Guitar Nine Columns: Guest Columnists

What do spider webs and teaching methods have in common?

Are there progressions impossible to play without using parallel 5ths?

Make your practice more fun with these three practice games.

How to get solid sounds by playing the 'wrong' chord.

Two chords. And these two chords have the exact same notes.

Being in tune, playing in time, and having good technique is really important.

Rachmaninoff composed one of his best melodies by lifting a theme from Paganini.

Just enjoy the process, and the results will come.

Learn a few things that can benefit every beginner guitarist.

The Enigmatic scale has been written precisely to be hard to use.

Many things to be learned from Stevie's prodigious songwriting abilities.

Advantages/disadvantages of big hands/small hands.

This may run counter to what you have learned.

Boldly go where you as a guitar player have never gone before.

Some ways to build (or rebuild) good guitar-playing habits.

The basics: notes, scales, and chords and how they work together.

Barre chords - they can be tricky to learn!

How the key change works, and how we can do the same in our songs.

Some things I wish I knew during my first year of playing guitar.

Letting notes ring can do wonders for your compositions.

If you are a Western musician, this is probably going to sound 'new' to you.

Installing new pickups on the guitar is the most common upgrade one can make.

Hell's Bells! You can make music with it.

Installing new pickups on the guitar is the most common upgrade one can make.

We have an interesting situation here regarding the augmented scale.

Don't learn guitar from YouTube! Yes, there is a video.

The Minor Add9 arpeggio has more uses than you imagine.

The answer will probably surprise most readers.

And... learn from Tommaso why this matters.

Become a better improviser by learning new licks.

Embracing the cliche' and trying to make it better.

Upgrade your current guitar with better hardware or opt for a shiny brand new one?

Is there such a thing as the 'most emotional note' in a key?

Specific points that will help you, in order to get better on both instruments.

The B diminished chord is objectively harder to use than the other major and minor chords.

Voice leading: unlocking the very DNA of musical structure and showing how it lives.

There are techniques to make the same simple chord progression sound differently.

The Neapolitan Major Scale is, in fact, a minor scale, but don't spread that around.

This movement is by far one of the most common 'blind spots' that guitar players have.

Not all exotic scales are used exclusively by extreme metal players.

Searching for interesting chords to put before a dominant chord.

The differences between regular and scalloped fretboards explained.