watch him play this example below then check out the tab and two D Altered scale diagrams.

Ex. 4: G7 groove - G Mixolydian soloing using quartal chords

Quartal chord voicings were made popular in jazz by the pianist Bill Evans and specifically his contribution to the seminal Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. As the name suggests, these chords are created by stacking the notes not in thirds, like conventional triads and 7th chords, but in fourths.

Quartal chords sound uniquely sophisticated because they either feature three notes without the 3rd interval (which makes a chord sound major or minor) or four notes where the 3rd is featured higher up, above the 4th which implies a dominant 11th type sound.

Using G Mixolydian (G A B C D E F) as our host tonality, a G quartal chord using four notes would give us (low to high) G-C-F-B. The next four note quartal chord from G Mixolydian would be based on the A note, creating a four note stack of A-D-G-C. You can continue with this approach to complete quartal chords on every note from G Mixolydian.

John's performance and the accompanying tab is below. The fretboard diagram presents G Mixolydian's various quartal chords found on the upper strings.

Ex. 5: A7 groove - using the A Diminished scale (the Half Whole Scale)

Here, John departs from the improvisational ethos of the previous examples to provide two specific intervallic motivic lines derived from the A Half Whole Diminished scale (A-Bb-C-C#-Eb-E-F#-G). As this scale is constructed from a symmetrical pattern or repeating semitones and tones, any phrase, lick, line or idea can be repeated up or down in three-fret intervals.

Watch John use this scale below then tackle the tab of his performance and learn the scale's shape at the 5th fret position.

Ex. 6: A7 groove - improvising with the A Diminished scale

In direct contrast to the specifically composed nature of example 5, here we see John improvise freely with the same scale. Treat the rhythmic notation as a guide, as he’s freely flowing in an expressive fashion, although predominantly staying within the constraints of the A Half/Whole Diminished scale.

This example showcases just how effective moving away from the rhythmic grid can sound. Feel free to explore lines that float over the underlying pulse. As always, it’s good to maintain an aesthetic balance between being meticulous in time, and expressively loose and relaxed.

Watch John use the Half Whole Diminished scale below and then work through the transcription, looking for phrases that you find particularly pleasing. To be complete, memorise the extended fretboard diagram so you can use this unique scale freely.

John Etheridge in action

Soft Machine – Tale Of Taliesin

Live performance of a track by the late-'70s Soft Machine lineup with Etheridge (guitar), Roy Babbington (bass), John Marshall (drums) and Karl Jenkins (keys).

Soft Machine - John's elongated soloing

John is soloing flat out here — blues inflections, cascading chromatics, altered scales, blazing sextuplet phrasing, shred picking and wailing string bends. Stunning!

Jesse Cook is a Canadian flamenco guitarist renowned for his ability to blend traditional Spanish flamenco with a fusion of world music, jazz, and contemporary pop elements. His erudite technical approach combines intricate fingerstyle techniques, percussive rhythms, and dynamic melodies; all of which marry together to create a distinctive flamenco sound.

Here you will explore five different flamenco ‘licks’ by Cook, all of which involve a variety of specialized flamenco techniques that each present their own unique challenges. You will then explore a short piece in which Cook synthesizes all five techniques into a fiery flamenco solo which is played over the rumba pattern found in Example 1.

The use of golpes (plucking finger taps on the soundboard) through much of the music adds an extra layer of complexity and can make the notation seem complex. To decipher this notation remember that golpe taps on the acoustic guitar top nearest the floor are notated as a cross above the notation/tab, and conversely golpe taps on the guitar top nearest your head are notated by a cross below the notation/tab.

Approaching the characteristically fast runs of picado (picked) notes found in flamenco solos is often daunting but can be simplified by considering some technical approaches employed by the classical school of technique.

When it comes to the plucking hand, focusing on shallow plucking movements can greatly help with accessing higher tempos since the fingers don’t need to travel as far to reset into position for subsequent notes.

Furthermore, when alternating the first (i) and second (m) picking hand fingers, focus on an alternating ‘kicking up’ motion of each finger after each pluck (much like the motions of a footballer doing ‘keepie uppies’ with their knees and a football).

An efficient way to get a feel for this motion is to tap your alternating first and second fingers on a flat surface as fast as you can and observe how one finger goes up as the other comes down. The fretting hand also benefits from shallow movements: explore lifting fingers off notes by only a millimeter or so.

Not only does this continually give the fingers quick access to notes, it helps maintain a stable fretting hand shape which is vital for getting speedy passages technically secure. In short, less movement = more speed.

The examples

Ex. 1: Rumba Rhythm (French style)

Keep your forearm as still as possible during strums with the motion coming instead from a loose wrist. This will make the simultaneous double golpes on the main beats feel more intuitive and secure. Be sure to practice the triplet strumming pattern as slow as possible at first, keeping each individual strum snappy and strong. Click on the video below to watch example 1.

Ex. 2: Tango Style Arpeggios

The opening triplets can be played conventionally p-i-m but if you play them p-p-i as seen in the video, a strong flamenco-esque attack on the first of each triplet is created. With p-p-i the first two notes of each triplet should be played with one continuous rest stroke motion of the thumb (p). Click on the video below to watch example 2.

Ex. 3: Strumming and Picado Picking

When playing the scalic runs keep your plucking fingers flat in order to forcefully drive each rest stroke. Practice slowly at first with a pizzicato plucking hand (i.e. planting the fingertips early), then as you increase the tempo focus more on the lifting motion of the alternating fingers. Click on the video below to watch example 3.

Ex. 4: Alzapua Thumb Technique

This is mostly about thumb picking with down and up motion. To get you started, initially practice just the motion of the thumb notes, keeping the tip of the first finger perched on the first string to keep the hand anchored and still. Use the arrows displayed below the notation to guide the motion of your thumb with the down arrows directing you to catch the string with the back of the thumbnail. Once the thumb motion is secure with the first finger perched on the first string, perform the golpes (shown as muted x in the tab and notation) with the second finger (m). Again, keep focused on keeping the wrist still. Click on the video below to watch example 4.

Ex. 5: Solea

Solea is a slower, sadder style of flamenco music. Once again, focus on a still plucking hand wrist when executing the speedy ascending and descending arpeggiated runs, keeping plucks shallow to allow for speed. When playing golpes and swiped chords simultaneously, focus on swiping the thumb through the strings into the palm of the hand whilst dropping the fingernails onto the soundboard with a loud tap. Click on the video below to watch example 5.

Ex. 6: Final Piece

This combines each of the previous five examples but with slight alterations. Practice each passage separately and slowly at one slow unified tempo until it's all secure. Your metronome is your best friend here: consider a slow 60bpm initially once you've got the physical requirements comfortable then raise the tempo. Click on the video below to watch example 6.

Jesse Cook in action

Luna Llena

This live performance from late 2024 shows Jesse debuting a new piece, Luna Llena. Watch for his emotive melodies, vibrant chords and speedy picato runs!

Solace

This features one of Jesse's favourite styles, Rumba flamenco in a beautiful ballad-like setting. Notice how his single note phrasing sings with a warm tone.

In this video, country guitar wizard Matheus Canteri’s helps to unlock the secrets of hot country picking by sharing six of his favorite licks. Matheus is best known as a Brazilian born solo artist and as a sideman now working in Nashville and touring all the major music festivals.

The electric guitar tone here fits perfectly in the classic country style. Matheus plugs his home made Telecaster-style guitar straight into a clean Vox amp. The bridge pickup is selected which provides that signature Tele-style twang. If you’d like to get a similar tone with your setup we'd recommend dialing in a lively clean tone from your amp and selecting your bridge pickup. You can also experiment with adding a touch of slap-back delay. Simply set your delay pedal to a single, fast repeat which is nearly as loud as the original note.

In the video, Matheus plays various, classic country lines that will work over an E7 chord. To bring the phrases to life Matheus uses various articulations such as finger slides, hammer-ons and pull offs.

One of the key tricks to facilitate the effortless speed and accuracy on display here is the hybrid-picking technique. Hybrid picking means the plectrum is combined with the fingers of the picking hand. These fingers are are shown below the tab as m (second finger) and a (third finger) - as the thumb and first finger are holding the pick they won't be used for fingerpicking (but for the record they are p and i, respectively). This is a potent technique for this style of delivery, so we have notated the picking directions from the video examples for you to study. Using the fingers to pluck the strings not only increases facility, but also adds a pleasing warm snap to the tone.

Matheus typically uses the open strings, which is another classic country technique. The main scale of choice here is the E major pentatonic scale (E-F#-G#-A-C#) and this can be combined with the E minor pentatonic scale (E-G-A-B-D) to create one big hybrid scale. Furthermore, the chromatic tones can be used to link the notes of the E7 chord (E-G#-B-D) which is a key way those more advanced sounding country guitar lines can be created.

Playing lead guitar ideas at breakneck speed on a moderately clean, electric guitar with the bridge pickup selected can feel very exposed, but it’s rewarding to build up your ability to articulate with consistency and musicality in this setting. The examples are performed on the video at a blistering 300bpm with a slower version afterwards to help you identify the nitty gritty. We’d recommend practicing even slower to start with as it’s essential that all the picking directions are dialed in before turning up the tempo.

Once you’ve learned and mastered these licks it is a good exercise to challenge yourself and play them in a variety of keys other than E.

Hopefully there will be a new technique, lick or phrase in here for you to perfect. If you find one you like, then you can memorize it and use it in future solos.

The examples

Example 1 - Phrasing over E7

This first lick has a bit of everything in it including open strings and a mixture of the E major and E minor pentatonic scales. Lots of passing tones are used here to make a smooth line with plenty of color. The main concept for the picking is any note on an adjacent string that would require an up pick is replaced with a pluck of the second finger (m). This may feel a little awkward at first, but with a bit of practice you should find it easier to play faster with consistency. Watch the video below to see this being played.

Example 2 - Wide fretboard coverage over E7

This example moves all over the fretboard and the position shifts are made to sound more musical with finger slides. To slide between two notes simply keep your finger pressed down as you move from one fret to the next. This lick may take at bit of time to memorize in full, but it is made up of lots of snippets of great vocabulary. These snippets can be jumbled up to create new phrases. Watch the video below to see this being played.

Example 3 - Sliding around on two strings over E7

This example features the E minor pentatonic scale. The lick is created using a two string, horizontal pattern that ascends and descends. The basic pattern of picking, finger slides and hammer ons is the same in each position so once you have learned it, it’s just a case of memorizing the fingering positions. Watch the video below to see this being played.

Example 4 - Doublestop phrasing over E7

For this example Matheus uses double stops (two notes together) and these are plucked with the second and third fingers of the picking hand. A classic trick is to use finger slides to slide in and out of the double stops by a semi tone. The lower notes are played with a down pick and can be muted by lightly fretting them. This creates a percussive sounding country guitar line. Watch the video below to see this being played.

Example 5 - High fretboard phrasing over E7

Example five combines hammer ons and pull offs with hybrid picking. The use of repeating patterns is a great way to build phrases. The top note of this pattern can be changed to provide some variety. You can repeat and vary the pattern as much as you wish to build longer and more varied lines. Watch the video below to see this being played.

Example 6 - Using the E blues scale over E7

This final example uses the E minor pentatonic for its foundation. The use of subtle string bending adds attitude when going back and fourth from the B note pedal tone. The Bb passing tone is the diminished fifth (b5) from the E blues scale (E-G-A-Bb-B-D) - E minor pentatonic with the b5 added to make a six note scale (hexatonic). Watch the video below to see this being played.

Matheus in action

Improvisation in D

This video shows Matheus improvising over a country track in D with his B-Bender guitar.

One Horse Town

The Matheus Canteri Band playing a Blackberry Smoke classic titled One Horse Town.

I almost fell on the floor laughing the first time I grabbed my Les Paul off the wall and heard my office acoustic amp turn into a fire-breathing Marshall! That was last year when UAFX introduced the Lion ’68 Super Lead Amp. With the number of awesome emulation processors on the market growing every day, the amp game is changing at a crazy pace. Nowadays, an acoustic amp can be made to sound a heck of a lot like your favorite vintage tube amp.

The previous two Learn columns addressed maximizing an acoustic amp by utilizing both channels: first by setting up dual signal paths from an acoustic-electric guitar using piezo and magnetic pickups, and then processing those signals independently for a killer combo tone. Now let’s take acoustic-electric amplification to its ultimate realization.

DOUBLE TROUBLE, SINGULAR SOUND

Once you’ve got dual piezo/magnetic signals feeding both amp inputs, processing options abound, including the possibility of placing an amp-emulation pedal on the magnetic side. Do so and notice a huge difference in how the tone opens up. Like most pedals, the emulator is designed to accommodate the magnetic signal’s lower impedance, and then the magic of modeling produces a tube-like response complete with electric speaker emulation. You’ve essentially turned your dual-channel acoustic amplifier into a pair of individual amps with the ability to blend the two tones. This can be as simple as having a clean electric-style tone plus a true acoustic sound, or as wild as pairing the latter with a daring high-gain sound.

While players such as Alex Lifeson have been mining this territory for years, it’s mostly been done like he does, i.e., blending in a bit of a piezo along with the primary magnetic tone using a traditional tube amp. Doing so in reverse is largely uncharted territory, so there’s plenty of new ground to be found.

ACOUSTIC AS ELECTRIC

The acoustic-as-electric amp concept is also ripe with possibilities for those who prefer one signal at a time. In fact, it may just flip the script for some multifaceted players. Instead of thinking about your acoustic amp as a second option, it can become primary. If you’ve got an acoustic amp in, say, your office or teaching space, it can be electrified using a good emulation pedal to transform channel two.

Now when you want to switch from, say, a Martin to a Stratocaster, you can simply set the acoustic guitar on a stand, grab the Strat off the wall, and wail away. You can even become a bona fide lead player taking flights of improvisation if you first get a looper pedal going with the Martin. And of course, one can simply grab the Strat in the first place and focus solely on that. Using your acoustic amp as a practice amp for both saves time, money and space. And with the previously unimaginable sky-high quality of modern amp-emulation pedals, it’s completely within the realm of possibility to bring the same situation to the stage.

REALLY, HOW DOES THAT SOUND?

Some will argue than emulations don’t translate well to a live environment, and there is some truth to that. The dimensionality provided by power amp tubes pushing air via speakers onstage is real. It’s way less of a deal when using in-ear monitors, but most players are stuck with whatever monitors the venue has available, which is why having your own high-quality monitor in the form of an acoustic amp is a great idea anyway.

In the tube-amp emulation arena, the ideal stage monitor is an FRFR — Full Range, Flat Response — speaker cabinet. I’m not discouraging anyone from checking out all the cool FRFR monitor boxes, but I am pointing out that you may already have a workable situation with a decent acoustic amp. And if you’re an acoustic player first, it makes total sense to focus on your acoustic amp first. After all, an acoustic amp is essentially a little P.A. designed with a focus in the middle range suitable for a guitar. The more powerful and the larger the speaker in your acoustic amp, the more it has in common with a typical FRFR, and the happier you’ll be onstage.

I truly cannot believe the killer vintage electric guitar tones coming out of my acoustic amps and P.A. systems using one of the many convincing amp-emulation pedals available on the modern market. These range from companies that specialize in the digital realm, such as Neural DSP and Tonex, to classic companies that have gotten in on the modeling game, such as Fender.

Three truly remarkable pedals that have got me thinking about ditching my electric rig altogether come from Universal Audio’s effects division, UAFX. I’ve got the Dream ’65 Fender emulator set totally clean, the Enigmatic ’82 Overdrive Special Dumble emulator on crunch, and the Lion ’68 Super Lead Marshall model roaring with glorious gain.

Armed with a Strat Plus or a Les Paul, I can play just about any classic riff and have it sound convincing coming out of an AER Compact 60/3 Tommy Emmanuel Signature, a Circa ’74 by Taylor, or a Fender Acoustic Junior Go. Wielding a Cole Clark True Hybrid or a Martin SC-28 equipped with a Baggs magnetic pickup in the sound hole, a rainbow of glorious acoustic-electric blends lies at my feet and within arm’s reach.

Acoustic amps are almost always solid state, which makes them way more durable than most electric amps, vintage ones in particular. So, if one can achieve a convincing tube amp tone via an emulation pedal, and if you can use either channel individually or both for pioneering acoustic-electric combinations… There are lots of reasons to consider acoustic amps in a whole new light.

I continue to believe wholeheartedly that the most exciting developments in the entire guitar universe are happening on the acoustic-electronic front. Hopefully these past three Learn columns have convinced more players to come aboard and explore.

Molly Miller has become a force over the past several years, not least for the vibrant lead lines and rhythmic grooves that have graced her work with the Molly Miller Trio and her performances with Jason Mraz.

In this lesson, Molly unlocks elements of her guitar style by sharing six of her favorite licks derived from the modes of the major scale and the melodic minor. Her guitar tone is simplicity itself: Molly plugs her Gibson ES-335 straight into a clean amp, using the neck and middle pickups and a touch of reverb. For a similar sound, dial in a clean tone and select your neck or middle pickup (or both if you have a Strat-style guitar). For a more traditional jazz guitar sound, try rolling off the guitar's tone control.

In this video Molly brings her phrases to life using techniques such as hybrid picking, finger slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs. She also combines single-note melodies with chords, a style of self-accompaniment that works particularly well in a stripped-down band where the guitar is the main harmony instrument. Playing lead lines on a clean-toned electric guitar can feel exposing, but it's a good way to measure consistency and musicality.

