For beginners, getting your fingers to go where you want them is one of the hardest parts in learning guitar. This is especially true when playing chords. A fluid motion of four fingers moving to different frets in different directions—what could be difficult about that? Even experienced players can struggle when it comes the more complex chord changes. In this post, we cover the 10 things you need to know to master those pesky changes and nail your rhythm playing!

Many aspects of learning guitar require countless hours spent developing technique and musical proficiency—learning your fretboard isn't one of them! Getting started simply requires some basic insights and a few key techniques. In the last couple of posts, we've covered the fundamentals of fretboard anatomy and established a central framework for fretboard visualization. In this short article, we continue with a look at 10 essential tips for memorizing the notes on your guitar neck.

For guitar players, a working knowledge of the fretboard is the simplest thing that will streamline and accelerate the learning process. With some basic insight and the application of a few key techniques, anyone can begin to visualize notes across the entire fretboard quickly and easily. In this article, we discuss the first step in fretboard memorization: building a framework. This begins with learning some key reference points.

Everything we do on guitar revolves around the unique geometry of the guitar neck. Unlike the piano, (which has every note laid out in order of the musical alphabet) the layout of the guitar fretboard is slightly more complex. Essentially, it could be viewed as six short keyboards stacked on top of one another—each one starting from a different note. In this article, we start demystifying the fretboard puzzle by overviewing the basics of fretboard anatomy.

Is your guitar holding you back? Now, I'm not suggesting that buying a more expensive guitar will somehow improve your guitar playing. I'm simply implying that a poorly set up guitar will almost certainly hinder it! It doesn't matter if you're playing your dream axe or a hand-me-down from the local pawn shop; small adjustments to your instrument can yield big improvements in your playing. In this short article, we'll overview the key factors in getting the most out of your guitar!

Okay, it's time to stop reading and start playing! Here's a short sample from 5 Minute Jams. Below you'll find a couple of jam tracks, complete with chord charts and suggested patterns for improvisation. Enjoy!

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We've all heard it hundreds of times. We've probably even been guilty of it. You step forward to take that solo, crank up the distortion, and launch into every scale, lick, and playing trick you can think of. The faster, the better! Sound familiar? While this can be impressive (for a minute or two), pretty soon it all just becomes noise — lots of shouting without really saying anything. In this article, we offer some tips on using jam tracks to craft more musical, listener-friendly solos.

Ever feel like your guitar playing isn't going anywhere? After a while, many players find they've hit that dreaded plateau. The problem isn't a lack of talent, it's simply that we stop challenging ourselves! How can you learn something new by just playing the same old stuff? In this short article, we introduce the concept of intentional practice as the key to sustaining progress.

So many scales, so little time! Have you ever felt like this? For many guitar players, learning scales can seem overwhelming. While feeling intimidated is understandable, it isn’t necessary. There are numerous languages in the world, but a person doesn’t need to know them all to say something worthwhile. This article offers some simple tips for learning scales and getting more out of the ones you already know.

We all know guitar scales are important, right? They’re usually one of the first things we start learning on guitar. Despite this, so many aspiring guitar players still feel confused about how and when to use them. Why? Simply because, we're often taught to play them well before we’re taught to understand them! This article explores some foundational concepts for demystifying scales and highlights the most common issue we face in learning and applying them.

In general, guitarists are extremely particular about their tone. It is, after all, a sonic fingerprint of sorts. Our job in the mix is to try and enhance a guitar tone without changing its vibe and character. While there are various elements involved in getting a great guitar tone, here we will focus on our top three tips for working with EQ in the mix.

With the release of iZotope RX 5 right around the corner, here we look back at RX 4 and the editing potential this software holds for guitar players. iZotope RX has seemingly become an indispensable tool for many audio professionals. For those who aren’t familiar with RX, it is basically a complete software package that specializes in audio repair and enhancement. This is a very powerful program that is widely used for tasks like cleaning up dialogue, removing hum or excessive background noise, and even repairing clipped or distorted tracks.