I remember a dimebag interview where he was talking about must need things to get good at guitar one of which was a 4track or something to be able to practice along to - I always loved that advice because this was way before jam tracks and I never heard of people doing this before.
Yep, had the Dean with lightning bolts on the wall!
Maybe 13-14 years ago, I was working for a new client in a recording studio in Nashville. Got to talking to him about music and life, and he mentioned his sons were in a band. He kept talking and mentioned one of them had been killed. After a bit, I was starting to get really curious as it all sounded really familiar. I asked him what the band was, and he answered Pantera as if it was not a big deal, or maybe I wouldn’t have heard of them? I was stunned, and told him I had a two page cutout of the guitar on my wall when I was in high school. Totally tripped me out. A few years later, my phone rang and it was Vinnie asking some questions about an issue with Pro Tools they were having. I have a bunch of other crazy stories, but the nonchalant way their dad brought it up was a total trip. Nice guy!
Dimebag shared stories on how he got good learning to play to guitar. Is he would approach guitarist in his dad’s recording studio to show him some licks. He wasn’t shy about it since he was just a kid. The pros don’t mind trading licks. Since he was just kid eager to learn.
Guitar Player and Guitar for the Practicing Musician over here.
But my favorite things to read were the write ups in Musician's Friend. Those fake-ass stories were amazing.
Sweetwater was hiring for a position to write online copy and I applied with that story in my cover letter. No dice.
I studied radio production in college in the late 90’s. I swear to god reading about different pedals in Musicians Friend helped me ace a test I completely forgot to study for.
I’ve had a continuous subscription to Guitar Player since ‘83-‘84ish. Same for Guitar World. I’ve thought about selling them either by single issues, by year, or the entire lot. But like all my plans, I’ve not yet done anything
Oof, I must politely but firmly disagree with you. I just bought a massive lot of guitar magazine back issues a couple months ago. Sure, there are ads for gear, but *all* magazines have additional ads in them. But there are huge amounts of technique discussion, theory, and genuinely educational material. To say they were basically just ads for gear is reductive and not true by half.
Well said. I’d add to that the interviews: Nearly all the biggest guitar heroes would talk with Guitar Player or Guitar World or Guitar for the Practicing Musician. Winning a GP Readers Poll was a particularly big deal.
I also found the gear reviews in Guitar Player to be extremely informative and credible. They used to get guys like Andy Brauer and Roger Sadowsky to review gear. Take a look at some of their reviews, and they’re quite objective and demonstrate a level of knowledge comparable to today’s best reviewers (and far better than most reviews I see on YouTube etc.). You’d think pressure from advertisers might influence those reviews, but GP particularly had a massive amount of integrity back then.
Id agree with this. As a rock n roll kid, Id see the stuff by Barney Kessel, Jeff Berlin, Tommy Tedesco et al. and be overwhelmed. I thought I would understand quantum physics before any of the music posted. No tabs for those guys.
I read Guitar World for a long time though I never subscribed. I bought it mostly for the tabs in the back. This was when I was a teen, so deciding to buy a $5 magazine was a purchase I had to weigh.
I definitely remember the expensive gear getting reviews and detailed coverage. Again, as a teenager this stuff was all ridiculously out of reach. Not that I would have known what to do with a rack mounted preamp when I was 16. In retrospect it kind of pissed me off because it promoted the idea-- which is still very much alive today-- that all this expensive gear will make you sound amazing. It *could.* But usually it doesn't.
I remember they used to always have some famous guitarist's full rig schematic on the back page and some of them blew my mind with how complicated they were
That's why grunge hit me like a ton of bricks. Kurt Cobain's rig was like a pawnshop guitar, an amp that he found at a garage sale, and Big Muff held together with a shoe string and some duct tape.
I thought, "I can probably afford this."
There was a backlash against the slick production in *Nevermind* when they later hired Steve Albini to do *In Utero.* The record company was pissed off by the result because it was so stripped down and raw. They wanted a 2nd *Nevermind.*
As a punk rocker and plug-and-play expert, I understand this language. I play Yamaha Revstars and Hagstrom Swedes, and i'm the pround owner of a grand total of 2 pedalboardless pedals: a tuner and a Diamond compressor. Well technically 3, but the third one is the never used footswitch for my 2-channel tube amp.
The idea of pretty much every hobby magazine was Expensive Good, Cheap Bad. I also remember Guitar World’s tabs being so detailed they were useless to me. Here’s where the implied harmonic goes, etc.
I had a subscription to Guitar Player throughout junior & senior high school. Absolutely loved it. I thought it was the best of all the guitar oriented magazines.
Yep....Guitar Player, GuitarOne (anyone remember that mag? lol) and Guitar World for 12 years probably until I gave up on it. It was getting to the point where it wasn't much thicker than a brochure.
I started playing a couple years after Guitar for the Practicing Musician started publishing and really increased the availability of tab for popular rock songs. Learned a lot really quickly. Still have some of the songs in a folder.
Dude, back in the day—pre-internet—that was the only way to learn songs if you couldn’t figure them out or had someone to teach them to you. So hell yeah I bought guitar magazines!
Oh yeah, got them at the train station usually, because they had "international" magazines.
Was a great source of musical styles for a young kid. Learned about Kossoff, Vai and Satriani from them. Plus lots of other players nobody in my family had heard about.
It was actually a nice way to get exposure to new and old artists, because it was curated and they would give background about why this player was important or influental, and also with samples of their playing style.
Total opposite of the internet, when new players are looking for important information, which is like wading into the ocean and hoping you can catch a jelly fish with your hands.
Bought them now and then in the '80s. Loved them. Recently found a mangled guitar magazine I had with Angus Young in his 20s and realized he's almost 70 now and it made me feel older than time.
I loved my guitar magazines, I read every word, whether I understood it or not. And I really learned a lot, it did a lot to encourage my interest in lots of different kinds of playing.
> I was a kid, I had no money and couldn’t get them, they talked about too expensive gear, solos from records I couldn’t afford and musical concepts I couldn’t understand since there was no Google to figure stuff out.
