The art of riffing

WHEN I AM composing and arranging music, I like to think as an orchestrator. As the guitarist, I try to represent just about everything that’s in the arrangement — the drum syncopations, horn parts, k

AN ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL element in blues guitar is the turnaround. It is a basic function of blues music that the turnaround happens at the end of the progression and flips it over back to the beginni

ON JUNE 23, the guitar world lost a true legend — Mick Ralphs of Bad Company and Mott the Hoople fame. He was 81. Besides being an amazing songwriter, Ralphs was a criminally underrated blues/rock gui

LAST MONTH, I talked about how I devised the primary riffs in the title track to my 2023 album Hard Wired, which is played in drop D tuning (low to high: D, A, D, G, B, E). I’d now like to share some

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue: Roy Harper . Since the mid-60s, the progressive folk singer-songwriter has enjoyed a successful solo career that’s also found him collaborating with everyone from Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel to Kate Bush and Ian Anderson. But he’s never quite reached the commercial heights of his peers. As his Final Tour: Part Two fast approaches, he looks back over highlights from his career so far and teases a brand-new album.

Inspiring the wider music world…