To keep you on your toes, all the licks are in different keys and a couple are in different time signatures (3/4 and 4/4). All of the examples are performed without a click but are strongly rhythmic (having consistent inner timing is vital for all musicians). Once you’ve learned and mastered these six examples, challenge yourself to play them in different keys so they're versatile for your own music making. The only lick that is key specific is example six, which uses the open second string (B), but you can change this to suit your own musical scenario.

Ex. 1: E Mixolydian (E7) Lick

Here Molly outlines the E7 chord sound by linking the chord tones (E-G#-B-D) with chromatic notes. The interplay between the minor 3rd (G) and major 3rd (G#) is a classic blues trick which Molly uses several times. Click on the video below to watch her play example 1.

Ex. 2: D Lydian Dominant (D7#11) Lick

The D Lydian Dominant scale (D-E-F#-G#-A-B-C) is the fourth mode of A melodic minor (A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#) and works well over a D7 chord. It's similar to the popular D Mixolydian (mode 5 from the G major scale), but the augmented 4th (G# note) is what makes it different. To outline the sound of the D Lydian Dominant, Molly groups together the minor 7th (C), root (D), major 3rd (F#) and augmented 4th (G#) to create a moveable whole-tone pattern. The lick is finished off with three-note chords that evoke the mode's unique sound. Without going into too much detail with chord-naming conventions, an augmented 4th (#4) is the same as an augmented 11th (#11), hence the chord being D7#11 and not D7#4. Click on the video below to watch her play example 2.

Ex. 3: G Lydian (Gmaj7#11) Lick

For this major 7–based lick, Molly uses hybrid picking (pick and fingers together), which makes playing it easier. To help you articulate the notes well, the picking directions are positioned under the tab (i.e. down pick, a = third finger, m = second finger). Notice that for the majority of this, the sound could easily be considered as G major (G Ionian), but the final chord is where spice is added, as the C# note clearly outlines the sound of G Lydian (G-A-B-C#-D-E-F#). Click on the video below to watch her play example 3.

Ex. 4: E Dorian (Em6) Lick

This uses the E Dorian mode (E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D) to create a flowing jazz-style line. The key color of the minor-oriented Dorian mode is the major 6th interval. Here, it's the C# note that flavors E Dorian. Notice the way Molly targets the C# in both the lines and the three-note chords, adding brightness to the minor sound. Click on the video below to watch her play example 4.

Ex. 5: G Dorian (Gm6) Lick

Molly heads into funky territory here by using G Dorian (G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F) and a 16th note–based rhythmic feel that shines with numerous syncopations. The Db/C# notes are assertive "blue" notes (i.e. the diminished 5th), which add further attitude to the phrasing. Click on the video below to watch her play example 5.

Ex. 6: B Ionian (B major) Lick

This final example is ear catching due to the amount of sweet-sounding 6th intervals, which evokes B Ionian (B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A#), also known as B major. Hybrid picking will greatly help you play so many string jumps at this speed. Use a down pick on the fourth string's low notes and the second finger (m) to pluck the open second string. These picking suggestions are shown under the tab. With three-note groupings played against a 16th-note rhythm, the syncopated patterns are sure to catch everyone's attention. Click on the video below to watch her play example 6.

Carl Verheyen knows a thing or two about guitar playing. He's been an A-list LA session guitarist for the likes of the Bee Gees and Dolly Parton, played on Hollywood soundtracks such as Dusk 'til Dawn and The Crow, plus plays guitar for Supertramp. On top of all that, he has had a long solo career with vibrant albums such as Garage Sale (1994) through to Sundial (2021), where his trademark string skips, wide intervals and whammy-bar bends stun all those who hear them.

So we asked him to discuss and play some of his favorite whammy licks and riffs so a little of his magic can rub off on you too! Using a variety of Stratocaster-style guitars equipped with a whammy bar, he selected the bridge pickup and a musical sounding overdrive to provide sonic bite and sustain to his playing.

To begin, Carl talks through his floating whammy bar setup, which is quite specific and makes playing the examples more fruitful.

When the bar is pulled fully up, the open third string reaches a Bb note, which is a minor third higher (three frets worth) than the open G. Likewise, the second string raises up to a C# note which is a major 2nd (two frets higher) above the open B. Finally, the open first string becomes an F note with the bar fully pulled up, a semitone higher than the open E.

To achieve this with your own guitar's setup, you (or your local guitar repair shop) will likely need to alter the height of the bridge's posts and adjust the tension on the springs at the back of the guitar's body. See the photo below of Carl’s guitar: the spring claw's angle (to the left of the photo) isn’t as acute as might be expected to achieve these pitch changes.

Carl makes using the whammy bar look and sound easy, but if you are new to bending notes and double stops with it, you may find it’ll take some practice to get it consistently in tune.

To keep you on your toes, the licks are in a variety of keys. Once you’ve learned and mastered the ideas in these licks, it would be a good exercise to challenge yourself and play them in a variety of different keys.

Hopefully there will be a new technique, lick or phrase in here for you to perfect. If you find one you like, then you can memorize it and use it in future solos.

Ex. 1: Whammy Doublestop Bending

This has a swing feel to the 1/8th notes and is a classic blues-style riff. For the whammy bar bend, barre the second and third strings at the 9th fret and pull the whammy bar up. The tricky element is to let the whammy bar go back down to pitch while moving the finger barre back to the 10th fret.

Ex. 2: Shuffle Groove With Whammy Doublestops

This is a slow blues shuffle in the key of E. When the bar is pulled fully back, the C# and the F# bend up to, respectively, E and G automatically. When the bar is released, beat 2&'s chord is re-fretted at the 7th fret for the D and F# notes. These notes are the upper notes found in an E9 chord, the 7th and 9th respectively.

Ex. 3: Whammy Bends on the Top Two Strings

This is in the key of A and is based around a ZZ Top–style groove. Again the D and F# notes on the top two strings turn into the E and G when the bar is fully pulled up. The lick is finished off with a Keith Richards–style string bend on the third and forth strings from the 4th fret to the 5th fret. No bar is required for that!

Ex. 4: The Harmonica Lick

Carl says this lick is inspired by the guitarist Jimmy Herring and phrased like a classic harmonica lick. First, rake the pick for the D major ascending triad and as you hit the 10th fret of the second string quickly bend the A note down a semitone to G# with the whammy bar. At bar 1, beat 4, use the bar to bend the F# note ( 11th fret, third string) down to an F note (a virtual 10th fret, hence the brackets shown in the tab). Despite some opinions to the contrary, you can play a major third followed by a minor third over major chords, especially when played with mournful drop bends such as this. Shake some vibrato into the root note D at bar 2.

Ex. 5a: Whammy Bar Workout

This demonstrates a great way to add musical-sounding bends when descending a scale. Any notes on the first string are bent up a semitone, notes on the second string are bent up a tone and the third-string notes move in three-fret intervals. Tasty phrasing indeed!

Ex. 5b: Whammy Bar Workout (Extended)

This is a slightly extended version of example 5a. It demonstrates that once you have this concept under your fingers it’s easy to keep it going. You may choose to adapt this idea so it works ascending too.

Ex. 6: Whammy Bar Riff

This final lick is a culmination of many of the approaches covered in the previous examples. Now it’s a case of putting everything together and being mindful of your whammy-bar intonation. Enjoy!

Havingn separate signal processing is a huge advantage when it comes to using dual pickup signal chains. Plus it’s just plain fun! Suddenly your electric pedals become viable options for increasing the X factor of your amplified acoustic guitar tone.

In the previous Learn column, we addressed how to take advantage of the dual channels found standard on most modern acoustic amps. The concept is to capture body tones with a piezo or body sensor transducer, and get focused string tones by adding a magnetic pickup in the sound hole. Once you’re on the path to dual-signal glory, myriad new signal processing possibilities become available. The general M.O. here is to get a fat, true acoustic sound on the first signal, and process effects to your heart’s desire on the second one.

PIEZO SIGNAL PROCESSING

Some acoustic-oriented manufacturers have been developing effects pedals specifically for acoustic players in recent years. Prime examples include the L.R. Baggs Align Series and the Fishman AFX Mini Series. They’re optimized to accommodate the typical piezo undersaddle pickup found on modern acoustic-electric guitars.

That said, most pedals are designed with electric guitar signals and electric guitar amps in mind, and that’s especially true for gain pedals. Fender’s Smolder Overdrive is one of the few designed to work with a piezo signal. Ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro once told me that he specifically seeks out gain pedals with bad reviews from electric guitarists because they might be better for acoustic instruments. But once you add a magnetic pickup in the sound hole, such limitations become meaningless and new strategies come into play.

I try to keep the piezo signal as an acoustic baseline using perhaps a pre-amp and some compression to bolster the tone, and maybe a Boss OC-5 Octave in Poly mode for some bass in the bottom end. I’ll put my looper on this signal too because you only want the basic stuff on the loop. I may add any of the aforementioned effects pedals that are designed to process a piezo signal, but the primary goal is to have a robust acoustic tone that’s not too washed out with ambiance or modulation effects.

MAGNETIC SIGNAL PROCESSING

Here’s where the real fun begins. I put an array of “electric” effects in play on the magnetic pickup signal chain, starting with a wah, followed by gain and distortion, modulation (such as chorus or vibrato), and finally ambient effects, including delay and reverb. It’s cool to experiment with everything from heavy gain to spacey echoes while your basic signal remains fat and unfettered.

Most modern acoustic amps include at least a decent reverb. That’s usually the last thing I’ll dial. I generally leave channel 1 either completely dry or add just a touch of room reverb, and leave the cosmic stuff for channel two. That usually comes from pedals such as a Roland RE-202 Space Echo or UAFX Galaxy ’74. Both emulate the classic Roland Space Echo, and I love these stompbox versions because you can hold down a pedal for performance effects such as whooshing, blast-off kind of sound at any moment.

BLEND IN WITH VOLUME PEDALS

Once you’ve picked the pedals for each signal path, it’s all about getting a great blend. It's a good idea to start each signal chain with a volume pedal and end the pedalboard portion with a muteable tuner. Passive magnetic sound-hole pickups don’t have volume controls. Active ones do, but they can be difficult to access on the fly. Flywheel-style piezo controls in the lip of the sound hole are pretty good, but not as groovy as having a gas pedal at your foot. Having a pair of them is especially handy if you gig with more than one acoustic and need to balance volumes on the fly.

No matter how well you get your basic levels set at home, it’s always going to be a bit different on the gig. When you have a pair of volume pedals controlling the levels of a basic acoustic signal from your piezo pickup, and another at the ready for blending in some funky wah or spacey echoes, you not only have the best of both worlds at your fingertips — you’ve got a world of wonder at your feet.

In case you're wondering if you can feed the magnetic signal chain into an electric amp, the answer is a resounding yes. Can you leave the electric amp at home in favor of using a simulator pedal to totally transform your acoustic amp? Hell yeah! You can use tube amp emulator pedals such as the latest UAFX gems to turn your acoustic amp into everything from a shimmering Fender sound-alike to smoldering Dumble clone or even a fire-breathing Marshall. We’ll do a deep dive on turning your acoustic amp into an electric amp via emulation pedals in the next column.

Sue Foley is renowned for her dynamic electric blues playing. Even so, the Texas blues woman took a stylistic detour on her latest album, One Guitar Woman, by covering a range of styles, including flamenco, classical and Tejano — all on a nylon-string acoustic guitar — while paying tribute to female guitarists like Memphis Minnie, Maybelle Carter and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

“That’s the great thing about guitar playing,” Foley says. “There’s always a new mountain to climb. I tend to be restless and adventurous in general, and that certainly extends to my guitar playing. I’ve spent a lot of my life playing the blues, and I’ll always return to it, but there’s other kinds of music I still want to learn.”

Such as? “Well, jazz, for sure,” she says. “I can’t play jazz — yet. Harmonically, I’m really challenged. I know if I were to really try to stretch myself, that’s where I would probably try to go.”

Foley recently heard she's received a Grammy nomination for “Best Traditional Blues Album” on behalf of One Guitar Woman. It's her first nomination, and one that is clearly well deserved. She was kind enough to take some time from her busy schedule to offer choice bits of advice for Guitar Player readers.

“There’s a lot of technical tips you can get out there, but to me a big part of guitar playing is mental,” she says. “It’s funny how a lot of players can talk themselves out of trying something new or breaking out of their boxes. Just remember: There’s no rights and no wrongs. Play fearlessly and it’ll all sort itself out.”

1. Ask Yourself Big Questions

“Learning the fundamentals of blues isn’t that difficult, really. Once you familiarize yourself with how the I, IV and V operate in the circle of fifths, you’re in a good place. To me, those are the primary colors you need in order to paint a picture. But what I find fascinating about the blues — and much of it is mysterious, in a way — is just how many ways there are to express yourself using only a few colors.

“Blues music asks you some big questions, like, Who am I? What do the blues mean to me? What do I really want to say? It almost dares you to expand your mind and express yourself through your playing. It wants you to go to a deeper place all the time. I find that fascinating. To me, it’s a challenge every time I play, like, How am I going to play this solo and these licks that have been regurgitated countless times for almost 100 years in a way that sounds fresh and alive? How am I going to make them sound like me?

“Asking yourself these types of questions is as important as any kind of technical practice you undertake. I guarantee you, whenever you listen to the greats, you
can bet they’ve asked themselves these questions. I know this sounds kind of spiritual, but when you get down to it, that’s really the essence of the blues. This is music born from a certain time and place, and whenever we play it, we’re paying homage to those spirits and keeping them alive.”

2. Tone Comes From Your Picking Hand

“Of course, you need decent equipment to get a good sound — a good-quality guitar and amp, decent strings that aren’t too old. But the real secret about tone is that it comes from your picking hand. Your fretting hand is doing one kind of work, but for the most part it’s flowing in the same kind of general moment. But your picking hand is where you control your tone. It’s surprising to me that so few people really talk about it.

“When I was coming up, I spent a lot of time watching people’s picking hands. I used to go see Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown a lot, and he had this amazing right-hand technique. He didn’t use a pick, and he did all these really interesting flourishes using all his fingers. It was like each finger was a paintbrush that he’d run across the strings. He could play fast and wild, but when I’d watch his right hand, it was like he put no effort into it. It was all graceful swing. That’s where his tone came from.

“In a different way, there was Albert Collins. He had another great right hand, and his tone could slice your head off. He used his fingers, too, and he played with very light strings. The way he dug his fingers into his strings and pulled the sound from them, it was like sparks flew.

“These kinds of players made an impression on me, and I decided to do away with a flatpick. I use a Golden Gate thumbpick, which I take on and off. Mostly I just play with my fingers so I can feel the flesh on the strings. What I like about that is how intimate it feels — there’s nothing that separates me from each string. I can pluck each string lightly, or I can dig in and get tough. I can run my fingers softly across the strings, or I can hit ’em hard. Playing this way, my tone comes straight from my picking hand, whether I’m going through an amp or not.”

3. If You Play Electric, Try an Acoustic

“It’s easy to let your pickups and amp do a lot of the work for you, but if you want to expand your playing — and if you want a dose of humility — pick up an acoustic from time to time. I started on an acoustic, so I’ve always felt comfortable playing one. The way I generate sound on it is vastly different than on an electric guitar. The sound basically comes from my stomach, which is pressed right against the instrument.

“It’s an unforgiving instrument, which freaks a lot of people out. This is especially true if you’re playing a nylon-string acoustic, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Don’t expect it to have the same behavior and response as your electric. It’s a whole different animal. So right away, adjust your expectations and approach. You’re going on a new adventure.

“I would also recommend people either use a thumbpick or an open hand when playing acoustic. There are so many things you can do using your whole hand, and you can experiment in so many ways. But be patient. You’re going to have to take baby steps. I remember my first flamenco guitar lesson: I had been playing for a couple of decades and I thought I was pretty good. I went for my first flamenco guitar lesson, which was open hand, no picks, on a nylon-string acoustic. Between the time signatures and the techniques, it was like I’d never played guitar before. Believe me, it was a good dose of humility.

“The more I played on a nylon-string acoustic, the more I fell in love with its sound and feel. I surrendered to the sound and didn’t fight it. And what was cool was when I found I could use a lot of the right-hand techniques I learned and apply them to my Telecaster playing. My fingers just flew across the strings.”

4. Embrace Your Suckiness

“We all hit a wall with our playing sometimes. I got in a rut myself with my blues playing. I’d been out on the road, and I could play different styles of electric blues, but then I started to think, What else is there? That’s when I started to get into learning flamenco and classical techniques. It was this mountain I wanted to climb, and the only way to do it was through baby steps.

“Whether you want to learn a different style of playing or not, the important thing is that you can’t give into your fear. If you’re trying something new or difficult, you can’t get freaked out if you suck at first. Keep going. In a way, you have to be honest and sort of embrace your suckiness. Say to yourself, Okay, I really suck at this, but I’m not going to stop. Each day you’ll be a little bit better, and one day you’ll be able to say, Hey, I don’t suck anymore.”

5. Speak Through Your Instrument

“Music is a conversation, and if you’re a guitar player, you’re speaking through your instrument. Think about it: If you’re having a conversation with somebody, are you just going to blather all over them and yell at them? That’s not a very effective way of communicating. Better to sit back and wait until it’s your turn to speak, and when you do, try to add something meaningful to the exchange.

