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(From the Columbia Chronicle, written by Brett Marlow)
Workers downtown aren’t just going out to grab a bite during lunch; they’ve got their hands on guitars.
For Scott Corley, guitar is on his menu for lunch once a week. Corley, who works at Wideload Games, a video game studio in the West Loop, wanted to learn how to play guitar, but could never find the time. After he started working in the Loop nearly a year-and-a-half ago, he thought he might be able to squeeze in guitar lessons during his lunch breaks. With a day job and two kids at home waiting on dinner and story time each night, it wasn’t impossible to take lessons in the evenings or weekends, just a bit hectic.
Five months ago, Corley found exactly what he was looking for—a guitar instructor who taught lessons to people with busy work schedules.
“This way I can sneak away and do it,” Corley said. “I do my lessons on Fridays, and it’s a nice break from work.”
Corley’s instructor is Jim Lenger, who teaches guitar lessons and runs Guitar Chicago, a professional musical instruction school at 150 N. Michigan Ave., to business professionals, lawyers, and students who have busy schedules but can find a time to come in throughout the day. He also has students like Corley, who come in on their lunch breaks and after work.
Guitar Chicago is in a downtown office building where Lenger has office space geared with a computer, a mixer and other audio equipment where...

(From the Chicago Sun-Times, January 2007 by Mike Thomas)
High above the city, in a bland triangular conference room with grand views of Millennium Park, Lorena Ramos clutches an unplugged Fender electric guitar and earnestly plucks out notes. Now in her third month of lessons at the almost year-old Guitar Chicago, her chops -- honed at home on her own pink Fender -- are gradually improving.
"I've always liked music," Ramos, 37, says later. "I have three boys and they're a little bit older, so I have a little more time. I figured, well, it's now or never. Before I hit 40, I wanted to try and master something."
It won't be easy.
"I never realized how tough [playing guitar] was until I actually did it the first time," says Ramos, who works nearby at the Secretary of State's office and had never played an instrument before. "My fingers would not move, they would not budge. I was aching the first couple of weeks. And he was just very cool about it, letting me know to take my time. I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix."
The "he" to whom she refers is her patient instructor, a good- natured former high school jock named Jim Lenger, who's catering his guitar studio to just such potential players. He's banking on the prime Loop location to lure downtown dwellers who yearn to strum but have little time to venture far from work or school.
A guitarist since childhood, he's acutely aware that playing this alluring but perplexing instrument well or even semi-well takes considerable effort.
"If...

I'm pleased to announce the release of my latest music CD. It is called "Strings of Praise" due to the fact...

Here is a great introductory guitar resource.  These are the five "main guitar...

Yes, distortion is the most popular effect—just look at the amount of stomp boxes that are available. Also, many students look for an amp with built-in distortion. Finally, let’s face it, distortion is one of the sexiest effects out there. However, I’ve noticed that too many students use way too much distortion than is appropriate and they use it all of the time.First of all, there is an appropriate amount of distortion to use and many (if not all) students simply overdo it. They completely saturate their tone feeling that it sounds better. Although it may not sound better at least the student doesn’t sound worse. Meaning: Distortion covers up mistakes.The continuing advances in technology offer players of all levels access to many different sound combinations in stand-alone units or as features in amplifiers. While this is a benefit to everyone involved it is still an issue that should be addressed in teaching sessions and practice rooms.
What’s the problem that...

Tone is the Holy Grail for serious guitar players. Many spend their lives searching for a the sound that clearly defines, inspires, and motivates them. Whether it’s Eddie Van Halen’s famous “brown” sound, Eric Johnson’s creamy distortion, Nile Rodgers single-coil compression, Randy Rhoads’ phased distortion—the list goes on and on—every great guitar player is recognized by not only the notes that they play but how they sound when they play those notes.
It’s All in the HandsMany players, myself included, believe that the sound is in the hands. The way a player holds a pick, strikes the strings and presses those strings against the fretboard may subtly change from instrument to instrument but these somewhat trivial playing aspects carry the guitarist’s fingerprint (sorry for the intentional pun). Simply stated, it doesn’t matter what the guitar and amp combination is, Eddie Van Halen can’t help but sound like Eddie Van Halen.
Why all the gear then?That’s a question I get by young guitarists coming into their own. I’m talking about those that are defining their style and are searching for the sound that they hear in their heads but doesn’t come out of their hands. Usually, these are pretty serious students who have gone from feeling like they know everything to realizing how much they still have to learn. They’re striving for the right tools that will get the job done.They begin by asking questions about the differences from guitar to guitar. Then they change their focus to amps, stomp boxes, strings, picks, etc. The industry makes a fortune on selling the dream that this particular gadget is the magical missing piece between you sounding like a god and not even coming close to sounding like a...

