Customer Reviews

Guitar Techniques

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I've been buying guitar magazines since 1990 and have a collection of hundreds of them. This one is the best! It has always been good, but these days I think it stands out from the crowd even more. I've seen magazines start out good, full of useful information and sheet music, then plunge to the depths of crappy industry gossip and little else. These guys have kept a strong loyalty to the musicians who wanna play, rather than the ones who care about image and nothing much else.

Guitar Techniques gives you a really wide variety of styles to learn. So if you're into metal, country, jazz, folk, or whatever, I've seen it covered. They have regular workshops on beginner tips and advanced soloing techniques. Nothing escapes these guys. They also cover different artists all the time. So if you want to learn the latest song by The Darkness, or Jeff Beck, or Hendrix, or whatever the latest metal band on the scene is playing, then it will eventually turn up here.

It's common for them to delve deeply into a particular person's playing style as well. In that case, you'll get a whole chapter of the mag on, say, "Diamond" Darryl and how he gets his sound, followed with examples of how he plays and in which songs he employs special techniques or scales.

The sheet music itself is comprehensive and easy to follow. Not only that, but this mag comes with a CD each month so that you can pick up things by ear. They also include 'Jam Tracks' that allow you to play along with tabbed songs adding in your own guitar lines.

Plus, of course, the have all the regular magazine stuff: letters to the editor, equipment reviews, album reviews, artist news, and so on. But the bulk of the magazine is taken up with things you can get your fingers into right away.

I highly recommend this magazine subscription to anyone who is wanting to take their guitar playing to a greater level; it has something for everyone at all levels.

Good luck with your playing.

Most guitar magazines seem to be heavy on discussion of artists but light on actual music. GT still talks about artist's styles, but then gives you the tab and standard notation for one of their works or a class on how to solo in their style. A standard issue contains sections like rock, jazz, acoustic fingerstyle, Funk and country, followed by workshops on (for eg.) using altered tunings, increasing fretting speed, and other interesting things.

The accompanying CD gives multiple examples for each piece or exercise, usually with tracks played at different speeds and/or and example track and a backing track to play with.

The only downside to this magazine is that you hardly have time to work on eveything you wanted to before the next issue comes out.

Covering a broad spectrum of music styles, all the music included in the magazine is played on the CD. Even better, all the music is included twice- first with the guitar, then without it for you to play along with. There are usually one or two songs from well known albums transcribed in each issue, as well as columns in many different styles of music. It may seem expensive, but with the CD its very reasonable. No American guitar magazine comes with a CD and to get the audio tracks you end up paying a lot more to download them from the Internet. Believe me, hearing the music on the CD makes the difference.

I agree with the other reviewers who point out the many useful music tools in this mag. The UK is where English started so if you like literate writers rather than being pitched to like an 8 year old you'll like this magazine. My gripes are that I can buy them at big box bookstores for pennies more than the subscription rate. The price fluctuates with market $ vs Pound/Euro and the delivery time for the 1st issue is 12 to 16 weeks! The stores get them faster. So if they had a better subscription deal and faster delivery I would definitely subscribe. Besides anyone that calls a tube a valve and a wrench a spanner is okay in my book.

It's difficult to say enough about this magazine without sounding like a commercial. The lessons and song transcriptions on the CD alone make this more than a worthy investment. I'd say this is required reading for any serious electric guitarist.

Guitar Techniques Mag is the BEST Guitar mag around.
There are many out there,but this one is worth every penny.