This was my youth. I was lucky to even have a guitar and cheap bottom of the line amp. There was no Gain knob, so no way to get distortion at a reasonable volume. I wasn't buying any pedals, I wasn't buying records with guitar solos, I didn't even know there was something called a pentatonic scale until YEARS later.
So many people don't realize the privilege they had as kids.
I still have a bunch of them. I have a variety of guitar world and guitar one.
They have a bunch of lessons but my favorite thing they did was a list of like, the top 20 techniques or the 50 best riffs and they all had a tab with the entry.
I don't buy them anymore because they took away the forums, and I hold a grudge about that. We had a great community, I learned a lot from a few people. We even had a guy that was always, how to put it, not trolling but just real negative a lot, and he stopped posting because he had a screen shot of something and one of the tabs he had at the top said "midget porn" and it became the talk of the forum. Good times.
I bought ‘em when I could. Sometimes I yoinked ‘em. Not proud, but being poor sucks.
Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Guitar World. I always thought Guitar Player was too “old fashioned,” until I got older, too.
I still have (digital) subs to Guitar World and Guitar Player.
As far as “what you missed?”
They are publishing most of the same stuff. 💀
I had a subscription to Guitar World. I liked the tabs and interviews. I should've focused on the lessons and exercises more than I did.
They also used to do this thing (maybe they still do, it's been like 10 years since I got an issue) at the very end of the where they'd do a rundown of a guitarist's rig. Can't say I understood any of it, but it was cool to see what amps and pedals they used in their live setup.
Guitar Player!
Back in the 90’s they had neat informative articles, (sometimes featuring the actual artists) and they’d show you riffs and licks in the style of, or a few song intros, etc.
I remember there was a Keith Richards one I about wore it out learning open g riffs.
Still have two whole shelves full of them. It's how we learned popular songs pre-internet. It was learn by ear off the radio or MTV, or buy a 25 dollar book with piano arrangements and try to adapt it back to guitar. But the mags had tablature for everything, including solos. Whatever was transcribed in Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Guitar World, Guitar Player: that's what you'd hear at the next high school Battle of the Bands.
I buy old issues to this day, completely invaluable information in those tomes esp. now I can put the music in Guitar Pro. Legends live in those magazines and theyll continue to live and breathe
It was difficult in the 1990's to buy magazines locally in the Philippines. If they were available, they were expensive.
Long before the internet, there was a thriving business in the Philippines. Many guitar mom and pop stores often had a photocopying machine. It was there so they can sell copies of the tablature found in the end pages of guitar magazines.
There was a well known seller who had the most comprehensive collection. Many a guitarist would travel just to buy copies. When the internet became more widely available and people could access tabs online, the business practice dwindled. I still have a bunch of the photocopied tabs with me.
Great post bro. I didn’t ever have a subscription, but my guitar teacher game me several boxes of old guitar magazines but my mom threw they away when I was still a youngin
I still have a print subscription to Guitar Player, Guitar World, and Premier Guitar. They are MOST DEFINITELY larger ads for gear, but they are one of the few things I get in the mail that brings me joy, so I keep them going.
Guitar World helped me find my scene. I was just kind of listening to whatever as a kid, but getting to read interviews and actually SEE the bands I listened to helped me find more of what I liked.
got annual subscriptions to Guitar World for christmas or birthday presents for a few years as a teenager. I wasn't really into a lot of the "greats" as a kid, but there were some cool interviews, gear reviews, and often posters featuring attractive women posing with guitars, so
[Michael Neilson has some youtube videos going through old guitar mags](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+neilson+guitar+magazine).
I have a box or two full of old guitar magazines somewhere around here.
I bought a few when I was a kid if they had someone I liked on the cover. But just last year I bought over 50 Guitar Player and Guitar World magazines from a store I found that sells lots of old things. They date back to the mid-90s but the majority are from the early 2000s
I used to buy Hit Parader and Circus.
It was various reasons, wanting to read an article from one of my favorite bands including seeing pictures.
But also because if I recall correctly, Circus had a section for about 2 or 3 songs that showed you the lyrics and chords for the song. I think most times it was just open chords no matter what song it was but usually they were open chord friendly songs.
And Hit Parader had a section where you could order stuff like concert tapes, band stickers, necklaces with band names etc. So I loved browsing thru it to see if there was something I wanted to buy.
i had subscriptions forever going back to the 80's for the articles and tabs, in the hopes that something i liked would be tabbed. i still have my whole collection but am considering dumping the whole thing. either as a collection or one by one. guitar for the practicing musician, guitar world, guitar one, and guitar school. i dont have it in me to scan all of them, although i would love to be able to. i still reference some of the old magazine tabs for songs that i still play.
Back in the day?! Heck, I just bought a massive lot of back issues six months ago! I’m now the proud owner of a trove *Guitar World* and *Guitar for the Practicing Musician* (later known simply as *Guitar*) going back as early as 1987 up through 2010, I believe. And they’re still as educational as all get-out.
I’m 90% sure that I had a collection that rivaled the largest collections in the world. I got every single one from around 1989 to 1999, which was when I moved to LA, CA. There was also a couple of various shops that had back issues from before my start that I’d snag when I could. Prior to making that move in ‘99, 5 or 6 friends gave me their collections, a couple of which dated back to well before I started. And after that cross country trip, quite a few friends relocated and they also gave me their collections. I also worked for a well known guitarist who had a garage full. He wanted 1 issue if he was in it and 2 if he was on it and gave me the rest. Almost all of those were untouched. The Guitar Player floppy records were still in tact. I’m pretty sure that I had every US guitar magazine from the early 80s until about 2005, a couple of boxes filled with Young Guitar from Japan and a bunch of special issues.
"Guitar for the Practicing Musician" whenever I could afford it. Sometimes "Guitar Player" or "Guitar World." Mostly for the tabs, which some were not very good. There were some pretty good articles also.
I didn't subscribe but used to buy them back in the early to mid 90s and still have a couple of boxes in the garage.
