In 2003, Linkin Park released what I believe to be the greatest album of all time: Meteora. This album, from start to finish, takes you to a whole new world that you always want to return to. This work by Linkin Park has some seriously heavy, underrated riffs that are largely what inspired me to ...

I encourage all players to learn every technique they can, no matter what style they play. The more techniques you have, the more tools you have in your toolbox. Certain techniques tend to appear more in some genres than others. When it comes to being a modern metal guitarist, there are certain t...

Learning songs is a necessary part of achieving proficiency on the guitar. It's also one of the most joyful things we get to do because once we learn our favorite songs, we get to play along with them and pretend we are the fill-in guitarists of our favorite bands. If players aren't inherently in...

Victor Wooten, one of my favorite music educators, has brilliantly stated how there are no wrong notes. This is a powerful idea for guitarists who put pressure on themselves to avoid the “wrong notes”. Fortunately, the 12 notes that make up the chromatic scale team up to erase the idea of mistake...

A brilliant use of the modes, time changes, technicality, and groove are elements that only scratch the surface of one of the most wisely written songs of the 1980s.  Of course, I’m talking about the genius guitar work written and performed by Vernon Reid in the song “Cult Of Personality” by Livi...

There’s a really cool effect I’ve noticed in the production of a lot of music I listened to growing up.  I never quite knew what the name of it was, but I actually believe I probably would have described it as sounding like the audio was coming through a telephone.  I reckon the effect lives up t...

Guitarists everywhere are stuck using the same old first form of the minor pentatonic scale.  You know the one.  If you’re a rock or metal guitarist, it’s probably one of the first scales you ever learned.  It is known and loved by guitarists everywhere, and that’s for good reason. This scale is ...

Two guitar parts are always better than one. A guitarist’s approach to writing is typically grounded in a single guitar part. By that, I don’t just mean a single riff or a lick, but it can also be a situation where a single guitar flows in and out of verse and chorus riffs with an occasional solo...

MuseScore is one of my favorite pieces of software that I use for instructional guitar content and lessons.  I use it all the time.

While it’s a lovely tool that caters to musicians of all kinds, it’s also great for guitarists because it allows us to write out sheet music, chord charts, and t...

We live in a world where it's increasingly difficult to just stick to one simple, universal guitar tuning. Whether you're trying to learn different songs from different artists or trying to write songs that cater to various genres, you'll likely run into that classic fork in the road: do I change...

In a way, a guitarist discovering the blues scale for the first time is kind of like hearing the Gospel for the first time.   

“You mean all I have to do is put my faith in Christ and I get to live forever?” 

“You mean all I have to do is add one note to the pentatonic scale for it to sound ...

Ah, the power chord. When all else fails, we always have that comfortable perfect 5th interval to fall back on. But doesn't it ever get kind of boring after a while? I think we tend to favor this efficient 2-note combination because it can lend itself to major or minor chords without allowing us ...