Richard Barrett is on a mission to make you a better blues player – with full audio examples and backing tracks

WHERE DEMAND FOR pedal effects grew exponentially during the early Seventies as musicians sought new sounds, many stomp box designers turned to the synthesizer for new inspiration. Mike Beigel was amo

What an incredible 2025 it’s been in the world of prog. This year, we’ve taken a different approach to our Critics’ Choice and instead of printing our writers’ Top 20 lists, we’ve pooled them to create a definitive Top 50 with profile pieces on some of the key players. Did your favourite make the cut? We look forward to reading your thoughts on the results.

Anna Lapwood is a British organist and conductor who has brought classical music to millions through social media, often under the hashtag #PlayLikeAGirl. She originally studied the organ alongside pi

CRAFTING AN APPEALING guitar solo for a song is always a creative challenge. There are many different approaches one can take: Do I follow the chord changes so that the notes line up perfectly with th

IT’S WIDELY KNOWN that Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were tough taskmasters when it came to the studio, particularly in terms of their session guitarists. The most famous example of thei