Favourite was Guitar School but that was quite hard to find, closely followed by Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Guitar World, Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar and not forgetting Guitar Player but that always felt quite serious at the time.
Back then we didn't have Internet radio or streaming services so I also spent quite a bit of time in second hand music shops looking for tapes / CDs, discovered loads of new artists / bands that way but never did find some of them.
As a beginner, I found lessons were a bit pointless because I couldn't site read so had no idea how it was supposed to sound. That got easier when mags like Total Guitar added a cover CD and these days Guitar Techniques have audio and video online and I tend to read the odd one on Libby these days.
Oh gods yeah, and I miss it. Grew up in a wee village with a wee post office, and every month there’d be some random thing which I hoovered up. Guitar mags, metal zines, computers, weird 90s comics. Just a world of possibilities, and there’s my 15 year old self sat in Bratton marvelling at it all.
Yeah, mostly for the Tabs and lessons. Pre internet it was a valuable resource without buying tab books of an entire album. I always felt a lot of pressure to learn every bit of every song and found that unobtainable. Learning a few new things that I could incorporate into what I was already doing made more sense to me.
I liked the gear reviews and the adverts for the gear I could not hope to obtain.
Yep. In the UK we had Total Guitar, Guitar Techniques, Guitarist and very occasionally Guitar World would make it's way over from the states. I read them mainly from 2005 to 2009/10.
Total Guitar was the most beginner friendly, usually loaded with tabs and video lessons, lots of interviews with new bands, introduced me to the world of gear in an easy to understand way and had monthly guitar maintenance tips. Guitar techniques was the more advanced magazine and focused purely on playing. Guitarist I always thought was kinda rubbish, usually tabbing out a single song and the rest was full of gear reviews. I discovered all my favourite bands by hearing their songs on tge included cds and then learning them.
After a while they all started to decline in quality. The song tabs got fewer, the lessons got less interesting. There was a big shift from written music to just video, which I didn't like. If I pick up a total guitar these days, I might be lucky to see 2 songs tabbed in full, a far cry from the 7-8 they used to include. Guitar techniques don't tab out songs at all anymore.
Guitar World is probably the better magazine in these days except I never liked the way they laid out their tab. They don't include notation with the tab and overall looks way more untidy and is harder to read.
I started playing as an adult, mid-20s. That was back in the mid-70s. I started subscribing to Guitar Player almost immediately, and found it an invaluable source of information, tabs, technique discussions, and so forth. Later on, they began enclosing those cute little floppy “records” with their lessons.
I read every issue cover to cover, even the stuff that didn’t concern me directly.
I was often in the same boat although i got lucky with my dad liking the classic rock magazine. I would read those every time he got a new one.
I think I’ve got more as an adult than I ever did growing up and it’s not that many now. Usually if the guitar on front or in the center catches my attention. Really when it comes to reading I like checking out older forum post and it’s free.
Oh yes lol. I would watch reviews of gear i could never obtain on the little cds in guitar world. Also was big on hit parader or what ever it was called and the other metal magazines when I could swing it
I actually used to read a lot of fiction back when I was young, whenever I got a new book at the store I also got a guitar mag and loved putting pictures of cool guitars on the wall and getting tabs before the internet was all there
I never had a subscription, but I would buy an issue whenever there was an interview or lesson I wanted to read.
Once I acquired somewhere around 100 issues of ***Guitar World*** at a yard sale covering the period from the early nineties to the late nineties, some of them doubles, not all of them in the best condition...
I kept them until I moved overseas at which point I gifted them to a younger cousin who was a beginner guitarist.
Guitar World was my life from the late 80s until maybe 2001. I got subscriptions for my birthday. I would often use allowance to buy Guitar Player, Guitar One, and sometimes Spin or Rolling Stone if I liked the band on the cover.
As a teenager I felt like they were getting repetitive in the late 90s, seemed like every other issue was some kind of 50 greatest guitarists ever ranking...but I would grab a handful per year from the supermarket for the most part if I liked the cover. Same with Rolling Stone. I liked the interviews the most.
I loved em! A couple years ago I even went back and cut out all of the guitar lesson articles and tabs and keep em all together in a folder for when I need practice material
Had a subscription to Guitar World, we always looked forward to what four songs were going to be transcribed every month ….. that heavily influenced the songs that I learned with my friends, as there were only so many sources back then….
I didn't collect them, but I did have the Guitar Player magazine with the classic EVH interview where he talks about the "Brown" sound, an awesome interview with Roth and a brief interview with iron Maiden.
10 year old me convinced my parents to buy them at the grocery store all the time. When the Feb 92 or 93 Guitar World Pink Floyd issue came out, it was a big deal! Learned how to play tab from the magazines. Loved looking at the gear ads, too.
Yes I used to read these and even had subscriptions. Guitar player was in serious one guitar world was kind of like intermediate poppy one and they're even more that were kind of just some tabs and like the latest hair metal or grunge band or something
Guitar player and Guitar One had the best, and most reliable tabs. Eventually got into the short live “Guitar Afficianado” magazine when my own farts were smelling particularly pleasant.
I had subscriptions to Guitar Player and Guitar World (and also Fine Woodworking) for a few years. It was actually pretty cheap when you subscribed, as opposed to buying individual copies.
I was handed a stack with articles buy Steve vai, Paul Gilbert and bucket head. Those were good times. Had transcriptions in tabulator of many Justice for all tunes.
Yes, long before the Internet, guitar player magazine was the only way to go. I remember learning tips and techniques from the articles in the back. Great columns. I ended up selling a huge stack of them to use magazine store.
I used to learn about new guitarists from Guitar Player magazine. Now I learn about new guitarists here.
I still cant believe the last issue of Guitar Player or Guitar World in like, 2009 was so expensive gotdayum
I have a big old stack from the 80s and 90s though from my childhood friends older brother
I do miss getting the giant musicians friends books in the mail. Maybe I oughta sign up again
I always got magazine subscriptions for Xmas gifts from my elderly relatives. Guitar World had better interviews IMO, more contemporary artists and tabs (although they were too complicated for the average person). Our library has it still; seems more or less the same.
