My friend Anthony recently started playing the bass guitar. He had been wanting to learn for some time, and he finally asked me to go down to the local Guitar Center to help him decide what to buy. Although I am primarily a guitarist, I can play passable bass (and…

Hi, my name is Jon, and I’ve got GAS. That’s Guitar Acquisition Syndrome, for the uninitiated. I like guitars. It’s my hobby. It’s how I de-stress and one of the things I do for fun. For a very long time, I only had a couple of guitars. I’d hover between…

Stevie Ray Vaughan is the best guitarist of all time. Don’t believe me? Check out his performance of “Texas Flood” from the Live at the El Mocambo DVD: I have watched this video dozens of times, and every time I watch it, I get goosebumps. I shake my head…

Fun fact: I played guitar for several decades before I got serious about learning the intricacies of the instrument. A good case in point is locking tuners. I was oblivious to them for many, many years until a friend gifted me a set for doing some work on his guitar. …

I have a confession to make: I love the birds. This can be a bit of a polarizing statement, I realize. Some people absolutely love the birds, while others hate them. But I think I’m in good company. John Mayer seems to be in the former camp, as does Mark…

When most people think about multiple-necked guitars, they think of rock music — and probably heavy metal at that. Images of wild rock stars with long, teased hair and zebra pants come to mind, wielding a skull- or devil-horns-encrusted multiple-necked guitar monstrosity, more for show than anything else. In fact…

The guitar has long been a male-dominated instrument. As a kid growing up in the 1980s and 90s, I honestly can’t recall ever seeing or knowing about a single female guitarist. I’m sure there were a few of them out there, but the fact wasn’t well broadcast. Yet thankfully, the…

If you are more than an absolute beginner at the guitar, then you are probably aware of, and maybe even know a little about, those little dots on the neck of your instrument: These dots are called fret markers, and they are there for a very good reason. Fret markers…

The Black Keys: just two white guys from Ohio playing the blues. Yeah, it seems strange to me, too, but it’s the truth. The Black Keys, if you don’t know, are a two-piece act from Akron. They have a raw, lo-fi, bluesy sound, like modern-day delta blues. …