“If you try to adopt this attitude, you’re going to find that you don’t have to say everything all at once to make a point. Jimmie Vaughan once told me, ‘Solos are
like little paragraphs in a story.’ That’s a lesson I took with me, and it’s guided me through the years. I don’t need to blather on in my solos. If I have something to say, I’ll say it. If I don’t, I won’t. If I perform a ballad that just requires me to play a melody, is that really so bad? I think not. That’s what I need to add to the conversation.”

One of the most distinctive aspects of George Benson's soloing has been his use of octaves. Not since Wes Montgomery and Django Reinhardt has anyone utilized octave playing as extensively as Benson.

For Guitar Player's August 1976 issue, George was kind enough to share his approach to this tricky technique. His lesson and timeless advice are reprinted here.

My first encounter with octave solos was hearing a record by Django Reinhardt quite a few years before Wes Montgomery used them to any great extent. Django Reinhardt didn't dwell on octaves, but it was a part of his work. I started playing them immediately after hearing him use them. But to a great degree Wes Montgomery sort of mastered the octave concept. Plus he had a lot of finesse which gave it a much better presentation. I would imagine, since I came along after both of those artists, that I was more or less putting to use some of the things that they made available.

After recognizing their beauty and how octaves have a tendency to stick out, I realized that it was a good way to communicate. Since Wes gained such a wide popularity by using octaves, I realized there was something in them very appealing to the listener. It takes out the one-dimensional, thin sound and adds body to the electric guitar. It's a richer sound, because you're using the lower octave, which doesn't have quite the sharpness a higher note might have. This, I think, is comparable to the cornet as opposed to a trumpet — it's a much mellower sound, more pleasant to the ear.

I use octaves in several different ways, such as with chords, because sometimes by playing just octaves I feel my solo is very empty. I don't use them exclusively — I'm basically a single-line player — but when I want to add fullness, I'll use either octaves or certain formulas which use octaves.

Sometimes I'll take these formulas and play with them rhythmically, and that's when the fun starts. The octaves are tools from which I've derived a lot of different gimmicks to make them interesting and different from, say, those of Wes Montgomery or Django. I was very impressed by their uses of octaves — Wes using them in a very romantic and sentimental con- text that added a pretty side to even the funky things he played; and Django using them as a very dynamic interlude to what he was playing.

What I do with octaves began years ago when I heard a guy play this certain this formula, which consists of octaves and another note. I don't know if he played it accidentally or not, but I thought it was just gorgeous. I asked him to show it to me, and I always planned to use it one day.

In involves the use of a 6th tone in addition to the octave. I may use a G with an E and a G an octave higher, and then the 6th tone would move in and out depending on the change of the chord. For instance, if I was going to play in G minor, and during the G minor scale I was going to use the A tone, I would use A, F, A. This involves moving or positioning my fingers a half-step closer on the inside—which is the 6th. But that's only one formula [Fig. 1].

Another formula I use places the 5th and 4th in between the octave. I may play C, F, and C an octave higher to produce a certain sound, and that would also change positions as I change notes. To stay in context with the melodic scale, I might have to reposition the inside of the chord, which is the 4th, F, and change it to the 5th, G, in certain instances so that I don't clash with the harmony of things [Fig. 2].

Then there's another form I've recently discovered that has a D as the first note, then the 4th (in this case G), a B and another D. So it consists of the root, the 4th, the 6th, and then the octave [Fig. 3].

I started experimenting with these forms rhythmically, where instead of playing the root and the octave simultaneously, I'd play them at different times. I'd play them against each other, and it would sound like octaves in rhythm. Also I'd drop the pick at certain times and use a shape with the 4th in it to get a sound similar to [jazz pianists] Fats Waller or Erroll Garner.

So there are many different things that can be done with octaves. They have a definite color of their own, different from anything else on the guitar, and their possibilities are unlimited.

Octaves really excel on guitar because of the characteristics of the instrument. They do for the guitar what a mute does for a trumpet. There's nothing like a good trumpeter, but sometimes the instrument has a tendency to become hard and unpleasant because of the characteristics of the notes that come out of it. They can get harsh to the ear, but the mute takes that harshness out and leaves that pleasant sound —that brass sound that isn't too brassy.

With octaves, the low note has a tendency to round off that high shrill note. When you play a high note on the guitar, it can be very obnoxious to the ear. But when you add the octave, it softens it up by becoming a compromise between the two, because you don't really hear either note, but rather something in between. It's like a marriage!

Octaves have been used in a variety of different lights since Montgomery first popularized them. They sound very good in the background, as a matter of fact. You can use octaves to add a soft backdrop behind singers or other solo instruments, where strings might be used. When you play them behind a singer, they add definition to the background music, as opposed to chords which leave the matter open of what the listeners might choose to hear. They can pick out any note in the chord to listen to, whichever note has meaning to them. But the octave eliminates that; it says this is the color I want, and this is what I want you to hear in the background, and this is what you're going to hear.

I use octaves intermittently wherever I hear a need for them. They're incidental within any given place. Some good examples would be "When Love Has Gone" from Body Talk, "No Sooner Said Than Done" off Bad Benson, and "So This Is Love" on Breezin'.

But with octaves you have to find your own way. Listen and learn as much as you can, but then put it to your own use. It's certainly worth putting a little time into, and I'm sure that when you get tired and run out of ideas playing single-line, you'll find freshness and comfort in the octaves

Dreamcatcher Events and Ibanez have announced Breezin' With the Stars – an immersive four-day event with George Benson.

Taking place 3-6 January 2025 at the Wigwam Resort in Phoenix, Arizona, guests can rub shoulders with guitar greats including Steve Lukather, Cory Wong, and Tommy Emmanuel, alongside Benson, in an intimate but relaxed environment.

Ani DiFranco may not have tried every guitar tuning, but listening to her unique brand of dynamic and percussive folk/punk/rock songs, it can certainly seem that way. What is clear, however, is that she is a genuine trailblazer. DiFranco fearlessly navigated uncharted waters, carving out a successful career as an acoustic guitar playing singer-songwriter without any support from the music industry establishment. This was unheard of in the “before times,” prior to the cultural explosion that is the internet.

Entirely self-made, she is one of the first truly independent or “indie” artists, establishing her very own record label, Righteous Babe Records, in 1990, at only 19 years of age. Since then, she has released 20 studio albums on Righteous Babe, as well as those of over 30 other recording artists who are or have been on the label’s roster. Her most recent release is 2021’s Revolutionary Love, which features a string quartet, among a host of other instruments.

DiFranco considers folk icon Pete Seeger to be one of her primary mentors (he made a guest appearance on her 2012 album ¿Which Side Are You On?), and, like Seeger, she is outspoken politically, championing causes such as LGBTQ and abortion rights. A woman of many talents, in 2023, Ani authored her first children’s book, The Knowing, and, in February of 2024, made her Broadway debut as Persephone in Hadestown, which won multiple Tony awards in 2019, including Best Musical. But at her core, she is at once a unique and original guitarist and a songwriter of great depth. So, for this lesson, we’ll embark on a tuning journey through her songs, carefully curated so as to require as few tuning-peg turns as possible.

Some business first, though, as we’d be remiss not to talk about the guitarist’s unorthodox approach to playing fingerstyle. DiFranco strums or plucks her strings with her fingers, but to achieve her often aggressive style, she applies thick, plastic fingernails, made by Nailene. On occasion, one of her strummed onslaughts will cause one to fly off, so she reinforces them with black electrical tape, down to her second knuckle, to keep them securely in place. In the event that a nail does happen to fly off, it’ll conveniently stick to the tape, allowing her to quickly reapply it. Plus, it protects her skin from the beating it would take from how hard she often strums. (If you have an interest in following Ani's example, check out our informative guide to acrylic nails.)

Despite using all sorts of open and alternate tunings, Ani’s catalog is also chock full of songs in standard tuning, and that’s where we’ll begin. The guitarist began playing in bars and coffee shops in Buffalo, New York at just nine years old, accompanying her guitar teacher and mentor, Michael Meldrum; she quickly learned that it was no easy feat to attract the attention of bar patrons, who were there more to drink than to listen to an unknown folk singer. This led her to develop a powerful and dynamic style, with sudden bursts of volume, as if to say, “Hey! I’m over here!”

A perfect example of this is “Both Hands” from her debut album, Ani DiFranco (1990), which inspired Ex. 1. DiFranco is quite adept at plucking in such a way as to create a smooth and gradual uptick in volume, known as a crescendo. Before attempting the entire example, simply repeat the first bar, with the goal being to seamlessly move from soft (“p” for piano) to loud (“f” for forte) as you swell through the dynamic range. Once you’re ready to tackle the entire progression, the main challenge will be to quickly go from each chord’s final loud pluck — the accent mark indicates to pluck with just a little extra oomph — to immediately playing the next chord softly. Lastly, each chord should be plucked as staccato (short) as possible, by quickly resting your pick-hand fingers on the strings directly after each one is played.

Ani wrestles with her own identity in “In or Out,” from 1992’s Imperfectly. (She came out as bisexual in her 20s.) The song gives us an introduction to the guitarist’s signature aggressive strumming style, where her guitar is again in standard tuning, this time capo-ed at the 2nd fret. Ex. 2 brings the song to mind and employs two of her approaches to creating memorable guitar parts. The guitarist will often move a single chord shape around the neck, adjusting the fingering to stay in key or add colorful notes. These shapes often include a host of jangly open strings, creating a swirling sonic landscape that lends a welcome fullness, especially when playing solo, which the guitarist often does.

Keeping your pick-hand relaxed, strum with the tips of your fingers. You need not apply Ani’s aforementioned fake nails, but they do facilitate a more percussive attack. This effect is especially noticeable on beat 2 of each bar; deaden the strings with your fret hand (indicated with X’s), striking them with gusto, and giving the illusion of the sharp attack of a snare drum. DiFranco frequently plays through an amplifier (more on this later), and this effect is made extra impactful by using some reverb. The example ends with some aggressive Ani-style strumming, so hit those accented beats hard! Lastly, note the indicated strum pattern.

Now that we’ve gotten a feel for the guitarist’s playing style, let’s begin to explore her creativity with tunings. One often thinks of tuning strings down, but tuning them up is also a fine option. (One just has to be mindful of string breakage; if tuning up more than roughly a whole step, lighter gauge strings are recommended.) For the title track to 1995’s Not a Pretty Girl, DiFranco does both, tuning her 5th string up to B, her 4th string down to that very same pitch and her 1st string down to D, resulting in what could be called “open Em7 tuning” (E, B, B, G, B, D).

Ex. 3 is reminiscent of this ballad. The guitarist finds a chord shape that works well in the tuning, moving it around the neck (again with slight variations). Notice the rasquedo markings on beat 3 of each bar; in this case, it means to strike the strings by fanning your fingers out one at a time to create an arpeggiated effect, as heard in the Spanish flamenco guitar style. Begin with your index finger or pinky first, whichever is more comfortable. Songwriters like Ani often employ these tunings to discover new chord voicings with note combinations that would be difficult, if not impossible, to play in standard tuning. This often results in chord shapes that are unique, but still as comfortable to play on the fretboard as the familiar standard-tuned variety. Note how this particular tuning allows for unisons in bars 1 (beat 1) and 4 (beat 3) and how they create a hypnotic, droning effect. Strum with your nails as before; play the single notes with your thumb (indicated with “p”).

“Independence Day” from 1998’s Little Plastic Castles explores themes of love, war and the nature of relationships. Ex. 4 is along the lines of a brief interlude in the song, and features some nifty hammer-ons and finger slides. The tuning is just a minor alteration from the previous one, with the 3rd string lowered to F# and the 1st raised back to E. Ringing open strings support the low fretted notes, evoking a dreamy vibe.

Ex. 5 is inspired by “Blood in the Boardroom,” from 1993’s Puddle Dive, in which Ani narrates the thoughts of a woman getting her period in the midst of a male-dominated business meeting. In DADGAD tuning, she forthrightly strums big power chords and sus2 voicings. Notice in the example how adding the sus2 couldn’t be more convenient, as it simply requires fretting one additional note; making this change would be awkward as part of a barre chord in standard tuning. Plus, DADGAD tuning allows for power chords comprising all six strings, sounding open and atmospheric, which is again of great advantage when playing solo.

Let’s take a quick break to explore DiFranco’s gear. She mainly plays a variety of Alvarez guitars (including a baritone), but also has an assortment of others that includes an old Martin D-28. In the studio and on stage, she mic’s her guitar, mixing it with a direct signal — but there’s more: She currently achieves her variety of acoustic tones by employing two Magnatone Twilighter amplifiers from the ’60s, which are no longer made. One is set for an overdriven tone, while the other is cleaner, often with tremolo added. Ultimately, she mixes the mic’d and direct signals with the two amp tones to achieve the sound she desires.The guitarist summons some intriguing tones, an example of which can be heard in her 2017 NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, available on YouTube.

Ex. 6 is not unlike DeFranco’s lovely intro to “Even More,” from 2017’s Binary, in which she varies DADGAD tuning ever so slightly by lowering the 1st string to C (low to high: D, A, D, G, A, C). Open-string-based hammer-ons and pull-offs sound more curiously melodic as they climb up the neck, mixing with the bass notes and an open G-string drone. The harmonics in the last bar, beautifully dissonant, offer another feature of altered tunings, as this combination of natural harmonics would be virtually impossible to play in standard.

In “Two Little Girls,” from Little Plastic Castles, DiFranco tells the story of two friends who first meet as teenagers. Here, she uses a different variation of DADGAD, this time with the 4th string lowered to C (D, A, C, G, A, D), and don’t forget to tune your 1st string back up to D! The guitarist employs a variation of Carter-style picking, a type of playing named for Maybelle Carter, who introduced it as a member of the Carter Family band in the 1920s. In this style, the featured melody is played on the guitar’s lower strings with accompaniment above, instead of the usual other way around. In Ex. 7, reminiscent of the song’s intro, notice that all of the notes on the 5th string are to be fretted with your middle finger, as indicated below the tab.

Our final destination is a lush, low tuning (C, G, C, G, C, D). The previous tuning is altered by lowering the 6th string even further to C and the 5th string to G, then tuning the 2nd string up to C. Ex. 8 is inspired by “Falling Is Like This,” from 1994’s Out of Range, a song about balancing the joy of finding new love with the poignant awareness of its possible demise. Here, DiFranco combines some of the approaches she used above; octave hammer-ons and finger slides are juxtaposed with droning open strings, plucked in a descending pattern. The overall result has an ethereal quality, evoking both hope and despair.

The songs DiFranco mines from her cornucopia of tunings often blossom with airy voicings, suspended chords and harmonically-nondescript but rich, colorful soundscapes; the tunings covered in this lesson are a mere introduction to the palette of colors she creatively draws upon for her emotive songwriting. DIY musicians of all sorts who have followed her owe a warm debt of gratitude to this uncommon and innovative artist.

If you’re an acoustic guitar player who’s unhappy with your live tone, you might not be getting the most out of your setup. If, like many acoustic performers, you have a dedicated two-channel amp — which is very much the standard today — you may be missing out if you’re using only one of the channels. That second input is a golden opportunity to take your tone to the next level by adding a second pickup signal.

STEP 1: PLUG IN A PIEZO (SIGNAL 1)

While more guitars are starting to incorporate multiple pickups, most acoustic-electrics still come with a single onboard piezo pickup located under the bridge saddle. It may be a dual system that includes a second element such as a microphone, but a built-in preamp generally combines them and sends a summed signal into a single 1/4-inch output jack. For our purposes, plugging that into the first channel is just the first step.

STEP 2: USE THE POWER OF MAGNETISM (SIGNAL 2)

Here we’re adding a magnetic sound hole pickup signal to channel 2. This type of acoustic pickup works exactly like an electric guitar pickup: Magnetic pole pieces pick up string vibrations and convert the energy into electricity that we hear in the form of amplified notes.

The Sunrise pickup is one of the most coveted of these. Leo Kottke once told me, “It’s the only thing that gives you the goddamned note.” Actually, any magnetic pickup will focus more on the strings and deliver a faster attack than a piezo pickup, which must wait for that energy to transmit down the string and into the bridge, where piezoelectric crystals or ceramic elements detect vibrations. It stands to reason that the piezo pickup gathers more overall information from the guitar top, while the magnetic pulls the lion’s share of the string sound. So why not use both?

STEP 3: TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE

In my setup, I usually use channel 1 for the onboard piezo signal and boost the bass a bit for a bodacious body-driven tone, while channel 2 delivers the string tone from the sound hole pickup. The piezo provides plenty of high-end detail as well. I sometimes cut the mids a bit to make room for the naturally midrange magnetic tone. Once you’ve got both signals happening, you can find the ultimate balance between them.

But a word of warning: Once you do this, you’ll never again be as happy with the sound of either pickup on its own. And you’ll begin to understand why a player like Mike Dawes, who blends modern percussive techniques with fingerpicking and uses traditional electric guitar effects such as overdrive and octave processing needs multiple signals to gather all that information for amplification.

OPTIONS

There are tons of variations on this theme. If you’ve mainly been using a magnetic pickup, add a piezo. And if you can’t get past the piezo “quack,” try a soundboard-sensor-style pickup, such as the L.R. Baggs HiFi. If the somewhat dull sound of an old-fashioned, inexpensive magnetic pickup doesn’t turn you on, audition a tonally flexible active one like the Seymour Duncan Active Mag. Baggs’ modern magnetics, such as the M-80, are designed to pick up body vibrations along with the strings, which can eliminate the need for additional soundboard sensors or a mic.

