The Importance of Riffs for Guitar Technique 

A riif is simply a term for a memorable short musical theme, and as guitarists we have hundreds if not thousands of famous guitar riffs we can learn and play for fun but also for technique development. One of the most famous and recognizable...

Did you know that the song Roxanne from the Police is a tango? The Police were known for their reggae influences, and when we hear those opening chords of Roxanne we might think reggae is the groove we're hearing. However, those Roxanne chord "stabs" fall on the downbeat, and the hallmark of...

A Flamenco Technique Study 

Let's use the introduction to "Punta y Tacon" - a flamenco composition using the form farruca by the great Sabicas - to work on some fundamental flamenco guitar techniques like arpeggio and rasgueo.

The Master Sabicas

Sabicas was a renowned Spanish flamenco...

Flamenco isn't easy! There are rhythmic elements to flamenco that can be quite complex and challenging for even the most accomplished guitarist. (The form Bulerías for example consists of 12 beats with unevenly distributed accents!) That's why the first flamenco forms that I teach for the...

Having taught thousands of guitar students over the decades and used just about every book there is, I keep coming back to only a few rumbas when I teach how to play this fun Spanish guitar style. 

The Rumba Basics

Rumbas can be counted in 4/4 or 2/4 time (I'm partial to counting in 4/4) and...

The rumba is one of the most exciting rhythms to play on acoustic guitar. It's a rhythm that is pretty familiar to the "western ear" as opposed to many flamenco forms that follow a much more complicated rhythmic structure. In my decades of teaching guitar, I have composed many studies for...

When you listen to classical guitar music, you're likely to see works adapted for guitar from composers like Bach, Beethoven and others who weren't writing for the guitar, but the pieces have been adapted to the instrument. However, you seldom hear the works from Russian composer Pyotr...

Take a quick tour of five of the best and most iconic gypsy jazz songs. In this video I briefly explain what gypsy jazz is and some of the vital elements of this style, pioneered by Django Reinhardt in 1930’s Paris with violinist Stephane Grapelli. If you’re into Latin guitar or...

The Argentine tango is a musical genre and dance style that originated in the late 19th century in the working-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina, evolving from a mixture of European and indigenous musical styles. 

The tango is characterized by its syncopated rhythm and intense,...

Malagueña is a Spanish song that has become one of the most well-known and beloved traditional folk melodies in the world. The origins of the song are somewhat unclear, but it is thought to have originated in the region of Málaga, Spain (hence the name) in the late 19th or early...

Here's one of the exercises I do just about every day for my classical guitar technique: Allegro by Mauro Giuliani. This is not the more well known Allegro by Giuliani but rather a seldom-heard piece that is made up entirely of the double arpeggio technique where we play all fingers of the right...