Joy to the world

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

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

ANOTHER OF THE many Gibson guitars that I love (are there any that I don’t?) is the ES-350. This is a semi-hollow “jazz box” type of guitar, deeper than a ES-335 but still kind of skinny when compared

DURING THE LAST week of November 1963, the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was released in the United Kingdom. That same week, a young Brit named Laurence Juber started playing guitar. It wouldn’t

Radiant Dawn Works by Hildegard of Bingen, Tallis, James MacMillan, Owain Park et al Matilda Lloyd (trumpet); The Gesualdo Six/Owain Park Hyperion CDA 68465 69:35 mins This is an ingenious and moving