Many students use the term “good” to describe a guitar player. Some will even ask what does it take to become “good.” Others want to make sure that they are on the road to being considered “good” by their peers. So for this article I wanted to address: what makes a guitar player good?It’s a simple enough question that is often asked and I finally found a guideline that provides a succinct point of view that I humbly attribute to the great studio guitarist Michael Thompson. These are the six Ts:
1. Tone
Tone is not only sounding good but making proper gear choices. Our gear speaks volumes (pardon the pun) about us as players. From the way we maintain our guitars, amps and effects to how quickly we dial in the appropriate settings for the situation we happen to be playing in. Also, there is a maturity in the way that we play the notes that goes beyond our gear that is the...

The Tao of Practice © 2009 Dan Sorber. All rights reserved. www.dansorber.com
Just practicing isn’t enough. If you want to see true results in the quickest time possible it’s not about quantity, but quality of the time spent woodshedding (that’s guitar-speak for “practicing”). With the proper focus you can improve in days or weeks what might have taken months or even years. In this article I am going to try my best to outline some guidelines that will help you get the most out of your practicing time. In this, as in any article or lesson I may write, I do not claim to have or know all the answers. Most of this stuff was picked up from my own teachers, method books, articles, magazines, books or my own revelations made in those brief moments of clarity. What you can count on is that this stuff has worked wonders for me as well as my students. An important lesson in life is to take what you learn here, digest it, and experiment with it to the best of your ability… and when you truly understand it in your bones… forget everything I have ever said and just play.
One of the first things that I highly recommend is that improvisation should be a part of everyone’s practice schedule. You need to be able to apply what you’ve learned or else you just spent a lot of time on nothing. So, one of the things I do is at the end of the week, or even at the end of a practice session, I will throw on a jam track and try to apply the ideas and techniques I’ve been working on. Sometimes the results aren’t very pretty, but it definitely gives me a better idea on how to use the stuff I’ve been working on. My teaching style is based around this whole idea and it’s worked very well for my students and improvisation is a great way to work this stuff out after you’ve had some time to absorb it.
Another approach to this idea is to write your own etude, or “a piece composed for the development of a specific point of technique”. Basically it’s taking that exercise and making a short song out of it.
I recommend BOTH of the above ideas, but writing etudes is just extended improvising, so if you had to pick only one (read: lazy) go with improvising. Whatever the case may be, learning the material is only half the battle. You have to able to work what you are learning into your playing style. This came has a pretty heavy revelation to me and was something I didn’t understand until just a few short years ago. I, for the most part, was just practicing what my teachers gave me or working out of method books on topics that interested me. I stunted my own growth because I didn’t take the time to fully digest the material I was working on and many topics and techniques that I spent many hours of practice went quickly out the window when I didn’t try to make music out of it. Use it or lose it, as the saying goes…
The Tao of Practicing …...

Here is a perfect tab I found of We Are Going To Be Friends.  It's a great beginner song and fun for all to...

How To Learn Guitar. (or anything else for that matter)Watch someone who is very good at something, anything. Notice how easy they make it look. Imagine yourself doing that just as well. Is it possible? Can you even imagine it? Would it take the rest of your life to do so? In fact, it is possible to learn that, whatever it is. And, if you do it properly, it doesn't take that long.If you remember and practice these simple rules, you can learn to do anything quickly and easily. Pick something you want to learn. Throw out everything you know about it and start over. Follow these 12 steps. Trust them. In a very short time, you will be doing that thing better than you ever have with less stress.1. Don't take it too seriously. This is the number one rule for a reason. The moment you begin to take the process too seriously, it will become work for you.It will be difficult to get started. Each time after that, it will get more difficult. Learning has a cost. Learning anything requires you to spend attention (focus) on that thing. If the process grows increasingly draining, you will eventually not be able to afford it. Treat what you are learning as Play. Be curious, explore with wonder.Don't take it too seriously.2. Be fed; don't feed. What is the number one cure experts recommend for burn-out? Take up a hobby. Wait! How can doing more things make you less burnt-out? Simple. The hobby feeds the soul. It gives back more than you give to it. Work - and much of life - is the other way around. When you play, watch the way you feel during and afterward. If you feel more stressed, less patient, more anxious, or in any way upset, you are feeding yourself to what you are learning, not being fed by it.3. Take small steps. People ask me, "How do you do that? It looks so hard."Some people will try it once and say, "I can't do that", "I suck",or...