Matthew Iovane

Coming up with a list of the best guitarists of all time can be a challenging task, as it is often quite subjective and taking into consideration that there are many genres to choose from such as blues, jazz, rock, funk and classical. Speaking of classical, the first guitarist that comes to my mind is Andre Segovia. He was known as the "Master of Classical Guitar". Moving from the classical realm to gypsy jazz and flamenco, Paco De Lucia and Django Reinhardt come to mind. I realize that I am jumping around quite a bit (listing the best guitarists is a bit of a stream of consciousness exercise) and I want to cover as many of my favorites here as possible. I was heavily influenced by the jazz fusion guitarists of the seventies and eighties by artists such as Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Steve Morse, John Scofeild, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Alan Holds worth and Scott Henderson. In the straight-ahead jazz world, a few of my favorites are Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, Pat ...

Many people want to be good guitarists. To be clear, when I say "good guitarist" I mean guitar-hero-good, not local-bar-playing-good. However, there are few people out there who actually achieve this level of ability. Certainly, I have not. However, I would still like to comment on what I think makes a good guitarist. It is not the focus of this essay to comment on lightning fast fingers or a solid rhythmic ability. I do not believe that a good guitarist needs to have perfect pitch or supersonic sight reading abilities. My goal is to identify qualities of great guitar players that transcend any stylistic considerations. There are great guitarists in every genre of music and my goal is to identify what they all have in common. The first and probably most important quality of a good guitarist is desire. Whether you are a finger-pickin' country hillbilly or a death metal shredder, you have to want to be a guitarist. A lot of people wish they were guitarists - lik...

Brides-to-be put in countless hours of work to make her upcoming wedding perfect. While these weeks are among the most nerve-wracking period in any woman's life, doing this right can be very rewarding as well. One of the important decisions during this period deals with choosing the right wedding guitarist. To help brides-to-be in the wedding preparation, let us lay down the considerations one must attend to in booking the right wedding guitarist. Type of Guitarists Wedding guitarists uses different types of guitars. The most common are the classical nylon-string guitar and the steel-string guitar. A nylon-string guitar produces a calm and soothing music. Sometimes classical guitars are also called Spanish guitars. Steel-string acoustic guitars, on the other hand, are known for producing music which has a more defined and sharper sound. So how to choose between the two types of guitarists? The answer lies with the types of music you want to be played during your...