Love machina

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

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

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

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?

The month’s best guitar music – a hand-picked selection of the finest fretwork on wax

This trio of Los Angeles musicians fuse the rhythms of Havana, Medellín and Lima with the sounds of 60s surf music – though their sound has more in common with Latin folk music than Dick Dale. We join them to talk about their debut album, fibreglass guitars and tropical psychedelia