Courses

PROGRESSIVE PICKING with Stephen Taranto

The quintessential guide to modern picking techniques as taught by Stephen Taranto. "The purpose is to shed some light on how I traverse the strings, while keeping things as clean and as fast as possible.”

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Courses

Scar Guitar

Scar Guitar is a detailed journey into the modern playing styles of Per Nilsson, one of the world's finest guitarists. Best known for his work with Swedish melodic death metal group Scar Symmetry and progressive metal titans Meshuggah, Per offers...

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Courses

THUMP! - Tosin Abasi's Guitar Instructional

THUMP! is an in-depth exploration of the modern playing techniques of Tosin Abasi. This course focuses primarily on his approaches to the thumping technique, and also explores several other key techniques that offer insight into his music. Included are detailed...

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Courses

The Madness of Javier Reyes

Javier Reyes of Animals as Leaders and Mestis breaks down some of his key techniques and offers close-up demonstrations of four compositions. All lessons & performances are presented in crystal clear 4k video, with multiple angles covering all the action....

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Courses

Fingerpicking Foundations

Javier Reyes of Animals As Leaders and Mestis builds on fingerpicking technique basics introduced in the Madness of Javier Reyes series. The goal of this course is to develop a strong foundation for the fingerpicking technique. The program includes 5...

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Courses

Backpfeifengesicht

This set of lessons offers an in-depth look at the Animals As Leaders track BACKPFEIFENGESICHT. Featuring 4k video, detailed transcriptions, and downloadable Guitar Pro files, Tosin gives insight into some of the playing and writing techniques that are highlighted in...

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Courses

Scar Guitar

Scar Guitar is a detailed journey into the modern playing styles of Per Nilsson, one of the world's finest guitarists. Best known for his work with Swedish melodic death metal group Scar Symmetry and progressive metal titans Meshuggah, Per offers a close-up personal look at his unique approaches to music and the guitar. This course includes over 2 hours of lessons and performances, in-depth interviews, & bonus materials.

PROGRESSIVE PICKING with Stephen Taranto

The quintessential guide to modern picking techniques as taught by Stephen Taranto. "The purpose is to shed some light on how I traverse the strings, while keeping things as clean and as fast as possible.”

THUMP! - Tosin Abasi's Guitar Instructional

THUMP! is an in-depth exploration of the modern playing techniques of Tosin Abasi. This course focuses primarily on his approaches to the thumping technique, and also explores several other key techniques that offer insight into his music. Included are detailed transcriptions, as well as backing tracks for select songs. The course is not limited to 8-string guitarists. All concepts can be applied to 6 and 7-string guitar.

Fingerpicking Foundations

Javier Reyes of Animals As Leaders and Mestis builds on fingerpicking technique basics introduced in the Madness of Javier Reyes series. The goal of this course is to develop a strong foundation for the fingerpicking technique. The program includes 5 etudes, offering a musical, fun path to synchronizing both hands and developing right-hand finger dexterity. A perfect course for beginner to intermediate guitarists looking to dive into the world of fingerpicking.

The Madness of Javier Reyes

Javier Reyes of Animals as Leaders and Mestis breaks down some of his key techniques and offers close-up demonstrations of four compositions. All lessons & performances are presented in crystal clear 4k video, with multiple angles covering all the action. Each example is transcribed in great detail and can be looped, slowed down, sped up, transposed - all on the same page. Each example is also available for download in Guitar Pro format.

Backpfeifengesicht

This set of lessons offers an in-depth look at the Animals As Leaders track BACKPFEIFENGESICHT. Featuring 4k video, detailed transcriptions, and downloadable Guitar Pro files, Tosin gives insight into some of the playing and writing techniques that are highlighted in the track: Thumping, Selective Picking & Sweeping in Riffs, Hammer-On-From-Nowhere Riffing, Songwriting & Arrangement Techniques.

Articles

Ryan Knight Interview – The Black Dahlia Murder: Part 2

In PART ONE of our interview, The Black Dahlia Murder’s Ryan Knight revealed details about the band’s latest album Everblack, his journey as a developing guitarist, and...

