Improve your slide guitar

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

OVER THE LAST two columns, I’ve demonstrated a handful of what I consider to be essential “blues approved” licks that work well both as embellishments to rhythm parts or as phrases within a solo. Our

TODAY I'D LIKE to talk about downpicking — picking or strumming consecutive downstrokes — and why it can be so musically effective. This is something I learned from studying the riff-writing style of

ONE OF MY biggest musical influences is the king of blues power, Albert King. There are so many things that define his unique approach to playing, and I think about these things every time I pick up m

Richard Barrett experiments with suspended and altered chords to bring a sense of suspense to your compositions

Why are more and more guitar builders making their own pickups, wonders Dave Burrluck, and does it affect us players who are used to decades-old designs road-tested by giants?