Happy Halloween from Creative Spark Guitar Instruction! Who doesn’t love a holiday built around candy and dressing up—which is also very rock and roll. To celebrate, here are the masters of “Halloween rock”, Oingo Boingo, with “Dead Man’s Party”. The riff…
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Featured Guitarist Video: Brian May
It’s no wonder Queen’s Brian May is high up on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest guitar players of all time. May combines a rare combination of disciplined playing techniques and original composition, gear, and arranging that made him extremely…
Featured Guitarist Video: Andy McKee
Andy McKee describes himself as “Just this guy from Topeka, Kansas, who kind of blew up on the Internet about a week before Christmas.” Andy seemed to come out of nowhere when a number of simple videos of him playing…
Featured Guitarist Video: David Gilmour
In the mid 1970s, music changed forever with the outbreak of Pink Floyd’s innovative and completely unprecedented Dark Side of the Moon. For nearly 10 years the band would continue their evolutionary musical direction and sound. It’s almost impossible to imagine…
Free Guitar Lesson of the Week: The Amazing Movable E Major Chord Shape
For today’s free guitar lesson, we’re going to use just one chord shape — E major — and create the four most common chords in Western music with it. In a couple of minutes we’ll be able to play literally…
Featured Guitarist Video: Peter Green
Long before the Fleetwood Mac was breaking album sales records with “Rumours”, they were fronted by the talented and enigmatic Peter Green. Through his contributions in blues and rock, Green is still lauded for his excellent phrasing and creation of…
“Drifting” by Andy McKee (Featured Song)
This video, along with several of Andy McKee’s other songs, became an enormous YouTube sensation. Andy McKee is one of my favorite examples of a guitarist who has and continues to develop a highly unique style of playing. Clearly he…
Duel from “Crossroads” by Steve Vai and Ry Cooder (Featured Song)
SPOILER ALERT! This is the climax of the movie 1986 movie “Crossroads” (IMDb link here). If you are interested in seeing this excellent movie staring the Karate Kid (Ralph Macchio) as a young guitarist on an adventure into the world…
“Four Chord Song” by Axis of Awesome (Featured Song)
This Australian trio decides they aren’t internationally famous because they’ve never written a four chord song, and then shows us all what one (or dozens) sound like. This video is an excellent way to see how closely most songs are…
“Irish Tune Suite” by Dan Crary (Featured Song)
Legendary bluegrass guitarist Dan Crary delves into Celtic-style guitar in this solo piece played on a 12-string with an alternative tuning (not the standard EADGBE).