Permanent installation may require additional technical expertise and perhaps some modification, such as an extra output jack or a signal-splitting stereo output jack. In addition, pedals such as Fishman’s AFX Pocket Blender can help separate and mix signals before they enter an amplifier. And if you need channel 2 for vocals, an auxiliary input or effects loop return can often accommodate a second guitar signal.

The possibilities are practically endless, but in the end, two pickup signals are better than one, and having two different kinds on two independent channels for blending is the bomb.

So you think your bandmates are happy with your contribution as guitarist? That you’re doing a great job and everything is peachy? Well, I conducted an expansive investigation to find out just what they’re whispering to each other when we guitarists aren’t around. This is information you need to know if your goal is to be a sought-after working musician — or if you just want to stop driving your bandmates crazy. Or even just really impress them.

The idea for this piece hit me when an old bass-playing friend contacted me over the holidays to purchase a block of lessons as a gift for the guitarist in his band. He presented a long and well thought-out list of grievances, ranging from “his tones are awful” to “he plays too loud and doesn’t pay any attention to the rest of the band’s feel.” He ended with an exasperated, “He just won’t listen to me.”

Sometimes it’s difficult to look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves about where we could use improvement as guitarists. So I sought out advice from some great bassists and drummers to get their points of view on how guitarists can become better bandmates. The players I interviewed are all successful working musicians who have had countless experiences interacting with guitarists in all types of situations.

The key here is not to take criticism personally. And while I’m sure we could tell bass guitar players and drummers a thing or two, let’s sit back, take a deep breath and be open to improving our game, whatever level we may be at.

Watch Your Stage Volume

Cat Popper has been a sought-after bassist for many years, performing with everyone from Willie Nelson and Levon Helm to Jack White and Ryan Adams. She began our exchange by offering advice for electric guitar players about how to set our stage volume.

“Keep in mind that with blaring stage volume comes low-mid frequencies that can screw up lower-voiced singers and, definitely, the bass guitar, especially when there are keyboards or piano onstage,” she says. “There are many gigs I’m at where I know I won’t hear myself much at all — because if I turn up, it starts a stage-volume war, and the house suffers.” Sounds like we can be more aware that our volume and tone choices impact our band.

Cat also wants us to know, “I am listening to your solos and accompanying you! I got your back!” In turn, let’s pay more attention by listening to what’s going on around us, and consider what our bandmates are playing when we create our own rhythm parts and solos.

Quit Playing the Same Old Things

Jon Price is a veteran of the New York City live music scene and a rock-solid part of any rhythm section and a brilliant improviser. Jon offers this piece of tasty advice. “I often wish guitarists wouldn’t play the same stock chord voicings and licks,” he says. “It’s good practice to ensure you are hearing an idea before you start playing it, otherwise you just end up playing something similar to what you’ve done countless times before.”

And how about putting the guitar down and using your head? “I encourage players to literally not hold the guitar when they are coming up with a part. Listening and hearing, even singing, an idea is essential, rather than just letting your hand position dictate what idea you’ll come up with next.”

Practice As If You’re Onstage

Jon also stresses how we can be better prepared for performing. “When you’re practicing, make sure you set up all the elements as close as you can to the upcoming live situation.” This means practicing standing up, if that’s how you’ll be performing, using the same guitar, and even singing into an unamplified mic, if you’ll be contributing vocals. These “dress rehearsal” elements all contribute to helping you acquire the desired muscle memory for the upcoming performance.

Ryan Vaughn has been a freelance drummer for over 20 years. His credits include expansive TV work such as The Masked Singer, Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist, and most recently as the house drummer for ABC’s The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart. Like Jon Price, Ryan brought up gig preparation — or lack thereof — as a problem.

“The biggest thing that I notice in young players is a general lack of ‘homework’,” Ryan says. “Lots of players can play, but very few truly prepare for a gig.” He encounters this often when playing gigs featuring cover material or songs by well-known artists. “Young players often don’t really spend time dialing in the sounds from the records that they are learning. In contemporary pop-rock music, sounds are everything.” (Ah, so we shouldn’t just buy the effects, we have to actually learn how to use them? Point taken.)

Be Prepared

Ryan concludes by adding, “No one really cares about the gear or the chops a player might have. It always comes down to their preparedness and ability to make the band feel like they are living in the sound of the recorded songs that they are recreating live.” I learned early on just how awful it feels to be unprepared in rehearsal or onstage, and this can leave a lasting impression on other musicians. That’s not great if you desire a career in music. Using some of your practice time to fully prepare for a gig will always serve you well in the end.

Know Your Pedals

Julia Adamy is a bassist with an extraordinary list of credits. She has performed at illustrious New York City venues such as Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall, done TV work like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Today Show, and been a member of the pit orchestra for major Broadway shows such as Hamilton, Mamma Mia! and more.

Echoing Ryan Vaughn, she points out, “Some of the most creative players have a strong pedal game! Spend some time getting to know the ins and outs of effect pedals so that you know the full capabilities of them individually and paired together.”

Get a Feel for Feel

As for feel, Julia advises, “Really work on pocket and being intentional about where the groove is placed, practicing along to records that feel good to you and trying to dissect where in the beat they’re playing.”

Not surprisingly, this emphasis on “feel” in relation to rhythm and time was also addressed by some of the drummers I spoke with. Understanding these concepts is a key element of what makes great players sound so good.

Elliot Jacobson has drummed with many artists, including Elle King and Ingrid Michaelson, and is also a busy session player. “Feel — in terms of straight to swing, on top of the beat to behind the beat — has always been huge,” he says, “the way playing 16th notes can sound so different from player to player, and how some players can’t adjust their feel at will.” This inability to adjust will inspire rancor from producers and bandmates alike, and conversely, having this skill will make you stand out in the crowd.

As Julia Adamy recommends, one way to accomplish this is to play along with your favorite records while focusing your attention squarely on the feel created by the bassist and drummer — as if they’re actually in the room with you. You can also watch any number of great videos where drummers and bassists talk about and demonstrate how to approach different feels and tempos.

Consider Yourself Part of the Rhythm Section

An accomplished drummer, Stephen Chopek has toured and recorded with artists such as John Mayer, Charlie Hunter and Jesse Malin. He’s also a power pop singer/songwriter, who plays all the instruments on his 2021 EP, Dweller. Here, Stephen takes us a step further inside the concepts of feel and time. “First and foremost,” he says, “consider yourself a rhythm guitarist and member of the rhythm section. Keeping good time doesn’t mean you have to play mechanically or sacrifice good feel, and the best ensembles are those that are all feeling the time together.”

He implores us to be an active part of creating a song’s tempo and feel, and indicates that it shouldn’t all fall to the drummer. “The role of timekeeper shouldn’t fall solely on any one member of the band. That’s a lot of weight to put on one person’s shoulders, and if one player is feeling overburdened or stifled by the responsibility of having to do someone else’s job, the whole group will suffer.”

Stephen also points out some of the lingo we might recognize but not fully understand. “There’s a lot to be said for knowing how to play on the beat, behind the beat or ahead of the beat,” he says. “A more helpful way to conceptualize these ideas is to play within the beat. Find where it is as a band and sit inside of it. As with most things, this is easier said than done!” That said, to accomplish this, Stephen recommends using a metronome when practicing — but he knows that some will be turned off by this advice. “If a metronome isn’t your thing, then set up a few loops and apply some practice routines to them at different tempos.”

Again, digging into some YouTube videos will reveal a wealth of information and make these concepts seem not so esoteric. Feel is somewhat esoteric, but that’s the nature of music and what makes it magical. The best musicians are in touch with how to actively contribute to creating this magic in an ensemble setting, and by simply making yourself aware of these concepts you’re taking a huge step toward achieving this goal. As Stephen points out, “The only way to get better at playing with other people is by playing with other people!”

So, in the end, are we perfect? No. But working toward being more skilled as bandmates and listening to others in the verbal and musical senses will help make articles like this no longer necessary!

To take a flyover of Steve Lukather’s long and storied career is to essentially reminisce about the heights of the past 40 years of pop and rock music. He is both an original member of Toto — who have sold more than 40 million records worldwide, including timeless hits like “Africa” and “Rosanna” — and a prolific solo artist, with an impressive nine albums to his credit, including 2023’s Bridges. These accomplishments alone would have most of us gratefully calling it a day.

But when you look at the 18-page discography on Steve’s website — a comprehensive list of every session he’s ever done, for a veritable who’s who of iconic artists over a broad range of genres — the enormous impact he and his guitar have had on the world of music becomes clear. In this lesson, we’ll look at some of the industrious guitarist’s most celebrated classic works, starting from the very beginning.

In 1977, Luke, as he’s often called, recorded his first sessions for singer/songwriter Boz Scaggs, who hired the then 20-year-old guitarist to lay down two solos on his album Down Two Then Left. Throughout Lukather’s solo in “A Clue,” one can already hear hallmarks of his distinctive playing as he creatively combines searing melodies, modern rock licks (that still sound that way today) and a polished, sublime finger vibrato. What also stands out is the guitarist’s rare ability among rock players to deftly negotiate challenging chord changes, a skill that is more commonly found among jazz musicians. To that end, Luke was inspired by one of his guitar heroes, the session legend Larry Carlton.

Ex. 1 brings to mind Lukather’s stirring solo in “A Clue” and reflects his well-developed melodic savvy. The entire phrase is based on the Bb major scale(Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A) and is used over a chord progression so ubiquitous in jazz that it has made its way to pop music: the ii - V - I (“two minor - five - one”), with the numbers corresponding to the degrees of the scale. Here that means Cm7 - F7 - Bbmaj7. Immediately, bar 1 targets a “color” tone, also referred to as an extension, a note of a chord that goes beyond the 7th. This is yet another jazz concept, and, right off the bat, we immediately target Cm7’s 9th, D. Also note bar 3’s use of an F triad (F, A, C) over the Bbmaj7 chord, which touches on the 7th (A) and 9th (C).

Lukather loves to emphasize wide intervals in his single-note lines, and, after the first note, bar 3 sets up a series of 4ths (notes two and one-half steps apart) and 5ths (three and one-half steps apart) between the F, C and G notes. Notice the accent marks above the G and F notes, indicating to pick these notes louder than normal, and how they fall on “16th-note upbeats” (between eighth notes), making us feel rhythmically off balance for a moment.

In the last bar, we encounter a chord that might cause you to wince at first, but it’s not as complex as it looks, and Lukather knows this. Ready for another jazz concept? (Last one!) The E7b5 (E, G#, Bb, D) is the tritone substitution of Bb7 (Bb, D, F, Ab), a tritone, or “augmented 4th,” being three whole steps. Briefly, these chords can be substituted for each other because they share two defining notes, their 3rd and the minor, or “flatted,” 7th. For E7b5, these key notes are G# and D, respectively. Since G# is just another way of saying “Ab,” you can see that Bb7 also shares those same two notes; the E7b5 just has a bit of a funny bass note, and jazzers love that sort of thing.

So what does Luke do? Similar to bar 4, he simply plays over it as if it’s a standard Bb chord, never venturing outside the major scale. He targets a D note, which is the 3rd of our key, Bb, and also the colorful flatted 7th of E7b5. The main takeaway here is that by treating the E7b5 as if it’s a Bb chord, Luke chooses the simplest option, knowing this will most often sound best. This is key to understanding why he has been
a first-call session player for decades.

Let’s take a break from all of these sharps and flats to have some fun with vibrato. Lukather often wields his like a samurai sword, and it’s on full display in Toto’s very first single, 1978’s “Hold the Line” (from Toto). Ex. 2 is not unlike Luke’s solo — brash, aggressive and just plain nasty in the best possible way. To cop this bold attitude, your vibratos will need to be wide and even. Think of them as being like a series of bends and releases occurring in rapid succession, with the motion coming purely from your wrist. Notice in the tablature the prescribed use of the 2nd finger to fret and shake the E note on the B string’s 17th fret, which offers you better control of the vibrato instead of your 1st, giving you more leverage for pushing the string upward (toward the lower strings).

Fast-forward to 1982, when Michael Jackson is at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, working on what would become one of the most seminal albums in music history, Thriller. By request of legendary producer/arranger Quincy Jones, Lukather appears on three of the album’s songs. For “Beat It,” Eddie Van Halen rightfully gets most of the attention, due to the rock guitar icon’s master class of a solo. But Luke’s rhythm part beforehand sets up the legend’s guest appearance perfectly, creating tension that portends something special is about to happen. This sort of thing is what the best session players do every day, and without much fanfare. Ex. 3 is reminiscent of the guitarist’s killer funk-rock riff in this classic track.

During the recording of Jackson’s “Human Nature,” Jones felt the track didn’t have the proper level of funkiness and tasked Lukather with resolving the issue. A tried-and-true move for session guitarists, and one that is often heard in classic Motown and R&B songs, is to add a “popcorn” part, consisting of stealthy, palm- and fret-hand-muted single notes that contribute a percussive, almost conga drum–like backing part that fortifies the groove with notes that “agree” with the key. Not surprisingly, Luke added just the right amount of funkiness. In fact, Jones was so taken with his parts that he gave him an arranging credit on the album, a very rare occurrence for a session player. Ex. 4 is reminiscent of the guitarist’s main part. To achieve the palm muting (“P.M.”), lightly rest your picking hand on the guitar’s bridge, resulting in a subdued attack and quick decay when notes are struck. Keep in mind that the pitchless, fret-hand-muted “dead” notes (indicated with Xs) are just as important, if not more so, to achieving the desired level of funkiness. To deaden notes, simply lift your finger so that it lightly rests on the string.

That very same year, Toto released what would become the group’s most successful album to date, Toto IV. The debut single, “Rosanna,” features Lukather playing two classic solos. He does something particularly nifty in the middle solo, along the lines of Ex. 5. After bending the initial note, continue to hold it while fretting the same string one fret higher with your pinkie. Doing this allowed Lukather to reach a note (C) that would otherwise be quite awkward to play, first having to release the bend, then reaching for it up at the 20th fret. As indicated, notes are played with a swing, or “shuffle,” feel. And be sure to nail the Luke-style wide, sexy vibrato on the last note.

As the story goes, while recording the song, drummer Jeff Porcaro continued playing when the rest of the band expected it to have ended, resulting in a spontaneous “outro jam.” Lukather immediately hits the ground running, delivering a 54-second blistering tour de force. Ex. 6 is inspired by one of its many great moments. Over the G7 vamp, he begins by spitting blues fire then suddenly switches gears, playing a Dm7 arpeggio (D, F, A, C) which notably targets G7’s 9th (A) and 11th (C). Once again, because he’s aware of the available extensions, Luke can creatively introduce new colors to shift to a different gear. The guitarist follows the arpeggio up with a cool chromatically descending lick, which is an especially clever way to move down the fretboard. Ex. 6 brings this crafty section to mind, and, as the song fades, we’re left to wonder what sort of additional magic ended up on the cutting room floor.

Lukather clearly excels at outro solos, and in 1983, he would record another for ex-Commodore Lionel Richie’s “Running with the Night,” from Can’t Slow Down, an album that would go on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide. In the studio, Lukather was playing along while listening to the track for the very first time. When the song ended, Richie declared, to the guitarist’s surprise, that no further takes would be required; they had been recording and the solo was a keeper.

We can sense Lukather is playing quite freely here — possibly even a bit busier than he would have if he had known the red “record” light was on. His opening is a great example of the adage, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression,” as how one begins a solo might just be the most important part. Luke is about to go into beast mode, but it’s notable that he doesn’t start there. Instead, he instinctively creates a motif, which, in a musical sense, refers to melodic and/or rhythmic patterns that can be repeated. Here it involves combinations of just three notes and a robust amount of space, either in the form of rests or a long-held bend. Leaving space builds anticipation, keeping the listener guessing as to what’s coming next, and Ex. 7 is informed by the guitarist’s entrance here.

Ex. 8 brings to mind a later section where Steve again builds tension, this time with more notes, including a nod to the ’80s shred ethos.

A couple of years earlier, in 1981, Lukather co-wrote and played on the Tubes’ classic track “Talk to Ya Later,” from The Completion Backward Principle. It remains a rock radio staple and is packed with great Lukather moments. Ex. 9 brings to mind his dynamic intro, and it’s challenging to keep up its blistering pace. Dyads (two-note chords) on the 2nd and 3rd strings alternate with chugging palm-muted 5th-string bass notes, requiring the 4th string to be repeatedly skipped over. Picked with
all downstrokes, it’s quite a workout.

Lastly, there’s a cool pedal point lick in Lukather’s earlier solo, some-thing he does often. A pedal point is a sustaining or rearticulated note that’s generally played below or sometimes above a melodic figure or accompaniment. Ex. 10 is reminiscent of the guitarist’s ping-ponging phrase at 3:38. Played on the G string’s 16th fret, the pedal tone, B, is left to ring under the higher-pitched, staccato (short) notes with which it alternates. To keep each higher note from ringing, simply loosen your grip on the string so that it breaks contact with the fret.

Perhaps even more than his extraordinary guitar skills, it’s Steve Lukather’s uncanny aesthetic sense of what a song ultimately needs to blossom that has distinguished him for over 40 years. Whether providing subtle background parts or enduringly listenable solos, the guitarist remains an active and highly sought-after top gun in contemporary music.