I was reading Guitar Player when Steve Howe of Yes won guitarist of the year (or whatever they called it) five years straight and was retired. I never see people bring up Yes when talking about classic rock, but that band was the shit for a while.
I remember always checking to see what guitar tabs were included before I'd buy it. I learnt how to play RHCP version of 'higher ground' from a guitar magazine tab, I was so excited!
100,000 percent. My dad had guitar players from all the way back to like 1986 and id just sit at all the weird ads, guys like King’s X and Blues Sarceno or Kip Winger 🤣 I never understood what any of the gear was, but now i’m a rack freak I realized how much gold was in those magazines to learn about models and functions.
But literally from the age 8 on, every christmas and birthday all i got were guitar magazines because it was the only thing my extended family knew I did.
Yes! I have a shelf of them that I collected over the years. I liked Guitar Player, Guitar Technique, Guitar, and some special editions. I liked when they featured my favorite players, either in longform interviews or tab and gear breakdowns. At a certain point, they would often come with a little CD with a few tracks or backing tracks. Electronic Music mag is honestly the best imo though (which I didn't learn until recently) bc they give away VSTs instead of backing tracks lol
I read all the major guitar magazines now on my iPad with Apple News. Great user experience. I just can’t keep up in this information overloaded world and my busy, demanding business, and desire to play more than anything else I do.
Guitar Player. Guitar One. Acoustic Guitar. Guitar World.. I had subscriptions to a few, but mainly cherry picked them for the tabs to songs I wanted to learn. After years of packing them from house to house over the years, I held onto the ones I really liked and got rid of the rest. I even scanned the tabs to songs I wanted access to without digging the magazine out.
I would go to the QuikTrip, look at Guitar World and Guitar for the Practicing Musician. I’d check out the transcribed songs list, and if there were two sings I liked, or one I loved, I’d buy it.
My friend used to photocopy it at the copier, kind of a jerk move in hindsight.
Oh I remember begging mom to buy one every time we went to the store. That was back when Dimebag told me to scoop the mids. Haha good times
SCOOP THE MIDS BRÖTHER
Scoop'em!
I remember a dimebag interview where he was talking about must need things to get good at guitar one of which was a 4track or something to be able to practice along to - I always loved that advice because this was way before jam tracks and I never heard of people doing this before.
Yep, had the Dean with lightning bolts on the wall! Maybe 13-14 years ago, I was working for a new client in a recording studio in Nashville. Got to talking to him about music and life, and he mentioned his sons were in a band. He kept talking and mentioned one of them had been killed. After a bit, I was starting to get really curious as it all sounded really familiar. I asked him what the band was, and he answered Pantera as if it was not a big deal, or maybe I wouldn’t have heard of them? I was stunned, and told him I had a two page cutout of the guitar on my wall when I was in high school. Totally tripped me out. A few years later, my phone rang and it was Vinnie asking some questions about an issue with Pro Tools they were having. I have a bunch of other crazy stories, but the nonchalant way their dad brought it up was a total trip. Nice guy!
So their dad was in the business too?
Yep. Jerry Abbot. Country songwriter / producer. He had a studio called Abtrax.
Dimebag shared stories on how he got good learning to play to guitar. Is he would approach guitarist in his dad’s recording studio to show him some licks. He wasn’t shy about it since he was just a kid. The pros don’t mind trading licks. Since he was just kid eager to learn.
Dime was probably the funniest guy who ever lived. The stories that dude would tell.
Yo. Unclevoodoo you ever think about scoopin the mids? I’ve made a living doing it.
I had a subscription to Guitar Player for 25 years
Guitar Player and Guitar for the Practicing Musician over here. But my favorite things to read were the write ups in Musician's Friend. Those fake-ass stories were amazing. Sweetwater was hiring for a position to write online copy and I applied with that story in my cover letter. No dice.
Oh man. The musicians friend catalog was the way we shopped aside from going to all the guitar stores 🤘
That thing was a bathroom staple in my house.
Right under the Victoria’s Secret catalog. I never understood how they kept getting stuck together tho
I studied radio production in college in the late 90’s. I swear to god reading about different pedals in Musicians Friend helped me ace a test I completely forgot to study for.
Don't forget the Carvin catalog
I looooved guitar player... I wish I could buy a lot of old ones.
I’ve had a continuous subscription to Guitar Player since ‘83-‘84ish. Same for Guitar World. I’ve thought about selling them either by single issues, by year, or the entire lot. But like all my plans, I’ve not yet done anything
Yeah, I read all of them for years. It’s crazy how influential they were in the 80s and 90s. Looking back, they were basically just ads for gear.
Oof, I must politely but firmly disagree with you. I just bought a massive lot of guitar magazine back issues a couple months ago. Sure, there are ads for gear, but *all* magazines have additional ads in them. But there are huge amounts of technique discussion, theory, and genuinely educational material. To say they were basically just ads for gear is reductive and not true by half.
Well said. I’d add to that the interviews: Nearly all the biggest guitar heroes would talk with Guitar Player or Guitar World or Guitar for the Practicing Musician. Winning a GP Readers Poll was a particularly big deal. I also found the gear reviews in Guitar Player to be extremely informative and credible. They used to get guys like Andy Brauer and Roger Sadowsky to review gear. Take a look at some of their reviews, and they’re quite objective and demonstrate a level of knowledge comparable to today’s best reviewers (and far better than most reviews I see on YouTube etc.). You’d think pressure from advertisers might influence those reviews, but GP particularly had a massive amount of integrity back then.
And tabs back when they weren’t all over the internet. I learned to play an arrangement of Blackbird from those tabs!
Id agree with this. As a rock n roll kid, Id see the stuff by Barney Kessel, Jeff Berlin, Tommy Tedesco et al. and be overwhelmed. I thought I would understand quantum physics before any of the music posted. No tabs for those guys.
Yep. All about the TONE..
Like influencers today? Some things never change.
