Nowadays, it’s hard to remember a time before Taylor Swift’s rule of pop music. From her explosion in popularity with radio-ready Nashville country to her foray into outright pop and recent return to guitar-driven introspective folk, Taylor Swift enters the third decade of the 21st century as one of her generation’s brightest stars and most …
When Joe Satriani appeared on the rock scene in the 1980s, he was in oh so many ways different from other bands and solo musicians of the time. His special sound was made under the influence of the greats Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, which eventually led him in the direction of instrumental music, in …
The songs we know and love are often a reflection of our favorite artists’ personalities. And while some musicians choose to express themselves with a series of complex chords, some do it with just two! Personally, I feel that when the soundscape is dominated by just 2 chords, the listener invariably ends up paying a …
The 1980s was a time for transition. With MTV coming to television in 1981, synthesizers and MIDI available for modest prices to the public, the invention of the CD and the Walkman and boomboxes a prominent accessory for 80s youth, music surpassed its limitations to car radios and vinyl records, forever changing popular music and …
Whether you’re shaping the tone of your guitar onstage, mixing drum tracks in your recording software, or processing live vocals, delay and reverb are two invaluable effects to have at your disposal. Although delay and reverb are often grouped when discussing audio effects, there are many significant differences between them. Indeed, they both affect the …
English-born guitar icon Ritchie Blackmore is one of the most influential guitar players from the 70s and is often referred to as one of the fathers of heavy metal. His unique playing style, blues-driven riffs using 4ths, classical music influence, arpeggios, and fast picking are the reason he stood out above many other contemporaries. In …
ABY pedals have a reputation for being confusing devices. In reality, they simply allow musicians to integrate two amplifiers into their setup, and either switch between them or use both simultaneously. Some guitar amplifiers sound great when you’re using the clean channel, while others perform best with plenty of gain added. An ABY pedal makes …
Heavy metal music began in the late 1960s and has only grown over time, resulting in unexpected subgenres. With extreme metal genres popping up, the essence of the genre has also evolved with time. And at the forefront of this modern metal wave is Avenged Sevenfold and its lead guitarist, Synyster Gates, as a main …
Whether you’re a musician or a music lover, you have to love how songs express the entire spectrum of human emotion! And as a musician, you have the power to evoke all kinds of feelings within your audience, which could be joy, energy, and sadness too. Today we’ll be bringing you a list of sad …
In the long, storied history of the electric guitar, few artists have blended classical and metal styles with the ferocity and melodic sensibility of Yngwie Malmsteen. Sweden’s shred-meister general took the lightning-fast technique of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads and amplified it through his own baroque sensibility. Malmsteen continues to inspire awe and envy …