Courses

Singing Slide Guitar with Stanly Bactian

“Singing Slide Guitar with Stanly Bactian” is an in-depth masterclass in making the guitar sing. Stanly breaks down his expressive, vocal-inspired approach to slide guitar, starting with intonation, muting, and vibrato before moving into riffs and runs, dynamics, call and...

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Courses

Songwriting with Plini

Songwriting with Plini is an in-depth masterclass in musical composition and modern progressive songwriting, straight from the mind of one of Australia’s most innovative and legendary musicians, Plini. Best known for his work as an instrumental guitarist and songwriter, Plini...

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Courses

PROGRESSIVE PICKING with Stephen Taranto

The quintessential guide to modern picking techniques as taught by Stephen Taranto. "The purpose is to shed some light on how I traverse the strings, while keeping things as clean and as fast as possible.”

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Courses

Scar Guitar

Scar Guitar is a detailed journey into the modern playing styles of Per Nilsson, one of the world's finest guitarists. Best known for his work with Swedish melodic death metal group Scar Symmetry and progressive metal titans Meshuggah, Per offers...

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Courses

THUMP! - Tosin Abasi's Guitar Instructional

THUMP! is an in-depth exploration of the modern playing techniques of Tosin Abasi. This course focuses primarily on his approaches to the thumping technique, and also explores several other key techniques that offer insight into his music. Included are detailed...

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Courses

The Madness of Javier Reyes

Javier Reyes of Animals as Leaders and Mestis breaks down some of his key techniques and offers close-up demonstrations of four compositions. All lessons & performances are presented in crystal clear 4k video, with multiple angles covering all the action....

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Courses

Fingerpicking Foundations

Javier Reyes of Animals As Leaders and Mestis builds on fingerpicking technique basics introduced in the Madness of Javier Reyes series. The goal of this course is to develop a strong foundation for the fingerpicking technique. The program includes 5...

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Courses

The Madness of Tosin Abasi

This set of lessons offers an in-depth look at the Animals As Leaders tracks BACKPFEIFENGESICHT and THE GLASS BRIDGE. Featuring 4k video, detailed transcriptions, and downloadable Guitar Pro files, Tosin gives insight into some of the playing and writing techniques...

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Courses

Fingerpicking Foundations

Javier Reyes of Animals As Leaders and Mestis builds on fingerpicking technique basics introduced in the Madness of Javier Reyes series. The goal of this course is to develop a strong foundation for the fingerpicking technique. The program includes 5 etudes, offering a musical, fun path to synchronizing both hands and developing right-hand finger dexterity. A perfect course for beginner to intermediate guitarists looking to dive into the world of fingerpicking.

The Madness of Javier Reyes

Javier Reyes of Animals as Leaders and Mestis breaks down some of his key techniques and offers close-up demonstrations of four compositions. All lessons & performances are presented in crystal clear 4k video, with multiple angles covering all the action. Each example is transcribed in great detail and can be looped, slowed down, sped up, transposed - all on the same page. Each example is also available for download in Guitar Pro format.

PROGRESSIVE PICKING with Stephen Taranto

The quintessential guide to modern picking techniques as taught by Stephen Taranto. "The purpose is to shed some light on how I traverse the strings, while keeping things as clean and as fast as possible.”

THUMP! - Tosin Abasi's Guitar Instructional

THUMP! is an in-depth exploration of the modern playing techniques of Tosin Abasi. This course focuses primarily on his approaches to the thumping technique, and also explores several other key techniques that offer insight into his music. Included are detailed transcriptions, as well as backing tracks for select songs. The course is not limited to 8-string guitarists. All concepts can be applied to 6 and 7-string guitar.

Singing Slide Guitar with Stanly Bactian

“Singing Slide Guitar with Stanly Bactian” is an in-depth masterclass in making the guitar sing. Stanly breaks down his expressive, vocal-inspired approach to slide guitar, starting with intonation, muting, and vibrato before moving into riffs and runs, dynamics, call and response, motifs, and solo construction. Across more than 2 hours of lessons and bonus material, he shows how these techniques can transform simple melodic ideas into expressive phrases and complete performances.

Scar Guitar

Scar Guitar is a detailed journey into the modern playing styles of Per Nilsson, one of the world's finest guitarists. Best known for his work with Swedish melodic death metal group Scar Symmetry and progressive metal titans Meshuggah, Per offers a close-up personal look at his unique approaches to music and the guitar. This course includes over 2 hours of lessons and performances, in-depth interviews, & bonus materials.

Songwriting with Plini

Songwriting with Plini is an in-depth masterclass in musical composition and modern progressive songwriting, straight from the mind of one of Australia’s most innovative and legendary musicians, Plini. Best known for his work as an instrumental guitarist and songwriter, Plini offers a comprehensive look into his unique methods for crafting memorable, inspiring songs.

