Playing guitar with your fingers instead of a pick offers an entirely different range of musical expression.

But for many guitarists, plucking with the fingers never feels as effortless as playing wi...

Does anyone still need a music stand?

That’s a fair question.

You could just look at sheet music on a phone or tablet.

The problem is neck pain. Whether you’re looking at your phone or tablet or pa...

You want to get better at guitar.

But how do you know whether you’re making progress?

For each song or piece you play, there are 5 ways you can check yourself.

Looking at each of these will show wh...

You love playing guitar.

But you wish your left hand didn’t hurt during each practice session.

You’ve tried many different stretches and exercises.

But the discomfort remains.

There’s a solution m...

When we play guitar chords, we often default to the standard C, A, G, E, and D in open position.

Those are great, but we can take those same shapes to different places on the fretboard.

One approach...

Imagine you're observing a guitar lesson and this is what you hear:

“Pluck the third string.”

“Not like that!”

“Take your hand away from the guitar.”

“Scratch your knee, keeping the fingertip in c...

You hear guitarists play beautiful bell-like notes called harmonics.

But trying to play them yourself can be confusing.

There are both natural harmonics and artificial harmonics.

For more about how...

Your music teachers lied to you.

For time signatures, they taught that the top number tells how many beats are in each measure.

And the bottom number is the note that gets one beat.

In their defens...

Sometimes you feel like you’re not improving on guitar.

If you’re like me, you want to find that new exercise, that perfect 15-step practice plan, or whatever.

I like weird exercises and complicated...

All barre chords seem to fit in one category: challenging.

But as you explore further, there are different barre skills to practice.

Partial Barre

Play a four-string F chord.

Work to adjust your...

When you play simple music, you let the left-hand fingering happen by instinct.

That works.

But with more complicated music, random left-hand fingerings don’t get the best result.

How do you decide...

Maybe you’ve tried the metronome and found it frustrating.

You feel like the metronome causes mistakes.

But most advanced guitarists say the metronome is a useful tool.

Why?

It helps you improve t...