Canada’s current affairs magazine, Maclean’s, poses the question - in the eyes of today’s bands and pop music, is the guitar solo effectively dead?  A number of so-called rock musicians and guitarists are alleging that if you play one in a rock song right now, it’s almost laughable and taboo - very different to the [...]

I often ask myself - if there was ever a fire in my house (touch wood), what would I take?  My usual answer would always be: a file containing important documents in one hand, and my emotional side would say irreplaceable photo albums in the other hand.  Ok, maybe a few hands, with the number of albums [...]

Ah, there’s nothing that warms the cockles of the heart more than seeing kids enjoying themselves. There appears to be an increasing trend of kids being wanting to be involved in classic rock. No doubt influenced by the likes of Guitar Hero and movies such as School of Rock - the youngsters are [...]

Back in the day when I trained as a classical guitarist, I remember carefully grooming the nails of my right hand, always manicuring them to ensure that they had the nice squarish shape with slightly rounded corners, and filing them with emery paper until they were smooth.  I went to the extent of ensuring I [...]

Most electric guitars come with a variety of knobs and switches. At the bare minimum, there will be a volume knob, and a tone knob. When I first started to play electric guitar, I had no idea how to use these basic controls effectively, and like anyone picking up the electric for the first time, [...]

A friend sent me this amazing YouTube video about Tony Meléndez, a Nicaraguan American guitar player, composer and singer and songwriter whose story is simply inspiring.  He was born without arms due to a side effect of Thalidomide his mother was taking during her pregnancy.  Personally, I find it difficult enough playing and singing with all [...]

The internet has a wealth of information, and if you know where to look, almost everything is available, including guitar lessons.  Sorting the wheat from the chaff is a bit of a challenge though, as often some of these so called free lessons are just designed to upsell you to some paid ones.
So where do [...]

One of my favourite guitarists/artists of late has been John Mayer with his easy, bluesy tunes and riffs.  As part of Rolling Stone’s Secrets of the Guitar Heroes series, they chat briefly with the man himself.  According to him, the perfect guitar tone sounds like this:
There’s so many clichés about this, which I hate, like [...]

This article on the story of stringed instruments and guitars prompted me to do some reading on wikipedia regarding the origin of guitars.  If you’ve ever wondered whether your six-stringed instrument descended directly as a gift from the gods themselves, back when man was rubbing two sticks together to produce fire, then prepare for some [...]