Styles

How to Play the Blues Scale on a Guitar

How to Play Folk Guitar Fingerpicking Style

How to Use Repetition When Playing Acoustic Blues Guitar

Although blues guitar is usually heard on electric guitar, it started out as an acoustic style. An important aspect of acoustic blues (and electric, too) is [more…]

Two Acoustic Blues Guitar Techniques

You can use two simple acoustic blues techniques to give your blues guitar playing more variety. Alternating the texturecreates an unexpected, less homogeneous sound. And combining open strings with fretted [more…]

What is the Robert Johnson Progression?

Robert Johnson (1911–1938) is universally recognized as the King of the Delta Blues, and for good reason. Robert Johnson's playing style, which is called the Robert Johnson Progression, has influenced [more…]

How to Get the Blues Sound

Blues guitar can take many forms, which means that learning how to get the blues sound is an evolving process. However, by identifying specific techniques, notes, and patterns to follow, you can begin [more…]

How to Play the Jimmy Reed Blues Guitar Move

If you have the basic 12-bar blues under your belt, it’s time to learn how to play the Jimmy Reed move on your guitar. This move will help you shake things up a bit. The Jimmy Reed move has been a blues [more…]

How to Use Pick-Strum Patterns to Add Variety to Blues Guitar

Knowing how to read and use pick-strum patterns is a great way to provide rhythmic variety and introduce different textures into your guitar playing. Pick-strum patterns separate the bass and treble so [more…]

How to Use Left-Hand Muting to Create a Crisp Guitar Rhythm

When it comes to rhythm guitar, you need to learn how to stop the strings. Just listen to blues rhythm guitar and you'll hear that it’s not one repetitive wall of sound, but an open, varied sound with [more…]

How to Create the Six-Note Blues Scale on Guitar

The pentatonic scale is a wonderful invention for guitarists — and can save you from sounding bad during a guitar solo. On the flip side, because this is such a [more…]

Expanding the Blues Scale with Sweet Notes

In blues, rock, and jazz guitar, there are times when you want to add extra interest to the blues harmony. You can do this by adding a sweet note — an extra chromatic note not found in the six-note blues [more…]

How to Play Pinch Harmonics on Electric Guitar

Guitarist Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top set the standard of "soulfulness" in the rock guitar world with his smoldering pinch harmonic solos. You can add soulfulness to your guitar music by learning how to [more…]

Adding Intros, Turnarounds, and Endings to the 12-Bar Blues Progression

Although the 12-bar blues progression has a signature blues sound, if you plan to play blues, rock, or jazz guitar on a regular basis, you'll want to learn how to accessorize the 12-bar blues. Intros, [more…]

Using Slide Guitar for the Blues

There is a strong tradition in using slide guitar for the blues. Slide guitar became a stylistic choice over fretted guitar by players who didn’t have the skills or patience to fret the guitar and found [more…]

Proper Slide Guitar Technique

Slide guitar is physically easy in one sense — just drag a slide over the strings, and you can instantly hear the effect, right? However, proper slide guitar technique is not quite that simple. It can [more…]

Tuning for Slide Guitar: Standard or Open?

Slide guitar can be played in standard or open tunings, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. Learning the various different methods to tune for slide guitar will give you more options to let [more…]

Guitar Tablature: "Bourrée in E Minor" by J.S. Bach

There are some songs that all classical guitar players will come across at one time or another. Learning how to play "Bourrée in E Minor" on guitar will give your classical skills a chance to shine. This [more…]

What is Carter-Style Guitar Playing?

Carter-style playing is a guitar picking style named after the famous Carter family, whose members included June Carter, “Mother” Maybelle, and “Uncle” A.P. To play Carter style, you play the melody on [more…]

How to Play Travis Picking on Guitar

One of the most popular fingerstyle folk guitar techniques is known as Travis picking. By learning how to use the Travis picking technique on guitar, you can add interest when you play not only folk music [more…]

How to Create a Travis Guitar Picking Pattern

The Travis picking pattern is one of the most popular folk guitar techniques; however, creating a Travis picking pattern is fairly complex. Create different Travis patterns by varying the timing that you [more…]

Guitar Tablature: “Romanza”

“Romanza” is a simple, arpeggiated, piece of guitar sheet music in the classical style that gives you an opportunity to accentuate the melody notes with rest strokes [more…]

Guitar Tablature: "Freight Train"

"Freight Train" is a short folk guitar piece that employs a technique known as a bass run. This technique is a single-note line — played by the thumb — that leads to the next chord and serves to break [more…]

Guitar Tablature: "House of the Rising Sun"

"The House of the Rising Sun" is traditional American folk song that tells the tale of a wasted life in New Orleans. The most famous version was recorded in 1964 by the English rock group The Animals. [more…]