Guitar Nine Columns: Guitar Technique

How to embrace the healing power of music.

More creative ways to use modal pentatonics in your playing.

Complete understanding of the modes has eluded many a guitarist. Here`s part two of Mike Campese`s multi-part lesson.

Sean Mercer returns with ways to help you break out of the 3 and 4 note sequence rut.

Constructing your own chord voicings and increasing your chord vocabulary.

Add some excitement to your playing by playing outside the scale. This time: the diminished scale.

Steve Pappas enhances his previous "Amazing Grace" arrangement with this variation.

Becoming a performer and a listener all at once.

Virtuoso classical guitarist and instructor Jamie Andreas discusses why, at times, you must make the difficult even more difficult.

Steve Pappas completes his "Amazing Grace" arrangement with this final variation.

Knowing the modes, and putting them to good use, are two different things. Here`s part three of Mike Campese`s multi-part lesson.

Add some excitement to your playing by playing outside the scale. This time: blending the Mixolydian with diminished scale.

The amazing Tom Yoder and his equally amazing arpeggios.

Virtuoso classical guitarist and instructor Jamie Andreas on how to make progress, real progress, in your abilities.

Mike Campese is back with more modal mayhem.

Steve Booke talks about how to use breathing to provide yourself with the necessary energy to play your more physically demanding licks.

Mike Campese is back with powerful compositional tool (and a play out of Satriani`s playbook).

Virtuoso classical guitarist and instructor Jamie Andreas answers the burning question.

Michael Knight looks at the elements of composition as they relate to the guitar solo.

Greg Brown talks about tapping into the power of visualization.

Mike Campese shifts into high gear with these high tech shred licks.

Mike Campese turns the tried and true triad into an improvisational treat.

Let the Sultan of String take you on the exotic scale ride of your life.

Hess guitarist Mike Walsh will help you become a better musician with his keys to success.

Small-handed Chris Juergensen shows you how to stretch to achieve great harmonic choices in chords.

Mike Campese again turns the tried and true triad into an improvisational treat.

Let the Sultan of String explain the finer points of the Yona Nuki and In scales.

Harmonic minor scale soloing and chord substitution made simple through theoretical refocusing.

Virtuoso classical guitarist and instructor Jamie Andreas talks about getting the most out of yourself in order to play at a higher level.

Use this scale to yield great sounds in jazz and ragtime, through perilous horror-film mayhem, cheese-metal and progressive rock fusion.

The second part of taking a well-known violin caprice to the six-string.

Let the Sultan of String blend, meld, mix and match scales, yielding a unique, exotic effect.

Do you want to play arpeggio-like melodies with "ear-caching" tensions? Let the Sultan of String show you how.

Hess guitarist Mike Walsh can`t stress enough the importance of a music education.

Virtuoso classical guitarist and instructor Jamie Andreas is back with tips on a technical area that is of major concern to players

Do you know them? You must know them! Check out Mike Campese`s essential scales review.

Instrumentalist Joe Bochar, AKA Joboj, plants tongue firmly in cheek to help you burn up the fretboard.

How using only two fingers creates more advanced possibilities for interval riffs.

Kevin Ferguson, devotee of complex time signatures, reveals how you can master this area of technique.

More ideas on how you can add a really cool twist to your playing.

Neo-classical guitarist Tom Hess weighs in on the debate over DIY or professional instruction.

Hess guitarist Mike Walsh explains why high caliber playing is important to self-expression.