Zakk Wylde Interview (2006)

Jeffery Phillip Wiedlandt was born on January 14, 1967 in Bayonne, New Jersey. Today, however, he’s best known as Zakk Wylde – leader of Black...

George Bellas Interview 1

George Bellas is a guitar virtuoso and  one of the leaders of the neoclassical scene, with three solo albums released and a truly unique musical...

NAMM 2014: Christoph Kemper Interview (Kemper Profiling Amplifier)

Guitar Messenger’s Ivan Chopik had a chance at this year’s NAMM to speak with Christoph Kemper, the mastermind behind the legendary Access Virus synthesizers, as well as...

Evan Brewer Interview – The Faceless

Many of you know of Evan Brewer as the bassist for technical death metal band The Faceless, as well as for his collaboration with Tosin...

Richie Kotzen Interview

Richie Kotzen is one of today’s most intriguing guitarists. He arrived on the music scene in the late 80’s through Mike Varney’s Shrapnel Records and...

Tommy Emmanuel Interview

Australian virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel is going on five decades of professional guitar playing. At an age when most of us were occupied with learning our...

Robert Cray Interview

We’ve all heard a variation of the phrase “he can say more with one note than others can say with a million notes.” This one...

Joe Bonamassa Interview

Joe Bonamassa is one of the leading lights in today’s modern blues scene. His latest release, Sloe Gin, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues...

Mårten Hagström Interview (Meshuggah)

Meshuggah is a band that truly stands in a musical category of its own. Over the past two decades, the Swedish experimental metal group has...

James Smith & Timothy McTague Interview (Underoath)

Throughout their decade-long journey, Tampa, Florida’s Underoath have crafted a unique and ever-evolving style, securing them as one of the premier acts in today’s heavy...

Francesco Artusato Interview

2010 has been a landmark year for guitarist extraordinaire Francesco Artusato; within months he joined forces with California’s extreme metal powerhouse All Shall Perish and...

Lessons

20 Tips: How To Choose Your Next Record Producer

The most important thing to a musician is the music that you create. You spend years developing a distinctive sound and style before finally getting...

Guide Tones: The Bare Essentials

Very often, "less is more" is a good policy to adopt when playing jazz. Overplaying usually gets both players and listeners pissed off because you're...

Metal Foundations Lesson 1: Rhythm Guitar Development

What’s that? You want to learn some metal guitar? You’re a beginner, too? No way! You came to the right place, my friend. Welcome to...

Artist Lick: Bobby Thompson of Job For A Cowboy

Bobby Thompson of Job For A Cowboy presents his Guitar Messenger Artist Lick - a dizzying flurry of diminished tapping, accompanied by an alternate-picked variation....

Job For A Cowboy: Riffing Style

Watch Bobby Thompson and Ravi Bhadriraju of Job For A Cowboy demonstrate their death metal riffing techniques in this brutal showcase....

Artist Lick: Joe Stump

Berklee professor and neoclassical master Joe Stump demonstrates a deadly passage in F# Phrygian Dominant that utilizes alternate and economy picking....

Basic Blues Substitutions

Over the years I’ve found that while most guitarists have an easy time learning to comp and solo over the 12-bar blues, many people struggle...

Major Scale Harmony

For this first column, I feel its best that we start off with something simple. The purpose of this column is to show which chords...

Heavy Metal Ninjas: Richie Allan Lesson – Design

 [Richie’s Ibanez RG 8-string guitar is tuned to Drop-E: E B E A D G B E, and his Ibanez Jem 555 guitar is in Standard...

Create Marketing Tools

Creating marketing tools (A.K.A “Merch”—T-shirts, hats, and stickers that bear your name, logo or slogan) help to increase your exposure, strengthen your brand name, and...

Artist Lick: Tosin Abasi of Animals As Leaders

Tosin Abasi of Animal As Leaders shows us one of his favorite licks – a fretboard-spanning flurry of arpeggiated fury. ...

Advanced Tapping: Extended Arpeggios

For many guys that want to tap better, they do not have the hand strength or built up dexterity to hammer onto the fretboard hard...

Guitar Messenger is dedicated to in-depth courses, lessons, and interviews with today’s leading guitarists.

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