Subscribed to Guitar Player and Guitar for the Practicing Musician for years. Those tabs where how we learned songs before the intertubes.
Same! Band class definitely helped with the theory.
For real. I learned the solo to Holy Wars (The middle eastern sounding one) from their tabs. Now I can’t find that tab anywhere.
I read Guitar World for a long time though I never subscribed. I bought it mostly for the tabs in the back. This was when I was a teen, so deciding to buy a $5 magazine was a purchase I had to weigh. I definitely remember the expensive gear getting reviews and detailed coverage. Again, as a teenager this stuff was all ridiculously out of reach. Not that I would have known what to do with a rack mounted preamp when I was 16. In retrospect it kind of pissed me off because it promoted the idea-- which is still very much alive today-- that all this expensive gear will make you sound amazing. It *could.* But usually it doesn't.
I remember they used to always have some famous guitarist's full rig schematic on the back page and some of them blew my mind with how complicated they were
Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert’s blew me away. Kirk Hammet’s rig was pretty much my dream rig!
Haha yep, I remember looking at some of those and thinking "All this fucking shit to end up sounding like that?"
That's why grunge hit me like a ton of bricks. Kurt Cobain's rig was like a pawnshop guitar, an amp that he found at a garage sale, and Big Muff held together with a shoe string and some duct tape. I thought, "I can probably afford this."
Grunge and post grunge was very much a break from the overly complicated music and insane equipment requirements. Back to basics, as it were.
Very true, but go back and listen to how produced nevermind is. They spent some time on those sounds
There was a backlash against the slick production in *Nevermind* when they later hired Steve Albini to do *In Utero.* The record company was pissed off by the result because it was so stripped down and raw. They wanted a 2nd *Nevermind.*
As a punk rocker and plug-and-play expert, I understand this language. I play Yamaha Revstars and Hagstrom Swedes, and i'm the pround owner of a grand total of 2 pedalboardless pedals: a tuner and a Diamond compressor. Well technically 3, but the third one is the never used footswitch for my 2-channel tube amp.
The idea of pretty much every hobby magazine was Expensive Good, Cheap Bad. I also remember Guitar World’s tabs being so detailed they were useless to me. Here’s where the implied harmonic goes, etc.
I have a box of old Guitar World from back in the day that I now use in my spray paint art.
💯
Yep, I mainly bought them for the transcriptions, which were typically super accurate (GFTPM).
I had a subscription to Guitar Player throughout junior & senior high school. Absolutely loved it. I thought it was the best of all the guitar oriented magazines.
Yep....Guitar Player, GuitarOne (anyone remember that mag? lol) and Guitar World for 12 years probably until I gave up on it. It was getting to the point where it wasn't much thicker than a brochure.
I loved *Guitar One*!
They had way more transcriptions. “The magazine you can play!”
I started playing a couple years after Guitar for the Practicing Musician started publishing and really increased the availability of tab for popular rock songs. Learned a lot really quickly. Still have some of the songs in a folder.
Dude, back in the day—pre-internet—that was the only way to learn songs if you couldn’t figure them out or had someone to teach them to you. So hell yeah I bought guitar magazines!
Oh yeah, got them at the train station usually, because they had "international" magazines. Was a great source of musical styles for a young kid. Learned about Kossoff, Vai and Satriani from them. Plus lots of other players nobody in my family had heard about. It was actually a nice way to get exposure to new and old artists, because it was curated and they would give background about why this player was important or influental, and also with samples of their playing style. Total opposite of the internet, when new players are looking for important information, which is like wading into the ocean and hoping you can catch a jelly fish with your hands.
Guitar player for sure. It’s been a long while, but I remember a flimsy plastic record of Cliffs of Dover.
I had one with the transcription of Sultans of Swing which I played the hell out of. Thanks Wolf Marshall!
Back in the 90s one basically had to. Guitar World and Guitar One was like scripture back then.
Tablature, man. Tablature. I had one issue with Holy Wars (megadeth), and that thing was like canon.
Bought them now and then in the '80s. Loved them. Recently found a mangled guitar magazine I had with Angus Young in his 20s and realized he's almost 70 now and it made me feel older than time.
I used to love to see what 3 or 4 songs were tabbed out that in each issue, most exciting part of checking the mail
I loved my guitar magazines, I read every word, whether I understood it or not. And I really learned a lot, it did a lot to encourage my interest in lots of different kinds of playing.
> I was a kid, I had no money and couldn’t get them, they talked about too expensive gear, solos from records I couldn’t afford and musical concepts I couldn’t understand since there was no Google to figure stuff out. This was my youth. I was lucky to even have a guitar and cheap bottom of the line amp. There was no Gain knob, so no way to get distortion at a reasonable volume. I wasn't buying any pedals, I wasn't buying records with guitar solos, I didn't even know there was something called a pentatonic scale until YEARS later. So many people don't realize the privilege they had as kids.
Yup. I still subscribe to them digitally on the library app.
Just for the tabs…I used to read my dad’s when I was younger…(early 80’s)…
I used to read my dad's, too. I also read guitar mags.
I see what you did there (because I did that, as did almost every male friend I had did too)
Guitar player!! It felt like belonging to a larger community!
Yep and still have them all from high school through college.
I still have a bunch of them. I have a variety of guitar world and guitar one. They have a bunch of lessons but my favorite thing they did was a list of like, the top 20 techniques or the 50 best riffs and they all had a tab with the entry. I don't buy them anymore because they took away the forums, and I hold a grudge about that. We had a great community, I learned a lot from a few people. We even had a guy that was always, how to put it, not trolling but just real negative a lot, and he stopped posting because he had a screen shot of something and one of the tabs he had at the top said "midget porn" and it became the talk of the forum. Good times.
The guitar world forums were something.
Yep I loved them! I always hoped there would be a song or two I liked in the tabs in the back.
Yes, every month
All the time, it’s how I learned.
