Guitar Technique – Advanced

Try These Fun and Challenging Counterpoint Exercises with Sean McGowan

What are advanced acoustic guitar techniques? Tricky approaches like harp or artificial harmonics, bends, and two-handed tapping are all considered advanced techniques, as are percussive effects and complex strumming patterns. These lessons will help advancing guitarists take their playing to the next level.

closuep of a harmonica on a neck holder with a blurry acoustic guitar in the background

Guitar + Harmonica: How to “Tongue Block”

Here you'll learn some harmonica basics that will help you blow harp while you keep your guitar chords pulsing.

Gary Lee Joyner
August 12, 2017

Video Lesson: How to Use Chord Grips to Generate Great Soloing Ideas

Solos don’t have to be fast or fancy to be effective!

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
April 13, 2017

Video Lesson: Using a Partial Capo Can Open Up New Doors Tonally

If you’re drawn to the creative possibilities of alternate tunings but don’t want to completely lose your bearings on the fingerboard, a partial capo may be just the ticket.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
March 14, 2017

Video Lesson: 5 Ways to Learn Hybrid Picking

This versatile technique is used across genres—guitarists from Jimmy Page to Jorma Kaukonen have made it an essential part of their acoustic work.

Gretchen Menn
February 16, 2017

Guitarist Justin King explains percussive guitar technique in the Acoustic Guitar studio

5-Minute Lesson: Percussive Guitar Techniques with Justin King

The guitarist's distinct tapping and percussive playing style, which, he demonstrates in this short video, was influenced by Michael Hedges.

Anna Pulley
November 30, 2016

Lesson: 4 Easy Steps to Getting the Best Natural Harmonics on Acoustic Guitar

The beauty of the acoustic guitar is elevated by natural harmonics, which result from delicately touching an open string or strings at a given point. Transcending musical genres, these chime-like sounds feature prominently in everything from Led Zeppelin’s “Black Mountain Side” intro to Antoine Dufour’s solo guitar interpretation of Coldplay’s…

Jeff Gunn
September 20, 2016

Closeup of male hand playing fingerstyle acoustic guitar

Lesson: Create Fresh Sounds with a Keyboard-inspired Approach to the Acoustic Guitar

The sound is quite different from a percussive strum or arpeggio—it’s more like a piano, with your fingers taking the role of the hammers striking the strings.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
September 20, 2016

Playing Tambor

In this excerpt from Alex de Grassi Fingertstyle Guitar Method, Alex de Grassi talks about the percussive qualities that a guitar’s body has and how to achieve those sounds. The terms tambor (meaning “drum” in Spanish, tambora in Italian) and golpe (strike) have been used for some time as directions…

Alex de Grassi
September 18, 2016

Video Lesson: Learn to Play Guitar Chord Melodies Like Chet Atkins or Earl Klugh

Learning to play chord-melody style—that is, expressing melodies in chords rather than single notes—is a formidable and valuable skill.

Ron Jackson
August 17, 2016

Video Lesson: Express Yourself Through Slurs, Bends, and Vibrato

One of the best ways to add an expressive character to your playing is through the use of slurs (slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs), bends, and vibrato. So much of the vocal quality guitar players like to emulate comes from the fret-hand manipulation of the strings. In this lesson, you’ll take the A minor pentatonic scale and use it to create musical phrases that allow you to manipulate the strings using these various techniques.

Pete Madsen
April 24, 2016

Jeff Gunn plays percussive acoustic guitar.

Video Lesson: Develop a Percussive Approach to Guitar

One of the most exciting developments in acoustic guitar performance in recent years has been an emphasis on percussive elements.

Jeff Gunn
March 10, 2016

Video Lesson: How to Build Speed & Flexibility

Whatever your style, if you work on these etudes diligently, you’ll develop speed, finger independence, and flexibility.

Ron Jackson
February 10, 2016

Enhancing the Alternating Bass with Passing Tones

Passing tones are notes that don’t belong to the chord being played but can be used to add emphasis to chord changes and to create a more contoured bass line.

Alex de Grassi
January 8, 2016

scott nygaard demonstrating melodics on his acoustic guitar

Create New Melodic Lines by Looking at the Five-Note Scale in a Different Way

Create four-note patterns by removing the second step of a minor pentatonic scale.

Scott Nygaard
May 10, 2013

Peppino D’Agostino Talks About his Percussive Techniques, Unusual Alternate Tunings, and the Importance of Melody

Peppino D’Agostino’s approach to guitar incorporates the entire range of modern fingerstyle techniques—from exotic alternate tunings to percussion and two-handed tapping—creating multidimensional layers of sound that often seem impossible to execute on one guitar. But it’s his lyrical, romantic melodies, tinged with slightly exotic harmonies and delivered with a combination of emotion and fiery energy, that catch listeners’ ears and draw them in.

Doug Young
June 15, 2011