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell asserts that at least 10,000 hours of practice are required to excel at any given skill. If that’s indeed the case, Australian acoustic guitar maestro Tommy Emmanuel certainly has a lot more than that under his belt. One of only five guitarists to be bestowed the title “Certified Guitar Player” by the legendary Chet Atkins — a “C.G.P.” inlay marks the 12th fret of his signature TE series Maton guitars — Emmanuel is a master of precision, control, touch and tone, with a signature style honed by decades of writing and interpreting a vast array of songs, while relentlessly refining his technique.

It would be a daunting task to try to cover the totality of Emmanuel’s style in one lesson, as he is both a master fingerpicker and flatpicker. So, here, we’ll be exploring just some of the guitarist’s favorite fingerstyle approaches and techniques. Lucky for us, one of New York City’s finest fingerstylists, Gilber Gilmore (Instagram: @gilber_gilmore, YouTube: 1972f1972,), has graciously joined us once again to create videos to accompany all of this lesson’s examples, which you’ll find at guitarplayer.com.

As you’ll see in these musical examples, fingerstyle guitar music is often notated with opposite stemming, also known as divisi notation, which allows two independent melodic or harmonic “voices” to be clearly shown and visualized for the reader. Up-stemmed notes are generally picked with the fingers, and down-stemmed notes are most often picked with the thumb. In addition, much the same way that fret-hand fingers are indicated with numbers, pick-hand fingers are traditionally assigned a letter, based on the Spanish words for the various digits: p (thumb), i (index), m (middle) and a (ring).

Note that Emmanuel most often uses a thumbpick, but it’s optional here, as is his use of the fret-hand thumb to play certain notes on the 6th string, indicated in the examples by the abbreviation “Th.” Okay, now we’re ready to discover just what makes this guitar genius tick.

One of the foundational techniques of Emmanuel’s style is Travis picking, named for Merle Travis, the iconic country and western singer, songwriter and guitarist. Its hallmark feature is the use of alternating bass notes on different strings, picked with the thumb, with a fairly consistent palm mute applied to the low E, A and D strings to prevent the bass notes from ringing, or “bleeding,” into each other and keep the bass notes sounding tight and punchy while notes on the higher strings are allowed to ring. When Travis picking, you’ll find that lightly palm muting the bass strings will additionally help you feel them more easily and better control your fingerpicking accuracy.

Ex. 1 is inspired by Travis’ classic “Cannonball Rag,” which appears as part of a medley on Emmanuel’s 2006 release The Mystery. To get a feel for Travis picking, start by playing only the thumbpicked notes while holding each of the full chord forms. Once you feel comfortable doing this, add the up-stemmed notes (picked with the fingers). Keep in mind that one of the “secrets” to TE’s success has been repetition, taking the time to work out complex movements slowly, and with a metronome, before bringing them up to tempo. How slow? A good rule of thumb is to start playing something as slow as it takes to work your way through, while playing with good time and no mistakes, at least twice. This gives your brain time to absorb all the nuanced movements involving both hands.

Ex. 2 demonstrates a nifty use of Travis picking to scamper up and down the neck. Notice there’s an open G note between each chord form, allowing for more seamless position shifts, while adding a bit of a country “chicken pickin’” sound. The focus here is mainly on your pick-hand thumb, as your middle finger handles most of the remaining notes, which are generally found on the 3rd string. There are two spots, however, beat 3 of bar 6 and the very last chord, where TE would likely strum with his thumbpick, so as to accentuate these beats. (Notice the accent marks, indicating to play these beats a bit louder for emphasis.) No problem if you don’t have a thumbpick; strumming with the backs of your fingernails will produce a similar bite.

Ex. 3 is reminiscent of “Son of a Gun,” from 2004’s Endless Road. Written for Travis’s son, Thomas Bresch, it has Emmanuel in full freight train mode. You won’t find much new material technique-wise, but it does require working the different phrases up to a breakneck speed. To do this, repeat each two-bar phrase multiple times until you get the hang of it; then work on connecting them. Breaking music down into more digestible chunks is another effective way to learn parts more quickly.

Next up, Ex. 4 is along the lines of classical guitarist and composer Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas,” which Emmanuel often performs. While it has some elements of Travis picking, there’s a different interplay between the melody and accompaniment. Welcome to the art of arranging — creating a unique rendition of a song by melding the melody and accompaniment in a compelling way. This is at the heart of what Tommy has dedicated himself to, as he has forged his signature style by combining his adventurous musical instincts with a vast arsenal of blistering techniques. Notice how, in bars 2 and 4, the whole-note melody leaves space for the accompaniment to take over, allowing for descending bass lines to mingle with higher, droning notes. In similar fashion, Bar 5 introduces hammer/pull double-stops, giving our ears something new and unexpected.

Emmanuel introduces all kinds of ingenious techniques into his arrangements to pique the listener’s interest. One example is his use of banjo rolls, via fingerpicking patterns more commonly associated with banjo players. Ex. 5 is a great example; after getting it under your fingers, try playing it as an intro to Ex. 3 to get a sense of how TE uses different techniques to create musical drama in his arrangements and propel a song forward.

Another way the guitarist keeps things interesting is by employing lightning-quick single-note licks. Ex. 6 uses clever open-string pull-offs to again tap into chicken pickin’s bouncy quality. It’s one of those licks that sounds intimidating, but in actuality is easier to play than it sounds. As indicated, you’ll need only your pick-hand thumb and middle finger to create the repeating pattern, and note how the cagey pull-offs create darting, angular lines that really keep things moving.

Ex. 7 presents us with a different sort of challenge. Inspired by Tommy Emmanuel’s arrangement of the Beatles’ “Day Tripper,” part of his sensational “Beatles Medley,” from 2005’s Live One, it requires us to keep a steady quarter-note rhythm on top of a melodic bass riff. But before exploring this aspect of the figure, let’s take a moment to notice how the first two bars have virtually no down-stemmed (thumb-picked) notes. This is a clever arranging technique to keep in your bag of tricks, as it creates a tangible anticipation, setting the stage for a dramatic entrance by the bass line. Listening to some of Emmanuel’s arrangements, it quickly becomes apparent that they’re chock-full of these musical signposts, keeping us on our toes. Note the staccato dots appearing above each beat, indicating to play these notes short. This is accomplished here by lightly resting your pick-hand fingers on the strings quickly after sounding the notes. Things really get interesting during the last two beats of bars 3 and 4, when your pick-hand finger independence and overall rhythmic equilibrium are both put to the test, as eighth-note bass lines are played over the static quarter-note pulse.

It’s crucial to note that creating a compelling arrangement does not necessarily mean it has to be a complex one. Emmanuel has said that one of his main focal points when arranging is a song’s melody and how best to interpret and convey it on guitar, both from a rhythmic standpoint and in terms of employing the guitar’s articulation nuances, such as bends, finger slides and vibrato. A great way to do this is to actually sing the melody, then try to capture what you’ve sung. Let’s look at the basic melody to the traditional song “Amazing Grace” and see if we can find a creative way to play it so that it sounds more natural and soulful on guitar. Ex. 8a is a bare-bones rendition of a snippet of the tune’s melody, as you might find it in a beginner’s fingerstyle method book.

Ex. 8b brings the same melody new life by using some basic arranging techniques. Looking at the melody, now incorporated are a pull-off, finger slide and hammer-on, which ornament the articulations and phrasing over the first three bars, with grace-note finger slides added to beat 4 of bar 3. Note also how we’ve changed the rhythm on that beat, so that the G note now anticipates the final bar. In the accompaniment, notice how the chords are quickly arpeggiated on beat 1 of bars 1 and 3, and how some rhythmic motion has been added in bar 2. Finally, a gentle hammer-on rounds out the phrase in bar 4. Now you’re playing music, instead of just notes.

Let’s finish things off with one of TE’s most favorite techniques, the harp harmonic (“H.H.”). Invented by Chet Atkins and developed even further by Lenny Breau, a harp harmonic is sounded by fingerpicking a fretted note while touching the string very lightly with the tip of your pick hand’s index finger at a node, typically 12 frets higher, to generate an octave-higher harmonic. While doing this, pluck the string with your thumbnail (or thumb-pick). The result should be a harmonic one octave above the fretted pitch, comparable to a 12th-fret natural harmonic on an open string. Note that, just as other, higher natural harmonics can be sounded on an open string — for example, seven or five frets above the nut or “zero fret” — the same is true with harp harmonics.

Ex. 9 employs these harmonics to an open D chord, adding some extra sparkle. Next to the initial tab number indicating the fretted note or open string, you’ll find another number in parentheses, which indicates the fret above which you are to lightly touch the string as you pick it. Just as you would with a natural harmonic produced with open strings, be sure to touch the string directly over the fret indicated, in order to correctly target the harmonic node.

Like Breau, Emmanuel often mixes harp harmonics with regular fretted pitches, creating a lush, cascading effect. Ex. 10 is inspired by his version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from Endless Road, which begins with a beautiful harp harmonics-fueled intro. The key is to let the notes ring over each other by having each chord form fretted before sounding the first note of each bar. Notice how incorporating harmonics into basic chord shapes produces a smooth, scalar line.

If you are to take just one thing away from having spent this time with Emmanuel’s music, remember that it’s how he plays the notes, by way of his daring arranging choices and masterful use of charismatic techniques, that contributes so much to his being a most exceptional player — a Certified Guitar Player, that is.

Every acoustic aficionado needs a 12-string. There’s a magic in coursed string pairs and a distinctive power that Pete Seeger described as “the clanging of the bells.” But it's important to know what you're getting before you buy one.

While reviewing the Taylor 858e LTD 50th Anniversary Grand Orchestra for Guitar Player, I pondered all things 12-string as I don’t currently have one in my collection. I hope these considerations help you as you size up your own 12-string situation.

BE AWARE AS YOU BROWSE

The cost of doing business with 12-strings is greater neck tension, and there are all sorts of ways to deal with that. On a recent visit to Real Guitars in San Francisco, shopkeeper Ben Levin told me sellers usually lower the tuning on 12-strings when putting them out for display. It keeps tension down and makes them easier to play. Keep that in mind if you bring a guitar home, tune it to standard pitch and wonder what happened to the action.

REMEDIES & RENOVATIONS

Twelve-string guitars also tend to have trouble staying in tune at any pitch, so avoid a guitar with wonky tuners, or upgrade to a high-ratio set from a trusted brand such as Gotoh, Waverly or Schaller. The same goes for the guitar’s bridge and saddle.

String breakage is another 12-string woe, as is the bridge pulling away from the top due to extra string tension, especially on vintage guitars. Make sure the bridge is secure and the saddle is in good shape. Heavier strings break less often but add stress. One solution is to detune them like early 12-string players Blind Willie McTell and Lead Belly, who would lower their tunings by as much as two-and-a-half steps.

12-FRET RUMINATIONS

The number of frets to the body is also key to a 12-string’s performance. Many instruments of yore had 12 frets to the (typically jumbo) body, making them more manageable while decreasing tension. This also creates punchiness
in the middle range that makes notes sing and chords project. Unless you’re planning to play high up the neck, it’s worth checking out a 12-fret model.

INTERESTING OPTIONS

Taylor offers 12-fret 12-string acoustic guitars built on a small Grand Concert body, which is perfect if your primary interest is top-end sparkle. You’ll get that in spades on a very manageable and playable instrument. On the other end of the spectrum, Guild makes the BT-258E, an eight-string baritone jumbo with an extra-long scale length of 27 inches, which is designed to be tuned down to B standard. It has coursed pairs on the third and fourth strings, a configuration based on the concept that the chorusing action integral to the 12-string’s sound comes largely from the middle strings. The result is plenty of boom with just enough jangle.

For that matter, Roger McGuinn has an octave pair on just the third slot of his signature Martin HD-7 dreadnought. He demonstrated it to me at a NAMM show, proving that most of his signature Byrds licks get their chime there. If you desire full jangle focused on the middle range, Gibson’s J-45 Standard 12-string is a fine soft-shouldered dread with a slightly shorter scale.

If you’re looking for the complete 12-string experience, with copious chime and body on a full-scale instrument built for playing in a variety of tunings and neck positions, a 14-fret jumbo or dreadnought is your best bet. To play freely way up in 12th position, a jumbo cutaway like the classic Taylor Leo Kottke Signature does the trick. It’s discontinued but can be found used rather readily. A newfangled option is the Klos 12-String Grand Cutaway. It’s made of tension-resistant carbon fiber, which is not temperature or humidity sensitive, so it stays in tune better during severe climate changes.

Whichever take on the 12 one wields, it brings something special to the party. I hadn’t played one in many moons, and now that I have, it’s like rediscovering it. And what a magical instrument it is.

Growing up on a midwestern lake, under the wings of a loving family that would watch episodes of Hee Haw, a young John Lowery found the guitar at a tender age. With equal parts innate talent and boundless curiosity, combined with a traditional pioneer’s work ethic, the inspired adolescent set a goal to play the guitar and play it well, whether it be rock, metal, blues, or country. John was on a mission.

While he was still a teenager, John’s ethos, coupled with his laser-focused vision, led him to leave his beloved childhood home in Michigan for Los Angeles. It was in the City of Angels that he would eventually become the world-renowned guitar slinger known as John 5.

The path to that moniker, not to mention J5’s entire career, was born on a boast to budget-conscious record producers that he could “do their session in half the time and for half the price” required by other guitarists. Of the many attributes required to pull off such a feat in L.A.’s infamously competitive environment, versatility was paramount. Fortunately, John had it in spades.

Even so, competence and consistency are the golden tickets to entering and thriving in that world. After a few impressive and successful freelance recording sessions, word of John’s musical and technical competence spread quickly, and so did his connections with artists as far and wide as Lita Ford, k.d. lang, and Meat Loaf. Before long, John landed gigs with Rob Halford, David Lee Roth, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie.

Today, as a full-time member of the venerable glam-metal outfit Mötley Crüe, John 5 has ascended through the ranks of top-gun electric guitar slingers thanks to his own almost freakish consistency, which is a direct result of his relentless commitment to playing guitar, in his words, “all the time.”

John 5’s distinguished playing and stage presence have made him one of today’s most identifiable guitarists, one who earned his place on the Mount Olympus of journeymen band-member gigs, while developing a high profile as a prolific solo artist.

In this lesson, the man of many hats, face paints, and Teles guides us through a gaggle of curated techniques culled from his catalog of solo albums. Armed with his own signature Fender Ghost Telecaster plugged straight into a chain of his requested “stock gear that is nothing special,” John 5 aims to help you develop your own consistency by giving you some fun stuff to play just as he does: all the time.

Typically, guitarists who wield a Tele exclusively embrace the country-oriented stylistic expectations that come with the axe. In this regard, John put in the time where it counts and packed his eclectic playing style and vocabulary with lots of fun and exciting country guitar techniques, such as chicken pickin’, behind-the-nut bends, moving bass lines, and rapid-fire banjo rolls, all while delivering the snap and feisty attack you’d expect.

Bolstering the fun factor in John’s playing is the fact that these idiomatic elements are thrown down at the drop of a hat by a leather-clad Kiss fanatic with gothic bug-eye sunglasses who happens to be in the world’s most celebrated glam-metal band.

Ex. 1 puts John’s approach to chicken pickin’ and bending behind the nut front and center. He performs this phrase fingerstyle and navigates the nearly exclusive adjacent-string action with his pick-hand’s thumb (p) and first finger (i), assigned to the lower and higher strings in each pairing, while adding the requisite accent and note length articulations.

The cruxes of the lick, however, are the whole-step bends applied to the open B and G strings, for which he pushes down on them behind the nut at each juncture with his fret hand’s 2nd and 3rd fingers. Behind-the-nut bends are ideally suited to a Tele, given the extended space between the strings and tuners.

Taking a close look at John’s signature Tele reveals a string tree for the highest two strings, placed unconventionally far away from the nut. While this helps facilitate the technique, John removes the tree on his personal guitar altogether for even easier execution of this technique.

Continuing to make exclusive use of his pick-hand thumb and first finger, John shows off his moving bass-line skills with Ex. 2, his homage to country guitar legend Jerry Reed’s classic guitar instrumental Jiffy Jam, a tune John recorded for his 2014 release, Careful With That Axe.

He assigns his thumb to the down-stemmed bass notes while his first finger takes care of the rest, including a slick upward swipe of the Esus2/F# at the end of the phrase. As a result of John’s attentive fret-hand finger arching, the open strings clearly ring here while the fretted notes attacked with his pick-hand first finger are both slightly chopped in duration and accented alongside the more legato-sounding bass movement, resulting in a multifaceted performance.

Adding his 2nd finger to the fingerpicking mix, John cracks the whip with Ex. 3, a burning four-bar run from his tune Howdy (from 2019’s Invasion). Assigning his thumb to the G string and his first and second fingers to the B and high E strings, respectively, the guitarist blazes through a consistent disjunct banjo-roll pattern that traverses major tonalities in E, A, D, and G, in 1st, 5th, 10th, and 3rd positions, respectively.

At this point in the lesson, John unleashes the power of his Ghost Tele’s DiMarzio D Activator pickups by switching to the hi-gain channel of the Marshall JVM half-stack that he’s plugged into, additionally slamming the front end of the amp with a Boss SD-1 Super overdrive pedal.

He proceeds to dive into his vat of shred techniques with a bevy of legato licks that retain the presence of open strings, starting with a lick from Creepshow, from 2021’s Sinner, as shown in Ex. 4.