The Madness of Tosin Abasi

This set of lessons offers an in-depth look at the Animals As Leaders tracks BACKPFEIFENGESICHT and THE GLASS BRIDGE. Featuring 4k video, detailed transcriptions, and downloadable Guitar Pro files, Tosin gives insight into some of the playing and writing techniques that are highlighted in the tracks: Thumping, Selective Picking & Sweeping in Riffs, Hammer-On-From-Nowhere Riffing, Songwriting & Arrangement Techniques.

Articles

NAMM 2014: Marty Friedman Interview

At this year’s winter NAMM show in Anaheim, CA, I had a chance to speak with guitar legend Marty Friedman, who is known for his...

Eric Krasno Interview

An acclaimed musician in today’s jazz, hip-hop, and funk circuits, Eric Krasno is best known as the guitarist and co-founder of the soul-funk powerhouse Soulive....

Matt Heafy Interview (Trivium)

Matt Heafy was born on January 26, 1986 in Iwakuni, Japan and is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist for the Orlando, Florida...

Zakk Wylde Interview (2006)

Jeffery Phillip Wiedlandt was born on January 14, 1967 in Bayonne, New Jersey. Today, however, he’s best known as Zakk Wylde – leader of Black...

Jason Becker Interview

Jason Becker was born on July 22, 1969 and started playing the guitar at the age of 5. By the time Jason was only 16...

Richie Kotzen Interview

Richie Kotzen is one of today’s most intriguing guitarists. He arrived on the music scene in the late 80’s through Mike Varney’s Shrapnel Records and...

Marc Okubo Interview – Veil Of Maya (2012)

Since their inception in 2004, Chicago’s Veil Of Maya have established themselves as one of the premier bands in today’s modern metal scene. With the...

Guthrie Govan Interview (2010)

We last spoke to guitarist extraordinaire Guthrie Govan at the NAMM 2009 Show in Anaheim, California. Throughout the past year Guthrie’s kept quite busy with...

NAMM 2014: Leonardo Guzman Update (GM / Per Nilsson Guitar Solo Competition Winner)

This year at NAMM we had the pleasure of running into Leonardo Guzman, the fleet-fingered Colombian guitarist whose entry in our Guitar Solo Competition earned...

Francesco Artusato Interview (Devil You Know): Part 1

Known for his explosive, harmonically-laden guitar fireworks, solo artist and All Shall Perish axe-slinger Francesco Artusato has fired off a new chapter with his supergroup,...

James Byrd Interview

James Byrd is perhaps one of the most underrated guitarists out there today. In fact, Guitar One Magazine named him one of “The 10 Best...

NAMM 2014: Ola Englund Interview – Part 2

In PART ONE of our interview with Ola, he opened up about building his own brand as a high-gain amp expert, playing with bands like The...

Lessons

Job For A Cowboy: Riffing Style

Watch Bobby Thompson and Ravi Bhadriraju of Job For A Cowboy demonstrate their death metal riffing techniques in this brutal showcase....

Putting Jazz In Metal With Ever Forthright

Welcome to Guitar Messenger! I’m Nick from the band Ever Forthright. Today we’re going to use excerpts from two of our recent songs, ‘The Counter...

Artist Management

Managing your career can be a daunting task. That’s why the artist management profession exists! If you actually break down what a manager does, you...

Harmonic Overlapping

I first came about Harmonic Overlapping when studying the formation and inversion of chords, a subject that quickly became an obsession of mine. The idea of...

Artist Lick: Joel Stroetzel of Killswitch Engage

Joel Stroetzel of Killswitch Engage presents his screaming, guitar tech-thrilling Guitar Messenger Artist Lick. Joel is tuned to Drop-C [C G C F A D]...

Diminished Possibilities: Part 2

Hey guys! Welcome again to my “Technical Difficulties” column – this is number 6 already! As the title suggests, this is the second part of...

Tony MacAlpine Masterclass

[Tony's 7-string Ibanez guitar is tuned to Standard Tuning for all examples in this Masterclass: B E A D G B E]. Tony likes to...

Artist Riff: Alex Bois of Periphery Plays ‘Frak The Gods’

Periphery's Alex Bois demonstrates some of his favorite riffs from the devastating Battlestar Galactica-inspired 'Frak The Gods' off the band's Icarus EP. 'We play with...

Artist Riff: Yossi Sassi of Orphaned Land Plays ‘Numbers World’

[Yossi’s Paul Reed Smith guitar is tuned to Standard Tuning: E A D G B E.] Numbers World – Main Riff Over the past 20+...

Steve Morse Bonus: Gear Gallery

Come take a look at Steve Morse's live rig from his Out Standing In Their Field tour with the Steve Morse Band. These pictures were...

Using a Metronome Effectively Part 2: Things Start to Click

Now that you know what to look for when you purchase a metronome (Part 1), let’s get started with actually practicing with one. A lot...

Periphery / Haunted Shores: Mark Holcomb Masterclass (Part 1)

Haunted Shores' riff artist Mark Holcomb discusses chord voicings for drop-tunings and offers a treasure trove of tricky riffs from the songs 'Immaterial' and 'Passenger.'...

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