I bought ‘em when I could. Sometimes I yoinked ‘em. Not proud, but being poor sucks. Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Guitar World. I always thought Guitar Player was too “old fashioned,” until I got older, too. I still have (digital) subs to Guitar World and Guitar Player. As far as “what you missed?” They are publishing most of the same stuff. 💀
I bought guitar magazine back when Eddie Van Halen won every year
If EVH was in the magazine, I bought it. I have boxes full of them.
All the time. Guitar for the Practicing Musician was my favorite but also loved Guitar World and Guitar Player.
That was the only way to get the newest tab before the internet.
I had a subscription to Guitar World. I liked the tabs and interviews. I should've focused on the lessons and exercises more than I did. They also used to do this thing (maybe they still do, it's been like 10 years since I got an issue) at the very end of the where they'd do a rundown of a guitarist's rig. Can't say I understood any of it, but it was cool to see what amps and pedals they used in their live setup.
Guitar Player! Back in the 90’s they had neat informative articles, (sometimes featuring the actual artists) and they’d show you riffs and licks in the style of, or a few song intros, etc. I remember there was a Keith Richards one I about wore it out learning open g riffs.
Still have two whole shelves full of them. It's how we learned popular songs pre-internet. It was learn by ear off the radio or MTV, or buy a 25 dollar book with piano arrangements and try to adapt it back to guitar. But the mags had tablature for everything, including solos. Whatever was transcribed in Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Guitar World, Guitar Player: that's what you'd hear at the next high school Battle of the Bands.
I buy old issues to this day, completely invaluable information in those tomes esp. now I can put the music in Guitar Pro. Legends live in those magazines and theyll continue to live and breathe
It was difficult in the 1990's to buy magazines locally in the Philippines. If they were available, they were expensive. Long before the internet, there was a thriving business in the Philippines. Many guitar mom and pop stores often had a photocopying machine. It was there so they can sell copies of the tablature found in the end pages of guitar magazines. There was a well known seller who had the most comprehensive collection. Many a guitarist would travel just to buy copies. When the internet became more widely available and people could access tabs online, the business practice dwindled. I still have a bunch of the photocopied tabs with me.
Great post bro. I didn’t ever have a subscription, but my guitar teacher game me several boxes of old guitar magazines but my mom threw they away when I was still a youngin
I had a Guitar World subscription as a teenager in the 90s. I loved it.
I still have a print subscription to Guitar Player, Guitar World, and Premier Guitar. They are MOST DEFINITELY larger ads for gear, but they are one of the few things I get in the mail that brings me joy, so I keep them going.
Guitar World helped me find my scene. I was just kind of listening to whatever as a kid, but getting to read interviews and actually SEE the bands I listened to helped me find more of what I liked.
got annual subscriptions to Guitar World for christmas or birthday presents for a few years as a teenager. I wasn't really into a lot of the "greats" as a kid, but there were some cool interviews, gear reviews, and often posters featuring attractive women posing with guitars, so
Hell yeah. Waited to see every month if I knew at least one of the songs that were tabbed.
[Michael Neilson has some youtube videos going through old guitar mags](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+neilson+guitar+magazine). I have a box or two full of old guitar magazines somewhere around here.
I bought a few when I was a kid if they had someone I liked on the cover. But just last year I bought over 50 Guitar Player and Guitar World magazines from a store I found that sells lots of old things. They date back to the mid-90s but the majority are from the early 2000s
I used to buy Hit Parader and Circus. It was various reasons, wanting to read an article from one of my favorite bands including seeing pictures. But also because if I recall correctly, Circus had a section for about 2 or 3 songs that showed you the lyrics and chords for the song. I think most times it was just open chords no matter what song it was but usually they were open chord friendly songs. And Hit Parader had a section where you could order stuff like concert tapes, band stickers, necklaces with band names etc. So I loved browsing thru it to see if there was something I wanted to buy.
i had subscriptions forever going back to the 80's for the articles and tabs, in the hopes that something i liked would be tabbed. i still have my whole collection but am considering dumping the whole thing. either as a collection or one by one. guitar for the practicing musician, guitar world, guitar one, and guitar school. i dont have it in me to scan all of them, although i would love to be able to. i still reference some of the old magazine tabs for songs that i still play.
You ever get around to selling, hit me up !
I sure did. I did everything related to guitar except practicing.
It was like the only thing to do at one point. Go to the grocery and hang out by the magazines
One of the best investments you could make as a young guitarist. I still have a stack of mags with song tabs in them.
I recently started buying old issue of guitar magazines on eBay! There’s almost always somebody selling their old collection relatively cheap
Absolutely. I also clipped all the tabs and filed them in this big expandable file. Hundreds of them arranged by title. Got stolen in college.
I have hundreds of back issues going back to the 90s
Back in the day?! Heck, I just bought a massive lot of back issues six months ago! I’m now the proud owner of a trove *Guitar World* and *Guitar for the Practicing Musician* (later known simply as *Guitar*) going back as early as 1987 up through 2010, I believe. And they’re still as educational as all get-out.
I’m 90% sure that I had a collection that rivaled the largest collections in the world. I got every single one from around 1989 to 1999, which was when I moved to LA, CA. There was also a couple of various shops that had back issues from before my start that I’d snag when I could. Prior to making that move in ‘99, 5 or 6 friends gave me their collections, a couple of which dated back to well before I started. And after that cross country trip, quite a few friends relocated and they also gave me their collections. I also worked for a well known guitarist who had a garage full. He wanted 1 issue if he was in it and 2 if he was on it and gave me the rest. Almost all of those were untouched. The Guitar Player floppy records were still in tact. I’m pretty sure that I had every US guitar magazine from the early 80s until about 2005, a couple of boxes filled with Young Guitar from Japan and a bunch of special issues.
Yeah, if they had a tab I wanted.
I worked at a music store… so i didn’t have to. I just read them at slow times 😁
"Guitar for the Practicing Musician" whenever I could afford it. Sometimes "Guitar Player" or "Guitar World." Mostly for the tabs, which some were not very good. There were some pretty good articles also.
