I’m 200 years old, but I can still kick your ass, punk! UPDATE: I’m proud to announce that my fingerstyle video lesson based on the 200-year-old etudes of Mauro Giuliani has been selected to appear in the debut issue of Pure Guitar, a new digital guitar mag whose editorial staff includes my two […] 
“They call me mad, but I’m actually a HAPPY scientist!” There’s an interesting thread over on the Forum, started by reader Double D, who asked: “Do you have a central core concept or inspiration that drives your playing? Are you squirrelled away with obscure harmony texts, or practising modes till your fingers bleed? […] 
This photo was digitally altered to make the guitar look even dirtier than it was — but not by much. Sometimes only the threat of public exposure can inspire a proper clean-up job. Case in point: I hadn’t groomed my battered ’63 Strat in years, and when I pupped it from the wall […] 
The ’80s were tough on guitars. Last weekend I went to a memorial service for a music pal I hadn’t seen since the ’80s. Judging by the pictures I saw and the stories I heard, Brett remained the gentle, generous music lover I’d remembered till he died in his sleep a few weeks […] 
Of the dozens of videos I’ve posted at the tonefiend YouTube channel, most have dealt with gear, and a few with general technique. But this is the first one I’ve done dealing with music theory. Which is sort of odd, since I’m a terminal music theory geek. Aside from covering a cool and underused […] 
A sad, desolate place — but not for long! One cool thing about going indie with tonefiend is that fact that I can finally host my own geek forum! It’s already up and running — but it’s a sad, vacant space that desperately needs to be populated by cool people and cool ideas. […] 
Now with more secrets — and less secrecy. Last winter I tried an odd experiment: a website where players were encouraged to post their best tone secrets — the kinds of tricks and techniques that are almost too good to share. But in order to get, you had to give: The site was […] 
“I always forget — which end gets hot?” Somewhat embarrassingly, I never got around to changing one of my own pickups until I was knocking on senility’s door recently. I owe part of the inspiration to that fabulous DIY Fest known as the Maker Fair, where each year hundreds of little kids learn […] 
Can we all agree that it’s a good thing when guitarists and bassists cultivate their own style? Even a jaded old cuss experienced music journalist like me still gets a thrill upon discovering a new player with a startlingly original voice. I am not any of these people —but I pretended to be […] 
You don’t have to be high in Nashville to enjoy Nashville high-strung. Nashville high-strung tuning is one of the guitar’s great magic tricks. It has a delicious, “secrets of the Guild” quality — you feel like an insider just knowing what it is. Not that I did know what it is until embarrassingly […] |
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