Using only his high E string in bars 1 and 2, and no pick attacks, he hammers on and pulls off a sequence of notes from the E Aeolian mode (E, F#, G, A, B, C, D), separated by the open string, which serves as a pedal tone. He follows this in bar 3 with a descending legato run that moves across all six strings in a visually symmetrical and musically insurgent half-step/whole-step fretboard pattern that’s not beholden to any one scale, an approach popularized by Eddie Van Halen.

Offering us another selection from Sinner, John remains on his high E string for Ex. 5, a playfully angular lick from Euphoria. Notice how the line ricochets back and forth from the open string to notes tapped at the 12th and 19th frets and a 7th-fret B, fingered with the fret hand.

Not leaving his affinity for slick country playing behind when things get gainy, the crafty guitarist again reaches behind the nut and proceeds to bend each tapped 12th-fret E note up a whole step, to F#. No wonder he claims that this is “one of the most challenging things I do.” That may be hard to believe when you see what’s next.

Once more taking advantage of an open string, this time his B, John shifts into a more modern gear for Ex. 6, a passage from his recently recorded track The Ghost. Using a technique reminiscent of the playing of Tosin Abasi and Roopam Garg, John pedals an open B note, which he picks repeatedly with an upstroke and quickly alternates with double hammer-ons on the A and D strings, all while palm muting.

Notice that the first fretted note on each string is articulated with a fret-hand tap, or “hammer-on from nowhere,” indicated by an “H” in the tablature.

John extends his use of open strings and legato phrasing with Ex. 7, an acrobatic arpeggio-based string-skipping run he plays in Welcome to the Island (from Sinner), which outlines the arpeggios E (E, G#, B), Esus4 (E, A, B), and C#m7/E (E, B, C#). Note that he tunes his D string up a whole step here, to E, to attain three open E notes. He then proceeds to cleanly jump between the 6th, 4th, and 1st strings with double hammer-ons from each open string.

John switches techniques while continuing to burn up the Ghost’s white-painted fretboard with some more licks from Sinner, first with a return to Creepshow. He hits the clutch and shifts into a roller-coaster sweep-picking run (Ex. 8) that, again, will whip your head back and forth.

Making use of 2nd-inversion minor (5, 1, b3) and major (5, 1, 3) triad arpeggios on the top three strings, John flows through a progression in the key of E minor. He aptly demonstrates the need for intent and precision when sweep picking as he slices across the strings with the required uninterrupted downstroke, albeit with his professed “light touch.”

Ex. 9 grooves hard with a lick from Que Pasa. This canto pushes the envelope with full six-string sweeps of an Em arpeggio (E, G, B) bookended by minor 3rd hammer-ons from E to G.

The apex of the run is a tapped 17th fret high A note that kicks off an avalanche of descending legato double and single pull-offs and finger slides.

Pulling out yet another technique from his trick bag, John puts down his pick, rolls back the gain and proceeds to deconstruct the slap-guitar antics featured on his 2019 single, Zoinks!

Ex. 10 lays some groundwork as John’s thumb assumes a slapping motion (indicated by an S) on the 6th and 5th strings with intermittent double hammers-ons from – you guessed it – an open string, this time the low E. The solitary high E-string notes are attacked by his pick-hand first finger in what’s called a “pop.”

If the nod to Eddie Van Halen wasn’t apparent back in Ex. 4, it’s sure to come clear in Ex. 11, where John takes a walk down Mean Street with this additional four-bar phrase.

Expanding upon the techniques demonstrated earlier, he adds sliding octaves and the Edward-approved tapped perfect-4ths dyads on the D and G strings (tapped together, as a double-stop, with the pad, or “paw,” of his fret-hand index finger) before reminding us this is his show as he eerily scrapes his thumbnail down his low E string toward the bridge pickup. Considering the myriad jarring audio and visual images John has unleashed over his lauded career, this is par for the course.

Whether he’s performing on the world’s biggest stages or at home on a couch surrounded by his four-legged hairless companions and creating Instagram videos for nearly three-quarters of a million followers, John 5 is consistent. Put a guitar in his hands and be sure to have your finger on the record button, because he’s always at the ready… and, as many record producers will attest, he needs only one take!

When asked for advice on how to achieve this level of consistency and competence, John simply offers, “It’s all in your mind and how you look at things. You just do it, and do it all the time. That’s how I look at the guitar. I just play guitar all the time, like breathing or walking.”

Teja Gerken is a veritable treasure trove of acoustic intel. In addition to being an accomplished player and artist, he’s a top educator and music journalist. Gerken has written for Guitar Player, Acoustic Guitar, and Premier Guitar and is a co-founder of Peghead Nation, an incredible online educational resource for acoustic enthusiasts.

Gerken often forms a duo with fellow fingerstylist Doug Young, but he’s primarily a solo artist and his latest effort, Test of Time, is a solo affair. Gerken learned a lot about timing during the creative process, and he was kind enough to share.

Timing is everything

“Timing is probably the weak spot for most fingerstyle players, including myself. With it, you have many more rhythmic intricacies compared to, for example, strumming the strings with a pick. Regardless of plucking style, timing can become very fluid if you’re playing solo acoustic. It doesn’t matter if you add a beat here or there, or play super rubato [with the rhythmic freedom to slow down and speed up as suits your performance].”

Test your time

“I learned a lot working out my own version of John Coltrane’s Naima, which I did in DADGAD on a 2000 Taylor 355 12-string. The third passage is basically an unaccompanied solo that gets far away from the chords and the melody. When I play it live, I have a sort of roadmap, but I play it a little differently each time. And it turns out that I wasn’t always hitting the exact structure of the chord progression, so before I recorded it I sat down and worked with a metronome to make sure I was following the chord structure and not adding or dropping a beat or a bar, which is so easy to do when you’re unaccompanied.

“I wound up working heavily with a metronome for this entire album, and not simply in a traditional sense by practicing the tunes on guitar. But that was my ultimate test before recording a track, and if I could not pass it to my satisfaction by playing through fluently in time, then it simply needed more work. I came to realize that can be done whether or not you have a guitar handy.”

Try practicing with no hands

“I started working with no guitar. I’m not a true singer, but I can sing enough to make a melody happen along with a metronome, so I would do that to better understand where it needs to go and what needs to happen when.

“I find it much easier to improve by working with just the metronome and voice. If your timing is off, it’s going to be just as off as when you have the guitar. The cool thing is that you can practice anywhere. I started doing it in the car along to the pace of the windshield wipers, and lying in bed at night when I couldn’t sleep. I’d get an imaginary metronome going in my head and concentrate on a melody along with it.”

Time share benefits

“Along with my timing becoming vastly improved, I wound up with a far greater understanding of the tunes. And there’s a side benefit from a health perspective. Practicing without the guitar in hand saves your joints: You don’t create weird repetitive stress injuries by playing things over and over, often performing something the wrong way repeatedly. It’s such an incredible help to have the tunes come quicker once you’ve got the guitar ready, and you wind up spending more quality time on your instrument.”

• Teja Gerken's Test of Time can be streamed or purchased now.

Prince slyly told her she was “too funky.” Bruno Mars sent her one of his signature Fender Strats, and Bootsy Collins and Ray Parker Jr. left glowing comments on her Instagram posts.

Guitarists are usually lauded for their soloing prowess, but Ella Feingold doesn’t solo – she doesn’t feel the need. Instead, she weaves magic with her rhythm playing, creating a unique and soulful blend of classic and forward-looking funk guitar that’s fueled by her uncanny sense of time.

In 2022, Feingold received a Grammy participation certificate for her playing on the Record of the Year winner, Leave the Door Open, by Silk Sonic, the R&B duo featuring Mars and singer/rapper Anderson .Paak.

At the time that Mars invited her to perform on their album, An Evening With Silk Sonic (which won four Grammys that year), Feingold had already made a name for herself playing with artists such as Queen Latifah and Erykah Badu. But participating in the project was key to her making it through a challenging period of her life, during which she hadn’t touched her guitar in five years. As we’ll see, there’s more to the story. But first, let’s check out some of Ella’s playing. 

For this lesson, we’ll be selecting from Feingold’s funky trove of Instagram reels. 

Ex. 1 is one of her chill single-note grooves. Note how she creates many interesting musical twists and turns while using just one chord, Bb9. 

The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, was a master of conceiving one-chord grooves and was a major influence on Feingold’s playing. Her use of deadened notes (indicated with Xs) is elemental to funk playing, as they percussively propel the music along, much as a drummer would. 

As it happens, this line of thinking is essential to Feingold’s overall approach. 

“I don’t look at my instrument as a guitar; I look at it as pitched percussion or a drum,” she explains. To deaden notes, simply lift your finger so that it lightly rests on the string, creating a percussive sound when picked. Also contributing to this effect is the guitarist’s use of palm-muting (P.M.), which is performed by lightly resting the pick hand on the bridge, lending an additional muffle to the note attack. 

The sliding trill in bar 1 is really meant to function more as a vibrato; quickly shimmy your fret-hand index finger back and forth between the 6th and 7th frets. You can substitute a traditional vibrato if you’d like, but the “trill vibrato” adds a unique spice here. To seamlessly play the high Bb note that follows, fret it with the base of your index finger, as if creating a barre. Note that Feingold demonstrates the example slowly at 0:35 in the video.

Now 43, Feingold began her career as a working guitarist while a high school sophomore in Swampscott, Massachusetts in the late ’90s. 

“It’d be a Monday night, and I’m supposed to be doing homework, but I’m out playing a club gig,” she recalls. In 2002, after finishing high school, she started her first year at Berklee College of Music, before dropping out during finals week to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study privately with Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, the enormously influential jazz, gospel, and neo-soul guitarist, whom she calls “my favorite musician in the world.” 

Feingold discovered he was teaching at a music store in Alabama, and they would play guitar for each other over the phone. After a few conversations, Alford invited her to his home to spend the week hanging out and playing guitar together. 

“He had a very unique way of playing the instrument,” she recalls. “So I just practiced the things that he showed me, and when I got home to Boston, I was a completely different musician.” 

Feingold’s love for Alford’s style is a major contributor to her sound. During our conversation, she demonstrated one of his unique contributions, which was to incorporate Joe Pass–style jazz voicings with gospel and neo-soul guitar playing. 

Ex. 2a demonstrates a standard gospel-style approach using a simple progression in the key of C major, moving from the I (one) chord, C, to the IV (four), F, and back. 

Ex. 2b, however, presents a more colorful path that “Spanky” might have taken, employing jazz voice leading by adding diminished 7 and major 6/9 chords. Feingold’s deep chordal knowledge and ability to draw from a plethora of different voicings is one hallmark of her playing. 

Feingold believes Alford is part of the reason she shares so much about herself and her music online. “He taught me so much about musical generosity and generosity as a person,” she says. 

Just about every day on her Instagram, Feingold presents bite-sized musical concepts that guitarists can quickly incorporate into their own playing, all while demonstrating a wide variety of approaches to rhythm guitar. 

Ex. 3 is a James Brown–esque groove featuring some “chicken scratch,” the rhythmic strumming of deadened strings associated with another of Feingold’s idols, guitarist Jimmy “Chank” Nolen, who was a mainstay of James Brown’s band in the ’60s and ’70s. 

The dyad (two-note chord) on the downbeat of bar 1 illustrates the old adage “Little things mean a lot.” The small black dot under the note heads here indicates staccato articulation – technically 50 percent of the note’s normal duration. Feingold employs a light palm mute with her pick hand, which shortens the chord’s duration, but here it’s not quite enough. 

After sounding the notes, quickly loosen your fret hand’s grip on the strings so that they break contact with the frets, but without letting go of the strings. If you were to play the example tenuto – that is, with normal, non-staccato note durations – it would lack the desired funkiness and wouldn’t groove with the same oomph. 

In 2005, musical director Rickey Minor (The Tonight Show, American Idol) tapped Feingold to play guitar in Queen Latifah’s band for that year’s Sugar Water Festival tour, which featured a host of major artists, including Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. The guitarist made valuable connections that summer and later worked extensively with Badu. It also led to her auditioning for Prince at his home over two nights, when he gave her the aforementioned kudos.

But later, in 2014, Feingold had what she calls “a falling out with the guitar.” Feeling unhappy and lost while living in Los Angeles, she left her main gig in Badu’s band after eight years for a quieter life in western Massachusetts’ Berkshire mountains. For the next five years, she set guitar aside while making a living as a professional orchestrator and arranger for film and video games, including Destiny (a soundtrack of her orchestrations for the game will be released this summer). 

As Feingold explains, her emotional turmoil stemmed from the fact that she had always known she was a trans woman, but “I didn’t live like that because I didn’t think the world would accept me.” 

Toward the end of her five-year disconnect from guitar, she met Bruno Mars through a mutual friend, and he subsequently asked her to play on the Silk Sonic record. Despite not having played guitar for years, she couldn’t say no to such an opportunity. Throughout the making of the album, she transitioned, and both events contributed to the blossoming of her personal life as well as her relationship with her guitar. 

“I studied a lot of different styles and guitar players, but I never really felt like I had a sound until I transitioned,” she says.”I feel like I just emerged through my instrument by simply being authentic.”

Ex. 4 is another window into Feingold’s expressive style, in which she enjoys seamlessly combining multiple guitar parts into one playable groove. Incorporating a bit more chicken scratching, she creates a chordal rhythmic figure offset by a single-note riff. Note in bar 1 how she uses both deadened and staccato notes on beat 3, demonstrating just how essential these nuances are if you want to play funk guitar authentically.

Her time with Alford convinced Feingold that she wanted to fully understand the essence of how he played. At his recommendation, upon returning to Boston, she joined a Black Pentecostal church, where she immersed herself in gospel music for a full year. 

There were no rehearsals or discussions about the songs with regard to key or form, and no one told her what the chord changes were. Unacquainted with gospel’s rapid-fire chord changes, she had to quickly learn how to “get in where I fit in,” she says. The experience strengthened her intuition. 

“I’m not going to hit every chord that they’re playing,” she explains, “so how do I get inside of this music and contribute something? Some of it was guide tones, sound effects, octaves. It taught me a lot about how to just listen and respond.” 

At the same time, she was playing instrumental jazz/funk music at Boston clubs like Wally’s Jazz Café. Once again, there were no rehearsals, and since there was usually no keyboard player present, she would play rhythm all night. 

Feingold incorporates all sorts of ingenious techniques borrowed from different instruments, like the one she picked up from hearing the legendary bassist James Jamerson on classic Motown records, as shown in Ex. 5. 

As she explains in the corresponding video, the example uses open strings as passing tones, which are especially useful in flat keys, where they’re often non-diatonic (out of key). Playing in the key of Eb major here and with a swing-16ths feel, Feingold starts with a non-diatonic open A note hammered-on to the C# on the 4th fret. 

She then strikes a (diatonic) open D string, followed by a “hammer-on from nowhere” to the Eb on the 5th string. If you replace the open D with the same pitch on the 5th string (5th fret), it would just be a rather conventional-sounding passage, but playing it like this lends the phrase a quirky charm. In this way, Feingold expresses her personality through her rhythm playing in much the same way lead guitar players do when soloing. 

Another key element of Feingold’s style is her uncanny ability to create different feels by playing either slightly “ahead of” or “behind” the beat (the latter is often referred to as playing “in the pocket”). 

When asked how to begin working on this, Feingold pointed to one of her posts explaining how the late Detroit record producer J Dilla would create a behind-the-beat feel with his drum programming. 

Ex. 6 is a nifty single-note riff Feingold uses to concretely convey how to lock into playing a classic J Dilla–style groove, here over D’Angelo’s Feel Like Makin’ Love. Using the accompanying video, play along with her, feeling the time as she does. As the guitarist explains in the on-screen text, she plays the strong beats (1 and 3, where the kick drum hits) directly on the beat and everything in between a bit behind, which you can also think of as “late” or “lazy.”

As Feingold’s personal life flourished, her playing career was also rekindled. Using her arsenal of vintage gear, the guitarist has since performed with a host of major artists, including Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Common, and the Roots. She is currently working on separate records with Charlie Hunter and Bootsy Collins, while also being known online as a respected teacher, with more than 30,000 followers. 

Like another of her heroes, Fred Rogers, creator of the classic children’s TV series Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Feingold strives to create an environment (via her Instagram and Patreon) where everyone can come and feel comfortable learning – in her case, how to funk things up. 

This page contains the audio and video (viewable as one continuous playlist) for the lesson in the July 2024 issue of Guitar Player. 

From Michigan to Motley Crue

A masterclass with John 5 on the virtues of musical diversity, consistency, and dedication to your art.


Any guitarist who can combine country-style chicken pickin’ and hypersonic metal shred is no one-trick pony. Over the course of his career, John 5 has made diversity his calling card, and his six-string services have been called upon by a wide range of artists, including k.d. lang, Marilyn Manson, Wilson Phillips, Lynyrd Skynyrd, David Lee Roth, Rick Springfield, and Salt-N-Pepa, among others. 

Until recently, he held down the spot as Rob Zombie’s ace guitar wizard (during which time he also issued a series of popular solo albums), but in late 2022 John 5 joined Mötley Crüe after founding member Mick Mars announced his decision to quit touring.

“From the time I picked up the guitar, I wanted to learn as many different styles as I could,” John 5 says. “I had my heart set on being a being a session guitarist, so I wanted to be able to play anything that anyone asked. I’ve always been intrigued by people who could do something really well, whether it was in sports or painting or filmmaking or music. There was a certain level of proficiency I set for myself, and I made it a point to study as much as possible.”

