Guitar Nine Columns: Guest Columnists

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

An original work (part one of two preludes) composed for solo electric guitar, in tabulature and standard notation.

Some creative uses of digital delay when writing or recording.

Tips for playing arpeggiated chord progressions using string skipping.

An arrangement of the Tchaikovsky piece for solo guitar, in tabulature and standard notation.

New Jersey guitarist Paul Kuntz takes time out from lunch to give you his assurance that there is life beyond the blues scale.

Don`t let your current concept of reality dominate your guitar playing.

Arnold Schulman discusses lyric writing for the beginner.

An original work composed for solo classical guitar, in tabulature and standard notation.

Jason Pruett offers his light-hearted yet insightful views on getting the most from your guitar and busting a playing rut.

Learn some substitutions for those tried and true barre chords. How the knowledge of triads can help you come up with original sounding guitar parts.

New Jersey guitarist Paul Kuntz is back and aside from a ravenous appetite, he`s got plans to teach you all about tuplets and fitting the notes to the rhythm.

Do you still think the Aeolian mode is a ship from Star Trek? Are you comfortable discussing Mixolydian and Phrygian modes in mixed company? Tony Young cuts to the heart of modes.

Just can`t get enough info about modes, can you? Guitarist Tony Young relates modes to chord progressions.

If you`ve got the urge to explore jazz after a background in rock, you`ll need to understand the differences between the two styles. Guitarist Sean Gill gives you the keys to unlock the door to jazz.

Houston guitarist Rusty Cooley figures that with ten fingers, there`s got to be times when you can use over half of them to express your ideas.

British guitarist David Knopfler has a few words to say about the separate lead guitarist vs. rhythm guitarist identities.

British guitarist David Knopfler recalls the days when the Stratocaster was held in esteem as the instrument of choice--if you could afford one, that is. A tale of how dreams can come true, and how old feelings never quite die.

Instrumentalist Joe Bochar serves up a thinly disguised look at chromatics.

Guitarist Paul Kuntz is back with some fresh ideas on getting out of playing `in the box` and save untold wear and tear on your frets.

The beautiful part about the tempered music scale lies in it`s flexibility. One of Ken`s favorite tricks is to take one shape, and use it to move up or down the fretboard in a linear way. The similarities in chord shapes will allow you to do the same.

Guitarist Paul Kuntz is back with some thoughts on how to avoid that feeling of being `lost without a map`.

Kick-start your musical development with these essential tips from Curtis.

Learn the essentials of the swept arpeggio from one of the masters of the technique.

Gerry Magee begins his multi-part series on expanding your mind, as well as your fretboard, with the benefits of thinking like a composer.

Paul Abbott discusses the phenomenon of sound.

Highlighting the ways that other instruments and their players can profoundly effect us.

Putting yourself in the shoes and sticks of the drummer.

A few words of practical advice from Tonya`s new book "Hidden Secrets To Making And Promoting Your Music Revealed".

Gerry Magee continues his multi-part series on expanding your mind, as well as your fretboard, with an article on focusing your mental energy.

Peter Neri on how to get those fingers (and thumbs) flying.

Don Lappin discusses the endless possibilities of the 5-tone tapping technique.

The second installment of practical advice from Tonya`s new book "Hidden Secrets To Making And Promoting Your Music Revealed".

Systematically deaiing with our musical need to improvise.