David Gilmour wasn’t Pink Floyd’s first guitarist, but he was the band’s most well-known. Professor McAllister takes you into Gilmour’s early days and how he went from watching Pink Floyd to playing with them. See how his masterful string bending technique and lyrical vibrato has made him an icon.
Eric Clapton got his first guitar when he was 13 and joined his first band a mere five years later. His unique mix of blues and rock brought him fame both as an ensemble player and as a soloist. Learn about his history as a musician and discover how to capture the heart of an acoustic blues piece as only Clapton can.
Jazz Guitarist Pat Metheny’s life changed within the first five seconds of hearing a Miles Davis record. Follow his road to success and how he bridged both the traditional and the new approaches to jazz with his innovative techniques. Discover the quiet beauty of his style through a waltz with lose rubato phrasing and arpeggio-based improvisation.
Van Halen’s guitarist was a fan of Eric Clapton and Cream, as well as Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin. He took the signature styles of his idols and made them his own with a two-handed tapping method which transformed the frets into a stringed keyboard, allowing him to play at a phenomenal speed. Find out more about Eddie Van Halen’s influences, style, and how he altered the perception of what rock guitar was in one minute and 42 seconds flat.
The first guitarist to become a public sensation via social media, Andy McKee claims at the time he was first recorded, he “didn’t even really know what YouTube was.” Yet, it was just that medium that got him noticed by Tommy Emmanuel and Prince. Professor McAllister follows his road to becoming a guitar star.
The Del-Tones are well-known for bringing “surfing music” mainstream but this iconic style started out with Richard Monsour (later to become Dick Dale) and his cousin Ray Samra playing at the Rinky Dink Ice Cream Parlor in Newport Beach. Follow the evolution of Dale’s signature sound: instrumental, rocket-fueled guitar that sounds like surfing feels.
Songs are frequently used to tell stories and histories. Nowhere is this practice more evident than with folk ballads. Professor McAllister walks you through the history of this practice as he introduces singers and songwriters who have used music to tell the story of themselves and the country they inhabited. Get to know early western songs by folklorists such as John Lomax and dig into the resurrection of folk ballads with 1960s music festivals featuring Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and others.
If you know Rush, you know they are anything but rushed. 2112 opens with a title cut running over 20 minutes long. Combining heavy metal and progressive music, Rush was known as “the Canadian Led Zepplin.” Follow the life of Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson from getting his first acoustic guitar at age 11 to becoming the “Musical Scientist” who invented “The Alex Chord”—the F sharp 7 suspended 4th.
Born in a Romany encampment in Belgium, Djano Reinhardt changed the music scene of 1930s Europe by introducing a swinging and folkloric version of jazz that had never been heard before. The thick, rhythmic downward strokes across the guitar soundhole is part of what gives “Gypsy Jazz” it’s unique and recognizable sound. Hear the turbulent story of Reinhardt’s music history and learn why diehard fans play two-finger arpeggios up the neck rather than four fingers across the neck.
It took phone calls from anonymous giggling girls after a school performance to make Andy Summers want to be a rock star. After a bumpy road, he landed with The Police, who allowed him to make “Every Breath You Take” his own. A right-hand picking pattern—root, fifth, second, third—with slight left-hand muting transformed the song into a smash hit. Learn more about Summer’s story and style.
English and Scottish folk songs combined with the isolation of the early Appalachia led to the acoustic melodies from guitars, banjos, fiddles, and mandolins known as Bluegrass. Explore the roots of this uniquely American music as Professor McAllister introduces you to Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, Tommy Magness, and other Bluegrass stars.
A soulful melodist who played strictly with his thumb, known for doubling melodies by playing in octaves, and using block chords across the top strings of the guitar to combine melody with harmony, Wes Montgomery has changed the world of jazz guitar. Discover how this self-taught game-changer took up thumb strumming so his wife could sleep better while he practiced and other fascinating facets of his rise to fame.
John McLaughlin may not be a name many people recognize, but the musicians he’s jammed with are notable, including Miles Davis, Paco de Lucia, and Jimi Hendrix. Combining electric jazz, Indian music, funk, rhythm and blues, and gospel, he brought musical hybrids into the mainstream. Find out how his humble beginnings led him down this path of radical change.
Many of us are familiar with “The Girl from Ipanema” but the full scope of Brazilian bossa nova is a music movement worth digging into it. Professor McAllister introduces you to early innovators in this genre including Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilbert and takes you through the exciting history of this style.
One of the most lyrical jazz guitarists to ever live, Grant Green was both a rival and an inspiration to fellow musicians such as Wes Montgomery and George Benson. His signature was a repeating riff, catchy one-note lines, like a horn, followed by endless variations. Get to know the man behind the Blue Note Records sound of the 1960s.
Professor McAllister takes you through the life and impact of Tal Farlow, a bebop jazz guitarist whose major contribution to music was creating a speedy, strong rhythmic style to accent a beat—so strong that Farlow often played without a drummer. Although his career peaked in the 1950s, his innovative techniques of using thick, flat-wound strings to create mellow tones and cathedral-bell harmonics had a strong influence on generations after him.
Features a staple of techniques, including hammer-ons, pull-offs, palm muting, and nuanced strumming across multiple chords, Joni Mitchell’s approach to music is one that embraces flexibility and ways to maximize the sound from simple techniques. Professor McAllister takes you through her history, starting with a ukulele and into the magic of her song writing.