But while mastering multiple styles of music has worked for him, John 5 recognizes that such an approach might not be right for everyone. “You’ve got to do what you love,” he says. “Maybe you’re so into the blues that it’s all you want to play, and you don’t care about anything else. That’s great – follow your passion. Be the best blues guitarist you can be. You know what’s in your heart, so go for it.”

Whether you’re looking to be an “anything goes” guitarist or a specialist in one area, check out these choice pieces of wisdom from the Tele-totin’ virtuoso.

1. Practice, but make it fun

“It’s so important to make practice an enjoyable pursuit, especially when you’re just starting out. Inspiration is key to having fun when learning an instrument. If you’re a guitar teacher, instead of giving students some scales or ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ right off the bat, try to find out what they like. Maybe there’s a student who’s wearing an AC/DC shirt. Perfect! Teach them Highway to Hell and watch their eyes light up. They’ll be so excited that they'll never want to put the instrument down again.

“I’m kind of different from a lot of players, because I was just so obsessed with the guitar when I was starting out – and still am. I wanted to learn my lessons completely. Whatever was put in front of me, I wanted to have it down 100 percent. I sort of treated going to each lesson like I was going to play a concert. That’s how I felt about it, and it was so much fun for me.

“Whatever helps you stay engaged and able to enjoy practicing, go for it. Nowadays there’s so much content available – on Instagram and YouTube – so you can just scroll around and find stuff to inspire you.”

2. Play the guitar that feels comfortable to you 

“As soon as you can, find a guitar that suits your hands and feels right next to your body. You might absolutely love the look of a Les Paul, but find you’re more comfortable playing a Stratocaster. The guitar that feels right to you will be the one you connect with.

“This isn’t very complicated. To me, it’s no different than buying shoes. When you try on shoes, you know pretty quickly which pair feels right. You walk around the store and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God. I’m going to wear these until they have holes in them!’ Picking the correct guitar is exactly the same.

“I play a Telecaster. I first saw people playing Teles on Hee Haw – everybody was playing Teles. What’s funny is, one Christmas I got a Stratocaster. I loved it, because Strats are great guitars, but I could tell right away there were things about it that didn’t feel right. It just wasn’t the guitar for me. 

“As soon as I started playing a Telecaster, I formed an instant connection with it. Everything about that model felt like it was perfect for me. It’s like when you find the right person to marry. You just know.”

3. Do something every day to further your dream

“Time goes by so quickly. In the blink of an eye, days, weeks, and months can disappear behind you. I know it sounds trite, but try to make every day count. If you want to get your music career going, you have to put in the work. Of course, you have to practice, but there’s a lot more to it than that. 

“At the same time, don’t try to overwhelm yourself. You don’t have to conquer the world in a day, but if you can do one thing out of the ordinary each day to further your dream, things will start happening, probably faster than you might think.

“Call other musicians and set up a jam. Call a venue and see if you can get a booking. Maybe contact a producer or a manager. Get yourself out there somehow. If you do that one thing each day, at the end of the week you might be further along than when you started. A week will turn into two weeks, and pretty soon you’ll have accomplished a lot.

“When I was just getting going, I called David Lee Roth’s people out of the blue.
I wanted to further my career, so I got a number and called because I thought, Maybe they’re looking for some music. It worked out, and that turned into a 30-year friendship.

“In some ways, things are a little easier now because you can put videos on the internet and get yourself seen and heard. But you still need to hustle. Again, take things step by step. Each day do something that you didn’t do yesterday. You might not see the results immediately, but doing nothing will ensure that nothing happens.”

4. Stay healthy

“This is something everybody should be mindful of, but it’s especially important if you’re a musician on the road, traveling from state to state, playing different countries and dealing with time changes, different foods, different water – different everything. Your body has to be in incredible shape, because getting sick on the road is no fun at all.

“There are some easy things you can do: Wash your hands, get sleep and watch what you eat. I learned this the hard way. One time, my stomach wasn’t feeling so great, and Rob Zombie told me, ‘You should try not eating meat.’ So I stopped eating chicken. Pretty soon, I thought, ‘Whoa, this is working,’ so next I took away turkey. Then I took away red meat, and honest to God, once I did away with all of that, I started feeling great. 

“Good health improves everything in your life. It’s good for your mind, your brain, your senses, your reflexes – you name it. And all of that is good for playing the guitar.”

5. Learn how to read a room 

“Imagine you’re at the stage where you’re going into an audition or a recording session. Ask yourself, ‘Why am I here?’ The answer is, you’re there to make an artist sound good, feel comfortable, and not worry about anything. That means you’re not there to play crazy solos over the songs. You’re not there to upstage anybody and be all ‘Look at me!’

“You need to learn how to read a room. Do your research on the artist you’re playing for. Get to know the people you’re going to be involved with. Take note of their mannerisms and personalities, and what kind of sense of humor they have. Are they in a good mood or a bad mood? Be observant.

“A certain amount of humility and maturity is necessary when you’re playing with other people, especially if it’s a recording session. Remember, you’re there to do a job. Don’t play too loud. Don’t step on lyrics with solos or licks that get in the way. Be aware of people when they’re talking. Don’t interrupt. Listen. You don’t need to always speak up. If somebody wants your opinion, they’ll ask you what you think.

“You’re probably wondering, ‘Yeah, but when will it come time for me to shine and blow people away?’ The answer is simple: They’ll tell you. Trust me on that.” 

• John 5 is set to hit the road with Mötley Crüe this summer. For a full list of the band's dates, visit their website
• Our pick of the best beginner electric guitars

In the first part of this lesson, we set our picks down to learn new fingerstyle skills we can add to our arsenal of electric guitar techniques. We covered the basics, then left off by introducing harp harmonics. In this follow-up, we’ll integrate them into our fingerstyle playing in some fun ways. 

Once again, New York City fingerstylist Gilber Gilmore is back with more videos that demonstrate each of our musical examples, all which you can find below.

Jazz guitar legend Lenny Breau was the first to incorporate harp harmonics in a most unique way, by creating melodies that alternate them with standard fretted pitches.

Inspired by Breau, Ex. 7a does just that, and while bar 1 has some standard fingerpicking, it’s the second bar where things get interesting. The key here is to silently form the Dm11 chord shape that’s spelled out in the bar before you play beat 1. (Notice how the final open A note in bar 1 buys you valuable time to move up to the 5th position.) 

To do this, barre the highest five strings at the 5th fret with your index finger, adding F on the 2nd string’s 6th fret with your middle finger. Holding this shape throughout the bar will allow the notes to ring over one another, which is what we’re going for here. 

To begin bar 2, perform the first harp harmonic by picking the 5th string while lightly touching directly over the 17th fret, as indicated in parentheses, then use your ring finger to pick the aforementioned F on the 2nd string. The effect produced is a shimmering scalar passage, which would be pretty much impossible to create on guitar without the use of harmonics.

This sort of musical idea would be right at home in a rock setting, possibly as a pensive intro or a cool breakdown section. (Employ a delay effect to create even more ethereal sounds.)

Ex. 7b offers a nifty variation in which you will simultaneously play a harp harmonic and a fretted note on nonadjacent strings. You’ll need to coordinate your pick-hand techniques to simultaneously pluck the harp harmonic with your thumb on the lower string while picking the fretted note on the higher string with your ring finger. Experimenting with different chord shapes and picking patterns is a fun way to discover some interesting musical ideas of your own.

Next, let’s tie the use of harmonics even closer to fingerstyle rock guitar by imagining how Eddie Van Halen might have used harp harmonics. (He actually preferred a different technique, which we’ll explore next.) 

Ex. 8 is reminiscent of EVH’s Van Halen II–era playing, and mixes some open A5 riffing with a couple of neatly placed harp harmonics to spice things up at the end.

Let’s stay in solid Van Halen territory a little while longer and explore a technique EVH was quite fond of: tapped harmonics. 

While this involves the same basic principle of locating harmonics 12 frets above the fretted note, here you won’t be using your pick-hand thumb at all; simply use your index finger (or middle, as Gilmore does in one of our videos) to lightly tap the string directly over the fret indicated in parentheses, using a quick bouncing motion. 

EVH utilized this technique in a variety of settings, whether he was creating otherworldly licks for his solos or unforgettable chord-based hooks for songs like Dance the Night Away and Women in Love. 

Ex. 9 uses tapped harmonics a bit more sparingly than those songs. We’ll incorporate just a taste of it into our fingerstyle playing, while still echoing EVH’s inimitable style. The tablature indicates to tap only one string at a time, but here’s a bit of a guitar “hack”: Fret the F5 chord spelled out in the first two beats of bar 1, and notice that the 3rd string isn’t played. 

Let your fret-hand ring finger, playing the F on the 4th string, also dampen the 3rd string by lightly touching it. Having that dampened string allows you to be freer with how you tap, because you won’t need to be so careful about solely tapping the string indicated and avoiding unwanted sounds from occurring. For example, when you tap the 4th-string F harmonic on the upbeat of beat 3, you can also tap the 3rd string, as it simply won’t sound a note. 

Now let’s move away from harmonics and present ourselves with a new conundrum: What if, while playing fingerstyle, you suddenly wanted to play a passage that your sixth sense tells you would sound better played with the sharper attack of a pick? 

In fact, guitarists like Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham have already tackled this seemingly thorny issue for us. In The Chain, for example, he creates a repetitive droning riff by striking the strings with his pick-hand fingernails, producing a similar percussive bite to what one would expect when using a pick. 

Ex. 10 is informed by Buckingham’s playing during the song’s uptempo outro. To execute this phrase, simply strike the strings with your fingernails in a repeating downward motion. 

Since it’s more of a broad movement, our new hack can again be used to deaden adjacent strings. Fretting the 2nd string with your middle finger throughout the phrase will allow you to then use your index finger behind it to deaden the 3rd and 4th strings, so as to avoid them accidentally sounding unwanted notes. 

As before, deadening those strings allows you to strum more freely with tapping, instead of having to concentrate on striking only the strings indicated, and this can in turn add some welcome grit.

Let’s close out our fingerstyle adventure by tackling some different, interesting grooves and techniques. The remaining musical examples are from Gilmore’s impressive cache of ideas.

One of the great things about fingerstyle playing is that you can play both melody and accompaniment simultaneously. 

Ex. 11 introduces this concept with a bluesy melody (up-stemmed) over a static bass line (down-stemmed). You’ll need to do some palm muting here, but only for the bass notes. To accomplish this, rest your pick hand on your guitar’s bridge as you normally would to create palm muting with a pick, but lift the hand partially so it touches only the lower strings, leaving the melody notes unmuted. 

You can simply pick the entire melody with your index finger, as Gilmore does, or use your middle if you prefer. Lastly, if you’ve already played the Mark Knopfler–inspired Ex. 5 from part 1, you’ll have no trouble negotiating the final bar, which involves picking bass notes while simultaneously performing melodic hammer-ons and pull-offs. 

You might remember how in the previous lesson we looked at a percussive thumb slap technique (from Ex. 3b). Ex. 12 applies this technique with a different kind of groove.

Start by ignoring everything except the bass line, which is much sparser than our previous example, here creating a pattern much like what a drummer would play on a bass drum. Skipping the pickup notes, simply sound a low E on beats 1 and 3, adding an additional note on beat 2’s eighth-note upbeat to help propel things along. (Omit the thumb slaps on beats 2 and 4 for now, substituting a rest.) Then simply repeat the same pattern for the second bar.

Now that we’ve got the bass line going, let’s complete our “rhythm section” by adding percussive slaps to simulate the classic backbeat a drummer would create by hitting the snare drum on 2 and 4. 

First, let’s add the thumb slap on beat 2, hitting the top of the 6th string so as to set yourself up to pluck it on beat 2’s upbeat. Now, along with your thumb, simultaneously slap the higher strings with your fingernails to create even more of a percussive thwap, as Gilmore demonstrates in our video for this example. Once you’re grooving, wrap things up by adding the initial bluesy lick and the low double-stops.

Ex. 13 employs the same techniques, but this time with a funkier rhythm. Again, let’s begin by simply playing the down-stemmed notes, all on the 5th string. But here, we’ll include the thumb slaps right off the bat. 

Start out slowly and, as in the previous example, hitting the top of the deadened 5th string will set you up for the subsequent pluck. When you’re feeling the groove, add in the up-stemmed notes and try increasing the tempo. Play it as slowly as you need to at first so that you can acquire the necessary coordination and make it through without any mistakes, then take the tempo up a notch. 

Let’s bring in a bit of country flavor with a technique commonly known as “chicken pickin’.” It’s most often executed using hybrid picking, but for our purposes, we can summon the same pluckiness without using a pick. Now let’s bring things home with a fun double-stops lick, presented in Ex. 14. 

Note that, here, the deadened notes aren’t slapped; they refer to notes plucked normally, all with the thumb, which are deadened with your fret hand. Alternating with the double-stops, these muted notes rhythmically propel the lick forward while adding a subtle funkiness. Check out Michael Lee Firkins’ 1990 shred classic Laughing Stacks for a taste of how he seamlessly blends metal and country, albeit with a pick.

Maybe the best part of having explored these new fingerstyle techniques is that now, whenever you switch back to your pick, it’ll be even more fun to have its signature attack back. Music, at its core, is about contrasting sounds and textures, so being able to vary your approach will always serve you well.  

Jeff Jacobson is a guitarist, songwriter and veteran music transcriber, with hundreds of published credits. For information on virtual guitar lessons and custom transcriptions, feel free to reach out to Jeff on Instagram @jjmusicmentor or visit jeffjacobson.net.

All examples © copyright 2023 Gilber Gilmore. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

This page contains the audio and video for the lesson in the June 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

Into the Groove

As she relentlessly brings the funk, Ella Feingold is all about her rhythm chops.

My experience as an instructor has taught me that lots of the elements of guitar playing I take for granted are missing from the techniques of many of my students. And, I think that a lot of times when someone says, “They have good technique, but there’s something missing,” what’s missing actually is part of the technique. 

Here are three things that beginners and remedial players should watch for when developing their skill sets.

One Great Note

Having good technique involves mastering many elements, including intonation, vibrato, and dynamics, along with an awareness of things like time and key – which provide musical context and allow you to make good note choices. If you ignore these elements, it inevitably leads to disaster. 

As a teacher, it's my job to focus on all of these things over time without overwhelming the student, so that eventually they can play one note that sounds great. If you can get one note to sound great, you can get all of your notes to sound great.

Start with a Slow Shuffle

My students generally want to learn to play fast, and, for me, the most important step in learning to play fast is being able to play a slow shuffle really well. For starters, the bass line in Rocky Mountain Way is just a single repeating note, but the volume and the dynamics vary, and it's that quiet/loud, quiet/loud that creates the sound of the shuffle. 

Many good things come from learning to control note volume with your pick, and that’s impossible to do at quick tempos when starting out. So, while playing a shuffle at a slow tempo, first try using just upstrokes, or just downstrokes. Then, try alternate picking, with the upstroke being a little louder than the downstroke, and vice versa. 

When playing slowly, you can really pay attention to your strokes to make sure they are right, slowly building that technique into a habit. Once a technique becomes habit, it will be a powerful tool at any tempo.

Be the Metronome

Although sometimes people get good results with a metronome, most of the time they don’t, and that’s because the metronome can’t yell, ‘Hey, you’re drifting’ when you go off tempo. So, I always recommend stomping your foot, which makes you the metronome. 

That way, you develop the ability to generate your own rhythm and tempo, and you’ll have to have that inner metronome going if you want to play with a band, or to play anything in a musical context.

This page contains the audio and video for the lesson in the May 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

Adventures in Fingerstyle Rock Guitar, Part 2

The last of our two-part lesson in letting go of the pick to find new techniques and textures.

Generally, when we rock guitarists ponder adding a new technique to our arsenal, we find ourselves gravitating toward tackling a new and challenging way to negotiate the fretboard, or woodshedding a new picking technique. By the same token, when we have a hankering for new textures, we’ll often head over to YouTube to enter a rabbit hole of pedal demos. 

There’s nothing wrong with exploring any of those options, but there’s a whole different palette of techniques and textures literally at your fingertips that you may have yet to explore. All you need to do is lay down your pick and visit the surprisingly ready-to-rock world of fingerstyle guitar. 

But wait, you’re probably thinking, isn’t fingerstyle for acoustic guitarists? Yes, acoustic players most often find their way to fingerstyle at some point. But many rock guitarists – such as Eddie Van Halen, Tim Henson, George Lynch, Lari Basilio, and Mateus Asato – incorporate fingerstyle into their playing when desired. Others, like Mark Knopfler, Albert Collins, Lindsey Buckingham, Matteo Mancuso, and Richie Kotzen, do so exclusively.

You may also be thinking, ‘I already use hybrid picking from time to time, so I’ll sit this one out.’ And sure, hybrid picking – simultaneously or alternately playing notes with both pick and fingers – is a useful technique, with the benefit of leaving the pick readily available to use on its own. 

One method is no better than the other, but I’ve learned that the more approaches you have in your bag of tricks, the more you’ll naturally find ways to incorporate them into your playing, leading you to discover new and exciting musical ideas. 

So think of this lesson not as one designed to help you become a full-time fingerstylist, but rather one that opens the door to new techniques that will complement those you already have access to with your pick. Nothing can replace the pick’s sharpness of attack, not to mention the availability of pick (or “pinch”) harmonics and pick scrapes – all of which are fun quirks of the guitar few would choose to live without.

