Guitar Nine Columns

Plans for the future? Play more gigs in front of larger audiences! Playing live is the greatest thing to do as a guitar player.

Take you guitar playing to the next level with Tommaso's best advice for the intermediate player.

In order to increase your visibility and gain a position in the mind of your listener or target audience, I feel it's important to invest in a public relations firm that specializes in the entertainment industry.

Tips on how to ready yourself for your next burst of songwriting inspiration.

Slide guitar offers a very cool and unique sound that cannot be emulated any other way.

Anyone (including yourself) can learn to develop creativity by using the proven methods and strategies for reaching this goal.

Nothing beats being in a recording studio with professionals. It’s one of those moments you dream about as a kid learning to play.

Mark covers the essential picking styles new guitarists need to learn (or at least be familiar with).

Mike shows you several ways to spice up your riffs, lines and solos with some chromatic passing tones.

Guitar Nine's December-January 2017 newsletter.

A technique that allows you to play both the melody and accompaniment parts of a blues tune at the same time.

Online streaming is a good way of adding a new revenue channel to your live shows.

In my opinion, having a booking agent is more important than any other traditional aspect. Independent artists need to take their music to the people and having more opportunities to perform live is paramount.

Mike teaches you scale sequences (in the Hanon style, adapted from piano) that are great for your dexterity and precision.

Melodies are what stick in the listeners mind and convey passion and emotion: creating coherence in your solos.

These exercises will help you to focus on string crossing with alternate picking, and also to help you develop left/right hand synchronization, speed and stamina.

There's a chance you have too many unfinished songs sitting on your computer, or maybe even on your bookshelf - let's finish them.

Guitar Nine's October-November 2017 newsletter.

Tommaso maintains the skill of songwriting is developed through years of practice.

An expert knows to practice simpler things.

Don't go with what feels easy as opposed to what is right.

If left unquestioned, these kind of thoughts can start to really build up and hurt your progress as a musician.

Here are more true reasons for Vai's world-class guitar playing and the lessons each one holds for you.

Mike shows you moveable type patterns for the harmonic minor scale, and some ways you can get some fresh new modern type sounds.

Tommaso argues these myths are designed to keep your playing stagnant.

Studying other styles of music such as jazz, will only make you a better, more rounded acoustic guitar player and musician.

Here are the true reasons for Vai`s world-class guitar playing and the lessons each one holds for you.

I`ve just released my seventh instrumental album, which is now available on all web platforms, as are my six previous releases.

Playing a chord progression accurately does not necessarily mean the progression will sound good.

The basis of all lyric writing - you may know one or two of these, but even then you need to practice the third one.

Guitar Nine's August-September 2017 newsletter.

focusing on picking and moveable shapes that will help to create longer lines.

Guitar Nine's June-July 2017 newsletter.

This time I tried a crowdfunding approach and was able to finance a significant part of the production costs through pre-orders placed through the respective campaign.

I'm trying do more to get the music exposure and the radio airplay is doing that for me, since I get listeners from every country in the world.

In part 3, you`ll learn how to easily play fast solo lines and riffs on your guitar.

Tommaso explores the Harry Potter inspired "wizards only" theory of talent,

Is there any real benefit to learning more than one scale system? Here`s one opinion to consider.

Confused about the modes? Here is a way you can practice the modes that may help.

Don`t waste another second of your time learning the guitar scales by using the CAGED system.

One of the oldest concepts in the book, adapted for modern rock guitar playing.