Long-form conversations with the guitarists I admire, about feel, technique, gear, and the choices behind their playing.
I’ve had a lot of incredible musicians come through my studio, but Madison Cunningham is one of those players who stops you dead in your tracks. Before we’d even properly started our conversation, she was playing — and I already had goosebumps.
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Ariel Posen on rhythm-first thinking, the laid-back D'Angelo feel, ghost notes, triads — and why intention beats information every time.
I’ve heard it a thousand times — “break out of the pentatonic box.” But what if I told you there’s still a whole universe of sounds hiding inside that box that most of us have never even touched?
When Dominic Miller walks into a room with his signature white nylon string guitar, you’re in the presence of someone who’s shaped the sound of modern pop music in ways most people don’t realize. As Sting’s longtime guitarist and the composer behind “Shape of My Heart,” Miller has spent decades proving just how expressive the nylon-string guitar can be.
Mike Dawes is a master of creating entire band arrangements on a single acoustic guitar. When you watch him perform, you hear what sounds like multiple instruments—bass, drums, chords, and melody—all happening simultaneously. The secret? A combination of DADGAD tuning, innovative technique, and years of careful compositional practice.
When seven-time Grammy-winning musical wizard Jacob Collier picks up a guitar, he doesn’t reach for the standard six-string instrument most players know. Instead, Collier has pioneered a unique five-string guitar approach that has revolutionized his compositional and performance style.
When you think of iconic TV themes, the Better Call Saul intro immediately comes to mind. Behind that unforgettable 20-second piece is Barrie Cadogan, a rhythm guitar master who has toured with Liam Gallagher, played with legendary acts like The The, and created a distinctive style that blends funk, soul, and blues.
Most guitarists spend years mastering standard tuning. Tom Strahle has spent decades finding ways to escape it. As a session guitarist whose work appears in countless films, TV shows, and video games, Tom has built a career on alternate tunings that create sounds impossible to achieve with EADGBE.
What separates good guitar playing from transcendent guitar playing? Julian Lage, widely recognized as one of the greatest guitarists of this generation, believes it comes down to something deceptively simple yet profoundly difficult: touch. Not just how your fingers contact the strings, but how your entire body, breath, and mind translate into sound.
If you’ve ever felt stuck when it comes to improvisation — running out of ideas, noodling up and down scales without any real direction — this one’s for you.
There are musicians who master an instrument, and then there are musicians who reinvent it. Jacob Collier sits firmly in the second category.
There are no shortcuts to learning guitar—just thousands of hours of dedicated practice. But certain insights, learned early, can save you years of frustration and accelerate your progress dramatically.
Without the oud, the guitar as we know it wouldn’t exist. This ancient instrument, dating back thousands of years, carries immense cultural identity throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
At this year’s NAMM Show, I decided to ask every guitarist I could find the same question: if there’s one riff every guitar player has to learn, what would it be — and why? The answers ranged from Hendrix to Metallica, from BB King to the O’Jays, and from classic rock anthems to fingerstyle masterpieces.
Lessons, gear deep-dives, song breakdowns, and buying guides, all in one place.