Throughout my music career, I have always been in a quest for better tone. Even in the earliest stages of my musical development on guitar, I was drawn to music...
When I first started out as a player, I was feeling pretty unsure of how to start. All of my heroes possessed an almost godlike precision and a fluency that...
This piece is well known to all guitar players, especially the classically-minded folks. You will find it in most collections of music for the classic...
I have been performing for over 30 years, with at least 150 gigs per year. I am telling you this because just recently it came to me that the most imp...
One thing that has been evolving through the years recently is the application of wider intervals in lead guitar solos. This territory has been explored fro...
A Word From Robben
I went to Nashville to record nine songs in a single day, with six new songs my band
had never played before and a fractured wrist. (Who’s ...
Here ye, here ye! Audiophiles, guitar aficionados and enlightened children of the ‘Fire — prepare thy ears and hearts for magical music from the artists and...
You meet a lot of people at NAMM. Friends introduce you to their friends, who in turn introduce you to their friends, and so it goes for five straight days and ...
Tremolo effects modify volume. The amplitude of an incoming signal is raised and lowered in pulsating waves. An intense tremolo effect sounds choppy bec...
ou’ve seen the movie. Bunch of guys on an adventure of some kind. There’s the intellectual one. The one that makes the boys crack up. The one that takes cha...
In the early days, like most novice (bedroom) producers, having little understanding or experience with the principles of gain staging, isolation or quality...
With 2015 just around the corner, and because robots haven’t taken over the world just yet, it’s a safe time to start planning your New Year’s resolution. There...
Overlooked and cast out into the wilderness for its perceived weirdness is my friend, the Whole Tone scale. It shows up in classical works by the likes of D...
TF: What do you do for a living?
REIN: I am a musician. I also keep busy raising my two year old son named Vaughn.
TF: What is your practice regime? H...
I spend a lot of time thinking these days. In fact, I have been thinking about this article almost a month before putting any words on paper. I believe that...
Let’s be honest. Almost everyone who has ever picked up a guitar and hacked away at a few chords has most likely had the dream, even if only fleeting, of ho...
The strumming pattern sets the groove to any great song, just like the drummer does. But whether you find an arrangement online or in a songbook, you’...
One of the single most defining elements of any guitar player is their vibrato. As a teacher I find it to be one of the most overlooked techniques, wh...
In this column I would like to talk about rest strokes in flatpicking guitar playing. A rest stroke is where you pick a note and follow through in suc...
he advice I’m about to give is probably not what you’d expect to hear from a devoted guitarist and guitar-based educator, but I hope you’ll take heed ...
