When playing an open chord on the guitar, there is often more than one option for its fingering. This is actually an important concept as it can drastically simplify some standard chord progressions and it can also provide you with new ways to alter certain chords. Before I give some examples, here is the way I will discuss left hand fingering: For a standard open E chord, most people use their first finger on the G string, second on the A string and third on the D string lik

The influence of Chuck Berry on all rock guitarists is, in my opinion, undeniable. I am fully aware that my lead playing owes a huge debt to this man. As such, I make sure to educate all my students on the importance of his playing. Learning the intro to his classic, Johnny B. Goode, is something that I suggest all aspiring guitarists do. It is only one chorus long but in it, we find the genesis of all rock lead work. It definitely takes practice to be able to play this at f

I read How Music Works by David Byrne last summer and was very inspired by it. If you love music, the creative process involved in making music, the history of modern music and the history of recording, I strongly recommend reading this book. Here are some quotes that inspired me and that I find are great food for thought: "The act of making music, clothes, art, or even food has a very different and possibly more beneficial effect on us than simply consuming those things. And

As guitarists, we mostly think of scales as patterns in two dimensions across all six strings in one location on the neck at a time. We play two or three notes on one string and then move up or down to the next string and repeat until we run out of strings. As we learn more patterns and positions, we can start to connect them to gain access to more and more of the neck. This seems to be the standard way of working. There is another way of approaching scales on the guitar that