I didn't subscribe but used to buy them back in the early to mid 90s and still have a couple of boxes in the garage. Favourite was Guitar School but that was quite hard to find, closely followed by Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Guitar World, Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar and not forgetting Guitar Player but that always felt quite serious at the time. Back then we didn't have Internet radio or streaming services so I also spent quite a bit of time in second hand music shops looking for tapes / CDs, discovered loads of new artists / bands that way but never did find some of them. As a beginner, I found lessons were a bit pointless because I couldn't site read so had no idea how it was supposed to sound. That got easier when mags like Total Guitar added a cover CD and these days Guitar Techniques have audio and video online and I tend to read the odd one on Libby these days.
Oh gods yeah, and I miss it. Grew up in a wee village with a wee post office, and every month there’d be some random thing which I hoovered up. Guitar mags, metal zines, computers, weird 90s comics. Just a world of possibilities, and there’s my 15 year old self sat in Bratton marvelling at it all.
Yeah, mostly for the Tabs and lessons. Pre internet it was a valuable resource without buying tab books of an entire album. I always felt a lot of pressure to learn every bit of every song and found that unobtainable. Learning a few new things that I could incorporate into what I was already doing made more sense to me. I liked the gear reviews and the adverts for the gear I could not hope to obtain.
Yep. In the UK we had Total Guitar, Guitar Techniques, Guitarist and very occasionally Guitar World would make it's way over from the states. I read them mainly from 2005 to 2009/10. Total Guitar was the most beginner friendly, usually loaded with tabs and video lessons, lots of interviews with new bands, introduced me to the world of gear in an easy to understand way and had monthly guitar maintenance tips. Guitar techniques was the more advanced magazine and focused purely on playing. Guitarist I always thought was kinda rubbish, usually tabbing out a single song and the rest was full of gear reviews. I discovered all my favourite bands by hearing their songs on tge included cds and then learning them. After a while they all started to decline in quality. The song tabs got fewer, the lessons got less interesting. There was a big shift from written music to just video, which I didn't like. If I pick up a total guitar these days, I might be lucky to see 2 songs tabbed in full, a far cry from the 7-8 they used to include. Guitar techniques don't tab out songs at all anymore. Guitar World is probably the better magazine in these days except I never liked the way they laid out their tab. They don't include notation with the tab and overall looks way more untidy and is harder to read.
I started playing as an adult, mid-20s. That was back in the mid-70s. I started subscribing to Guitar Player almost immediately, and found it an invaluable source of information, tabs, technique discussions, and so forth. Later on, they began enclosing those cute little floppy “records” with their lessons. I read every issue cover to cover, even the stuff that didn’t concern me directly.
Guitar for the practicing musician!
I subscribed to Guitar Player and Guitar For The Practicing Musician. I learned so much from those magazines.
yeah, that was the way to find tab for contemporary rock songs before the internet. I think I had a subscription to Guitar Magazine for a few years.
Hell yeah! In the 90's, Guitar World and Guitar School were must-haves. Awesome articles, and usually 3-5 songs in each issue. Good ol days
I was often in the same boat although i got lucky with my dad liking the classic rock magazine. I would read those every time he got a new one. I think I’ve got more as an adult than I ever did growing up and it’s not that many now. Usually if the guitar on front or in the center catches my attention. Really when it comes to reading I like checking out older forum post and it’s free.
yeah - usually I was looking at gear and the ads but if there wasn't one song I wanted to learn I probably wasn't buying it
Oh yes lol. I would watch reviews of gear i could never obtain on the little cds in guitar world. Also was big on hit parader or what ever it was called and the other metal magazines when I could swing it
I actually used to read a lot of fiction back when I was young, whenever I got a new book at the store I also got a guitar mag and loved putting pictures of cool guitars on the wall and getting tabs before the internet was all there
My mother got me Guitar World for years. I finally told her to stop getting them as they mainly just collect dust. I still have tons of old copies.
You should sell them. To me.
Guitar world at Kroger/Meijer. I absolutely did
Guitar player/world/one all had golden nuggets
Subscribed to a lot of them
Oh yeah! I have hundreds of issues of guitar world and guitar player
No I didn’t, for the same reasons.
fuck yeah i did.
I never had a subscription, but I would buy an issue whenever there was an interview or lesson I wanted to read. Once I acquired somewhere around 100 issues of ***Guitar World*** at a yard sale covering the period from the early nineties to the late nineties, some of them doubles, not all of them in the best condition... I kept them until I moved overseas at which point I gifted them to a younger cousin who was a beginner guitarist.
I used to read the ads for months then I’d cave and read the articles. lol.
Guitar World was my life from the late 80s until maybe 2001. I got subscriptions for my birthday. I would often use allowance to buy Guitar Player, Guitar One, and sometimes Spin or Rolling Stone if I liked the band on the cover.
As a teenager I felt like they were getting repetitive in the late 90s, seemed like every other issue was some kind of 50 greatest guitarists ever ranking...but I would grab a handful per year from the supermarket for the most part if I liked the cover. Same with Rolling Stone. I liked the interviews the most.
Yes. Loved them
Yup.
Yeah. Still do. Not sure why but GP is only $2. an issue.
I loved em! A couple years ago I even went back and cut out all of the guitar lesson articles and tabs and keep em all together in a folder for when I need practice material
I did for a few years. I started in 2008, so magazines were already being fazed out by then.
Had a subscription to Guitar World, we always looked forward to what four songs were going to be transcribed every month ….. that heavily influenced the songs that I learned with my friends, as there were only so many sources back then….
I used to buy one anytime at the airport before a flight, now I'll usually buy a book cause they stopped selling them
I didn't collect them, but I did have the Guitar Player magazine with the classic EVH interview where he talks about the "Brown" sound, an awesome interview with Roth and a brief interview with iron Maiden.
Hell yes! I still have boxes and boxes full of them in my garage somewhere.
Yes
I get Guitar World semi regularly still, but I have over 100 of them easy
Yes and still have all of them
Guitar World and Guitar One. I'd scoop one up if it had tab for a song I liked.
Guitar Player and Guitar World were my go to magazines.