Let’s dip our toes into the fingerstyle waters with some examples based on familiar songs. There’s a lot to present here, so I’ve split this lesson into two parts. First, some housekeeping. As you’ll see in the musical examples presented here, in the same way that fret-hand fingers are indicated with numbers, pick-hand fingers are traditionally assigned a letter based on the Spanish words for the various digits:

p (thumb), i (index), m (middle), a (ring)

The letter c indicates the pinkie, but it’s not often used, so we’ll steer clear of it for our lessons, though it’s interesting to note that jazz guitar legend Joe Pass, who was predominantly a fingerstylist, would occasionally employ his pinkie to sound five-note chord voicings.

Now let’s get to the good stuff, beginning with one of the simplest fingerstyle techniques: playing a group of notes simultaneously, as if you’re banging out a chord on the piano. 

In the classic AC/DC song For Those About to Rock (We Salute You), rock icon Angus Young uses hybrid picking to perform a nifty unaccompanied intro, and we’ll take the same approach but apply it sans pick. (We’ll explore a benefit to freeing up your thumb a bit later.) 

Ex. 1 is based on Young’s earworm of an intro, and the key to making it sound just right is to play each eighth-note chord staccato, or short. To explain, first try playing this phrase with a pick. Note that you can successfully play the fretted notes staccato by lifting up your fretting fingers, but the pesky open B string just keeps ringing. 

Next, let’s try it fingerstyle, shortening the notes by allowing your picking fingers to quickly rest on the strings before re-plucking them (no need to lift your fingers off the fretboard this time). More than being an effective way to mute the strings, this technique delivers a unique and particularly snappy attack. And it works equally well even if no open strings are involved. 

Next, let’s focus on developing our picking fingers so that they can function independent of the thumb. 

The interval of a perfect 4th (two and one half steps) is integral to playing rock guitar – think of Ritchie Blackmore’s classic riff to Smoke on the Water. Ex. 2 takes a similar tack and is based on Van Halen’s Hot for Teacher opening riff. Let your thumb sit this one out, using your index and middle fingers to pluck each dyad, or two-note chord, with the motion coming solely from your fingers.

Fingerstyle guitar music is often notated using opposite stemming, as this allows two independent melodic or harmonic voices to be clearly shown and visualized for the reader. Up-stemmed notes are generally played with the fingers, and down-stemmed notes are most often played with the thumb. 

Ex. 3a presents our first taste of opposite stemming, and while it sounds a bit more like an exercise than the previous examples, it’s simply a means to an end, as you’ll see in Ex. 3b. A helpful way to begin tackling Ex. 3a is to simply play only the downstemmed notes, using your thumb to play the open A string in a mostly quarter-note rhythm. 

Once you start feeling comfortable doing that, begin incorporating the up-stemmed notes on the upbeats with your index and middle fingers. The key here is to let the voices ring over each other, as indicated by the notated rhythms. Played with a swing, or shuffle, feel, it’s reminiscent of ZZ Top’s La Grange, but it’s somehow lacking the charm. 

Ex. 3b is where the magic starts to happen. Ostensibly the same musical idea as Ex. 3a, this phrase introduces muted notes, accomplished here by lifting your fret-hand fingers so that they lightly rest on the strings, effectively deadening them. Another helpful way to approach new fingerstyle concepts is to take your fretting hand out of the equation by sounding only muted notes, as indicated in bar 1. 

First, let’s use the same technique as we did in Ex. 3a, plucking all of the deadened notes. Now, let’s take things up a notch: Instead of plucking with your thumb, lightly slap the lower strings with the outer portion of your thumb. After doing so, pluck the higher strings by rotating your wrist instead of flexing your fingers. 

Now we’re on to something! Once you start to feel yourself grooving, begin to incorporate the fretted notes, as indicated in the final three bars. But note that while the down-stemmed muted notes are slapped, the standard open A notes are plucked, as in Ex. 3a. 

This slapping technique is one of the new textures you’ll discover by playing without a pick. Note how the mix of techniques creates a means to becoming musically expressive in new and different ways, which is our ultimate goal here.

Next, let’s demonstrate this in a different way, using a phrase that sounds as if it’s a mash-up of Extreme’s Get the Funk Out and James Gang’s Funk #49. 

Ex. 4a simply indicates the notes to be played, meaning it hasn’t yet been “funkified.” Once you’ve got the riff under your fingers, check out Ex. 4b, which adds the necessary funkification, by again incorporating muted strings using the slap-and-rotate technique from Ex. 3b. 

Now, let’s move on to a phrase that is challenging in a completely different way. Reminiscent of Mark Knopfler’s classic opening riff to Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing, Ex. 5 incorporates hammer-ons and pull-offs. But the main challenge here is to simultaneously play the thumbed down-stemmed notes with the hammered or pulled notes. We’ll be using the traditional plucking method from Ex. 3a. 

Let’s start by simply playing, at a slow tempo, the initial pickup note, followed by the first dyad of bar 1. Tricky, right? This is just one of the hallmarks of Knopfler’s playing, and it might take a bit of getting used to, so begin slowly and please be patient. If it seems difficult, just know you’re on the right track. 

And now for something completely different! A harp harmonic is sounded by fingerpicking a fretted note while simultaneously touching the string very lightly with the tip of your pick-hand index finger 12 frets higher. The result is a harmonic one octave above the fretted pitch, which is not heard. (This is comparable to the way you don’t hear the open string when performing a natural harmonic.) 

Players like Steve Morse will accomplish this by holding the pick between the middle finger and thumb. But playing fingerstyle can make these harmonics even more accessible, by allowing you to pluck downward with your thumb – or upward with your middle finger. (Note that using the thumb is more traditional, and you’ll need to execute them this way to tackle the examples in the upcoming second part of this lesson.) 

Ex. 6 is a Celtic-flavored melody inspired by Morse’s elegant instrumental Highland Wedding, featured on his album High Tension Wires. Next to the initial tab number indicating the fretted pitch you’ll find another number in parentheses, which indicates the fret above which you are to lightly touch the string. 

Just as you would with natural harmonics produced with open strings, be sure to touch the string directly over the fret to correctly target the harp harmonic. Also, be sure to dial in a considerable amount of overdrive and, if available, a compressor, both of which will make the harmonics more audible.

Fingerstyle players such as country icon Chet Atkins, who invented harp harmonics, and jazz legend Lenny Breau incorporated the technique into their playing in surprising ways, as we’ll see in part two. So spend some time in the woodshed, as it will be well worth it for our final installment! 

Jeff Jacobson is a guitarist, songwriter and veteran music transcriber, with hundreds of published credits. For information on virtual guitar lessons and custom transcriptions, feel free to reach out to Jeff on Instagram @jjmusicmentor or visit his website.

All examples © copyright 2023 Gilber Gilmore. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

This page contains the audio and video for the lesson in the April 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

Adventures in Fingerstyle Rock Guitar – Part 1

This is the first of a two-part lesson in letting go of the pick to discover new techniques and textures.

This page contains the audio for the lesson in the March 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

Make the Five Come Alive

Learn these colorful approaches to soloing over the V chord in a 12-bar blues, courtesy of the masters.

This page contains the audio for the lesson in the February 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

Variations on Classic Licks

Instead of pilfering your heroes’ signature lead phrases, learn how to harness your creativity and spin your own similarly appealing ones.

It’s no secret that social media is a powerful vehicle for informing and influencing musicians. From ax-wielding upstarts attempting to show the world what they can do to established players giving curious fans a glimpse into their process as they flesh out ideas, the platform is ripe for opportunity. The catch is that you will be met with a discerning audience that has endless options to follow. To rise above the pack, it helps to have a thing. 

Enter the proverbial new sheriff in town: multi–Grammy-winning guitarist Mark Lettieri. With no interest in sounding like anyone else, and equipped with a production-line Danelectro baritone guitar — a six-string instrument with a longer neck and scale length that is meant for playing in much lower tunings than a conventional guitar — Lettieri showed us he had the goods when he started to drop a consistent barrage of infectious clean-tone, funk-style riffs played over what he calls “Minneapolis grooves.”

His playing made an immediate impact and fueled a pair of albums: Deep: The Baritone Sessions and Deep: The Baritone Sessions, Vol 2. In this lesson, Mark guides us through his world of baritone funk guitar using some choice riffs from both releases, played by the man himself in the very room where it all started. 

Mark’s initial foray into baritone guitar playing dates back to 2008, when a producer recommended the option during a recording session. The simple textural part he tracked using an Ibanez Mike Mushok MMM1 signature baritone guitar planted a seed that sprouted every few years, starting in 2011, when his group Snarky Puppy were recording their 2012 album, groundUP. 

Once again, by way of someone else’s vision — this time Pup’s Grand Poobah, Michael League — fellow Snarky guitarists Bob Lanzetti and Chris McQueen laid down a baritone part on a tune called “Minjor” using League’s Eastwood Sidejack guitar. Another few years passed before Lettieri adopted the baritone as his main guitar. 

His next encounter came when he played League’s Eastwood baritone on Snarky Puppy’s 2016 album Family Dinner, Vol. 2, on which the Pups collaborated with the late David Crosby on a tune called “Somebody Home.” With baritone rooting itself in the Snarky Puppy production playbook, Mark took it upon himself to procure his first bari, the infamous Danelectro Baritone in black sparkle finish. 

Equipped with additional various low-tuned guitars of varying scale lengths by Supro and Bacci, Lettieri continued down the rabbit hole with episodes of baritone playing, albeit ancillary, on his own solo efforts, starting with 2016’s Spark and Echo. But the infectious, groove-laden clean-tone playing that would become a staple in his burgeoning solo career can be traced to two pivotal scenarios. 

First, the bonus track “Jefe,” from Snarky Puppy’s Grammy-winning album Culcha Vulcha, featured Mark playing a bari for the opening chicken-picked ostinato, with a superb pocket and a cutting to-die-for clean tone. 

That tone, as well as the attack Lettieri heard during playbacks as the session rolled on, inspired him to incorporate this new approach into his own guitar-playing video offerings on social media. He started with Facebook and eventually shifted to Instagram, using an MXR Bass Octave Deluxe, a Kemper Profiler amp and some choice synth bass playing in the rhythm tracks. 

It was at this juncture that the journey to the critically acclaimed Deep: The Baritone Sessions and the Grammy-nominated Deep: The Baritone Sessions, Vol. 2 began. 

“The beauty of writing riffs with the baritone is you can combine registers to make things sound more interesting,” Mark states. To illustrate this concept, he fires off the verse to “Magnetar” (Example 1) from Vol. 2, using the syncopated E Dorian riff to show off the value in defining two distinct ranges.

To cover the highs, there are the biting high-string chords, such as the Em13 fragment played on the 16th-note pickup to bar 1, as well as the tritone on the second 16th note of beat 4 in bar 1. The single-note blues-scale riffing in the same measure provides the lows, along with the G, Ab and A major 3rd dyads that bridge bars 1 and 2. 

A note about pitch transpositions: In this first example and several that follow, Mark’s bari is in A standard tuning (low to high, A, D, G, C, E, A), which is regular (E) standard tuning transposed down a perfect 5th. While you visualize and think of all the notes and chords “normally,” as Mark does — as if you were playing a regular six-string in standard tuning — everything sounds a perfect 5th lower. 

Think of it as “capo negative 7.” Other examples are in B standard tuning (low to high: B, E, A, D, F# , B), for which everything sounds a perfect 4th lower than written, or “capo negative 5,” if you will. 

Lettieri goes on to explain, “I use both A standard and B standard baritone tunings. It depends on the particular song and where I want the pitches and chord voicings to sit, relative to the key.” 

He illustrates this dual-option approach by offering two riffs in the different aforementioned tunings, the first being the main riff from “Daggertooth” (Deep: The Baritone Sessions), shown in Example 2. Played as if it were in the key of B minor, using A standard tuning, the riff sounds a 5th lower, in the key of E minor.

Next Mark plays another selection from that record, the chromatically descending motif in “Gigantactis” (Example 3), for which he employs the higher B standard tuning, which transposes his E-minor riff down a 4th, to B minor.

Musically, notice in both riffs how Mark employs the tried-and-true call-and-response phrasing construction and uses accented staccato perfect-4th dyad stabs played on the 1st and 2nd strings — a staple in his lauded funk rhythm guitar playbook. 

Mark adds, “When I’m writing tunes on baritone, I want to explore the low end while keeping the high end present, to keep it bright and funky.” Notice the guitarist’s use of palm muting (P.M.) on some of the low-string notes, which shortens their duration and keeps things tight by preventing these notes from ringing along with the higher notes and chords that follow.

 Shifting gears, Mark explains, “In some songs, the parts are just riffs, such as the verse in ‘Gigantactis’ or the chorus in ‘Tidal Tail,’ from the second record.” 

Example 4 addresses the former, as it lays out the tune’s strategically spaced E Dorian riff that continues to follow the guitarist’s full-spectrum baritone ethos, coupled with some open notes on the higher strings that he intentionally allows to ring. 

Example 5 maps out a 2nd-position F# Aeolian riff Mark plays in “Tidal Tail,” which he performs almost exclusively with downstrokes.

 At this point, if you’re thinking about how the bass player fits in the equation, according to Mark, “Wes [Stephenson] either doubles or counters what I’m playing on his five-string. In many cases he’s the human octave pedal.” 

Lettieri goes on to summarize, “I love riffs. And because the baritone is so engaging, you don’t need a melody if the riff is good.” 

The guitarist adds, “Don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re essentially playing a hockey stick.” Since the early days of the Dano, Supro and Bacci baritone axes, Mark’s cache of low-tuned guitars has expanded to offerings from Hybrid Guitar Co. and Paul Reed Smith. 

The main difference between whichever stick he chooses these days and his many conventional, albeit smaller, counterparts (including his signature PRS Fiore) is twofold: scale length and string gauge. While a standard electric guitar’s scale length — the distance from the bridge to the nut — generally falls between 24 ¾ and 25 ½ inches, baritone guitars range from 27 to 29 inches. 

To facilitate the lower B and A standard tunings, you need to use thicker string gauges. Many electric guitarists use string sets that range from .009–.042 and .010–.046 inches, with a traditionally unwound (plain) 3rd string, whereas comparative baritone sets come in at .012–.052 and .013–.056, and almost all boast a wound 3rd string, which is harder to bend.

Mark goes even deeper and turns to Dunlop for custom sets that go, low to high, .014, .018, .026, .044, .056 and .068. 

Mark’s baritone playing celebrates everyday standard guitar playing approaches and techniques while reaping a unique benefit. As he notes, “When playing a bari with a pick, the tone and attack you get are something only a baritone can deliver.” 

Example 6 showcases this with the eight-bar chorus from the Vol. 2 selection “Voyager One,” which features open-position chords with added sonic depth, successions of rapid hammer/pulls and legato finger slides, and some Hendrix-y nested grace-note inflections applied to a pair of Steely Dan–approved maj9(no3) voicings.

 Example 7 is an excerpt from the intro to “Stoplight Loosejaw” (Deep: The Baritone Sessions) and offers another cool instance of Lettieri’s refined use of nested chordal embellishments, this time with hammer-ons applied to ringing chords with open strings. Mark performs this figure with hybrid picking, using his pick in conjunction with his middle and ring fingers to sound the notes of the Em7 chord voicing simultaneously, as a keyboardist would.

Adopting the baritone guitar not only bolstered Lettieri’s already well-established profile as a player with myriad celebrated attributes; it also helped shine a light on him as an artist keenly aware of his surroundings. 

He found inspiration in his daughter’s Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn and its four-key colored keyboard, where a lone red key served up the concert-pitch D note that would become the top-note voice-leading anchor for the harmonic movement in the song “Red Dwarf” (Deep: The Baritone Sessions, Vol. 2). 

Example 8 provides the roadmap for this baritone chord-de-force, which is made up of variations of triads and tetrads (four-note chords), some being must-know sus2 voicings for anyone looking for a modern fusion sound.

Throughout his journey through the Deep albums, Mark uncovered more than a few baritone guitar tenets that he abides by today, some of which are closely associated with his notable good-natured quick wit. For starters, Mark affirms, “You can have a song be a bass line because it’s not gonna feel like a bass line, because it’s not on a bass.” He adds, “A baritone should just be a baritone,” as he makes it clear that he “rarely plays above the 12th fret.” 

Mark was also forthright about the physicality involved in playing these long-necked instruments, saying “it’s actually work.” Live, Lettieri uses his PRS SE 277 Baritone with Lollar P90 pickups, when not playing his signature Fiore. He plays them both with Dunlop 1.0 mm celluloid picks while plugging into amps that make use of 12-inch speakers, have at least 40 watts of power and allow for plenty of clean headroom. 

He also adds either an RAF Mirage or Jackson Audio Blossom compressor in his signal path between the guitar and amp to optimally manage the wide dynamic range in his playing and the differences in output levels among his various guitars.

Out by Midnight: Live at the Iridium by Mark Lettieri is out now and available to buy or stream

This page contains the audio and video for the lesson in the January 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

Shades of Blue

Learn how to superimpose notes from parallel major and minor pentatonic scales for colorful and expressive blues soloing.

This page contains the audio for the lesson in the Holiday 2023 issue of Guitar Player.

The Greatest Guitar Moments of 1973

Revisiting a monster year for classic album releases.