Greg Ginn guitar style is one of the most unusual sounds in punk. As the founder and guitarist of Black Flag, he combined relentless downpicked riffs with wild, chromatic solos that owed more to free jazz than to rock and roll….

Chuck Schuldiner riffs shaped an entire genre. As the founder, guitarist and singer of Death, he took the raw speed of thrash, added chromatic darkness and tremolo picking, and later turned it into something melodic and progressive. This post covers his…

Shawn Lane technique is famous for one thing above all: astonishing legato speed that still sounded musical. The Memphis guitarist, pianist and composer played with a flowing, almost liquid style, built from groups of notes rather than single notes, and he…

Elizabeth Cotten picking style is one of the most loved sounds in folk guitar: a steady, rolling bass with a sweet melody floating on top, played by a left handed woman who held a right handed guitar upside down. She wrote…

Grant Green guitar style is jazz guitar played like a saxophone: one note at a time, almost no chords, deep blues feeling and a swing that never lets go. He was the house guitarist at Blue Note Records in the early…

Eddie Hazel guitar style is lead guitar played like a soul singer: slow bends that cry, wide vibrato, long pauses and a wash of fuzz and wah. His ten minute solo on Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain is still one of the most…

Hubert Sumlin guitar technique is the sound of a man who threw away his pick and found his voice: thumb and fingers, sharp lines dropped into the gaps of Howlin’ Wolf’s singing, and hypnotic one chord riffs that British rock players…

Franco Luambo guitar style is the sound at the heart of Congolese rumba: no pick, just a thumb and forefinger plucking two note shapes that bounce around the beat. Franco led OK Jazz, later TPOK Jazz, for more than three decades…

Wilko Johnson was the Dr Feelgood guitarist who made one Telecaster sound like a rhythm player and a lead player at once, with no pick. Learning Wilko Johnson guitar technique means learning a right hand that never stops, a left hand…

Clarence White was a bluegrass flatpicker who, in the words of Guitar World, built the bridge between country and rock on electric guitar in the late 1960s, all before he turned 30. If you want to learn Clarence White guitar technique,…