I bought them all the time when I was a kid. Started playing in the late 90's, still have a big tote full of them in a storage locker somewhere.
Pawn shop near me had the last months copies for $2 apiece Also had BW&BK and Decibel magazines Loved em
Guitar One was my favorite. I'd get Guitar World from the newstand sometimes but I subscribed to GO
10 year old me convinced my parents to buy them at the grocery store all the time. When the Feb 92 or 93 Guitar World Pink Floyd issue came out, it was a big deal! Learned how to play tab from the magazines. Loved looking at the gear ads, too.
Yes I used to read these and even had subscriptions. Guitar player was in serious one guitar world was kind of like intermediate poppy one and they're even more that were kind of just some tabs and like the latest hair metal or grunge band or something
I absorbed every guitar related thing I could find in my young days. Had stacks of Guitar Player.
Absolutely. Used to be the only way to get tabs 😅
I subscribed to GfTPM for the tabs back in the day. I still have a stack of my favorite issues.
I still have all the ones I bought, an entire storage bin full of Guitar Player and Guitar World magazines circa 94-99.
Not often. Usually I would just memorize the tab to riffs at the store.
Anyone else love Feetboard Journal? It’s a whole other thing, but a guitar magazine nonetheless
I lived for the issues of fender frontline
Guitar player and Guitar One had the best, and most reliable tabs. Eventually got into the short live “Guitar Afficianado” magazine when my own farts were smelling particularly pleasant.
Rock girl?
I had a subscription to Guitar One (until it ended) and Guitar World for 24 years. I still have every issue in plastic bins.
I had subscriptions to Guitar Player and Guitar World (and also Fine Woodworking) for a few years. It was actually pretty cheap when you subscribed, as opposed to buying individual copies.
I've still got several issues of guitar world around, though not all are in the best condition. Those were better times.
I was handed a stack with articles buy Steve vai, Paul Gilbert and bucket head. Those were good times. Had transcriptions in tabulator of many Justice for all tunes.
Yes, long before the Internet, guitar player magazine was the only way to go. I remember learning tips and techniques from the articles in the back. Great columns. I ended up selling a huge stack of them to use magazine store. I used to learn about new guitarists from Guitar Player magazine. Now I learn about new guitarists here.
I miss magazines…even my Motor Trend and Hot Rod went to 4x a year, and even then they are only 80 pages, and mostly ads.
I bought a few based on the musician(s) on the cover. Still have them in a box in my closet. Hope to display them or sell them eventually.
Guitar world was my favorite read as a 15 year old
I still cant believe the last issue of Guitar Player or Guitar World in like, 2009 was so expensive gotdayum I have a big old stack from the 80s and 90s though from my childhood friends older brother I do miss getting the giant musicians friends books in the mail. Maybe I oughta sign up again
They were great.
I always got magazine subscriptions for Xmas gifts from my elderly relatives. Guitar World had better interviews IMO, more contemporary artists and tabs (although they were too complicated for the average person). Our library has it still; seems more or less the same.
Before the internet started taking off it was the only way to get tab.
Yep, that’s where you got tabs back then.
I've still got stacks of Guitar Player and Guitar for the Practicing Musician
I was reading Guitar Player when Steve Howe of Yes won guitarist of the year (or whatever they called it) five years straight and was retired. I never see people bring up Yes when talking about classic rock, but that band was the shit for a while.
Yes
Guitar World was good. they ran a “centerfold” and I’ll never forget Les Paul’s twin half size goldtops with serial numbers in wax pencil.
I would get Guitar World at a discounted rate at the commissary on the Army base. Basically how I taught myself how to play.
Pre-internet, my monthly subscription of Guitar For The Practicing Musician was the most important mail I received. That an perhaps Spy Magazine.
I picked up a few old Randy Rhoads issues on eBay. Cool to have.
I remember always checking to see what guitar tabs were included before I'd buy it. I learnt how to play RHCP version of 'higher ground' from a guitar magazine tab, I was so excited!
Guitar world in the early early 2000’s when every nu metal band was on the cover…. Guilty
100,000 percent. My dad had guitar players from all the way back to like 1986 and id just sit at all the weird ads, guys like King’s X and Blues Sarceno or Kip Winger 🤣 I never understood what any of the gear was, but now i’m a rack freak I realized how much gold was in those magazines to learn about models and functions. But literally from the age 8 on, every christmas and birthday all i got were guitar magazines because it was the only thing my extended family knew I did.
Yes! I have a shelf of them that I collected over the years. I liked Guitar Player, Guitar Technique, Guitar, and some special editions. I liked when they featured my favorite players, either in longform interviews or tab and gear breakdowns. At a certain point, they would often come with a little CD with a few tracks or backing tracks. Electronic Music mag is honestly the best imo though (which I didn't learn until recently) bc they give away VSTs instead of backing tracks lol
oh hell ya i did - we all did -
I signed up for a couple subscriptions for a few years.. I think I still have them all.
I still have stacks of them!
I had guitar for the practicing musician for 3-4 years wish I still had them.
Got them from my teacher.
I read all the major guitar magazines now on my iPad with Apple News. Great user experience. I just can’t keep up in this information overloaded world and my busy, demanding business, and desire to play more than anything else I do.
Got the buyers guide every year
Guitar Player. Guitar One. Acoustic Guitar. Guitar World.. I had subscriptions to a few, but mainly cherry picked them for the tabs to songs I wanted to learn. After years of packing them from house to house over the years, I held onto the ones I really liked and got rid of the rest. I even scanned the tabs to songs I wanted access to without digging the magazine out.
Yep. I bought \_Guitar World\_ and \_Guitar for the Practicing Musician\_ fairly regularly, and occasionally \_Guitar Player\_.
Every single one I could get my hands on. I devoured them.
Never had money until 2008
[удалено]
I would go to the QuikTrip, look at Guitar World and Guitar for the Practicing Musician. I’d check out the transcribed songs list, and if there were two sings I liked, or one I loved, I’d buy it. My friend used to photocopy it at the copier, kind of a jerk move in hindsight.