Alex Graf

Ten years ago I was deep in the world of bebop but I happened to catch Ricky Skaggs at the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance near Ithaca, NY.

Jake Workman was playing in his band at that point, and…

A lot of people misunderstand how to sound "unique" on the guitar.

Developing your own voice on the instrument is worth putting a premium on. But here's the counterintuitive truth: copying other players is a very necessary part of the…

Song memorization is a huge topic in bluegrass — and in jazz, where there's an equally vast repertoire of common tunes and standards. In bluegrass there's a little less harmony to memorize, though this creates its own challenge: so many…

Last week's post covered how there is no one "correct" right hand technique for bluegrass guitar when it comes to bracing, floating, single escape, double escape, and so on. But there is one clarification worth making.

There is only one…

This might be controversial: there is no one "correct" right hand technique for bluegrass guitar.

There are bad habits and un-ergonomic tendencies that can cause issues, but the dogmatic things that come up occasionally in the bluegrass guitar community about…

Not all speed work has to happen with a metronome running the whole time. Here's one approach to fiddle tunes that are really fast — breaking them down phrase by phrase in bursts.

Why This Works

If you're struggling to…

If you want to get good at throwing in some "cool sounding chords" on a simple bluegrass tune, there are three concepts that will get you very far in this chord world — all rooted in the approach of Eldon…

How do I play faster? It's the never-ending athletic question about flatpicking.

There are specifics worth knowing — pick angle, right hand technique, double escape vs. single escape, left hand efficiency, hammer-ons and pull-offs. But really, it comes down to…

Learning to improvise is a really complex subject, and the truth is: there is no one way to go about it. But having a framework — a set of categories to draw from — can help you remember what you…

So many top-tier musicians share one thing in common: they have spent a lot of time on the basics, the fundamentals. Focusing on the "simple stuff" is crucial — and it can be a secret weapon that allows you to…