"Europe's Best-Selling Guitar Magazine" (Total Guitar)

Member Name: BlueMidget

Product:	Total Guitar
Date:	31/03/07 (400 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, informative and a good source of learning material

Disadvantages: Few minor gripes with the CD

‘Total Guitar’, as the name might suggest, is a magazine aimed at guitarists of all ages and various styles.
It features news of general goings-on in the guitar world, reviews of albums and equipment, as well as tabs and chords of various songs, (for anyone who doesn’t know a ‘tab’ or ‘tablature’ is a means of showing which notes need to be played on a guitar, enabling the reader to learn the piece without necessarily being able to read standard notions, or ‘sheet music’). It also features lessons to try and help develop your playing skills.
It is published monthly and costs £4.99, which is pretty much the typical price of a magazine of this nature and comes with a CD, which I shall discuss in greater details later on. Occasionally it will also come with a bonus gift, (plectrums, chord-books, etc.)

Years ago, when I first began learning the guitar I would regularly buy guitar magazines. My personal favourite was ‘Guitar Techniques’ and, whilst I bought the occasional copy of ‘Total Guitar’, for the most part I always thought its content and lessons were somewhat lacking in comparison to other magazines.
Times change of course and ‘Guitar Techniques’ was taken under new management and the content and lessons became such that I found that I no longer enjoyed reading it – indeed, I stopped buying guitar magazines all together. It was with some surprise then that the March, 2007 edition of ‘Total Guitar’ caught my eye, (I’d like to say it was because it claimed to have the “100 Greatest Riffs”, but the truth is it’s because Metallica featured and I am prone to buying a magazine that Metallica is mentioned in).

In the three of four years since I last read a copy of ‘Total Guitar’, there have been a lot of changes from what I remember the magazine being like – changes that to my mind are definitely for the better. (In fact, I was so impressed I actually bought the April issue without any worries of whether it was worth the £4.99).

The articles are well written and easy to read and, assuming you’re into guitars and the music that goes with that, I’ve also found them to be interesting and informative. Interviews are conducted in a way that reminds me of other music magazines, (such as Kerrang!) and the features are ideal for the magazine’s target audience.
There are various regular features, such as the standard letter’s page. One of my personal favourites is the ‘Trail Blazers’ section, where important bands and guitarists are given credit for their music and the influence they had over aspiring guitarists and musicians. I think this is a great way for younger readers to read about artists that helped shape the style of music today and it’s also an interesting read for the older readers who perhaps grew up listening to the featured artist.

Another good feature is ‘Learn To Play’, which is where the transcription of songs is. This is one of the most drastically improved area compared to what I remember the magazine being like and is a really good means of learning new songs from various styles. Naturally, rock music is quite often a feature, but they also cover songs from other genres, such as blues, punk, pop and various other styles.

Another vastly improved area is the ‘Lessons’ section. This offers the reader a chance to learn new techniques and styles of playing. There is also a ‘Novice’ section which is great for people just starting out and need to get to grip with certain fundamental principles of guitar and general music theory. Beyond the ‘Novice’ section there isn’t anything that gauges the difficulty of a lesson and that’s a bit of a shame as a simple rating system would help the reader know if they could quickly pick it up or that they might have to spend a little more time practicing it. That said, I generally think that there is something everyone can take away from these lessons regardless of how long they’ve been playing and whether they consider themselves a novice, intermediate or expert guitarists. Even if the lessons themselves don’t prove too much of a challenge, they are still an excellent source of ideas and new practise material. I for one often find myself bored of practicing a technique with the same set of licks every time.

The product reviews are very well written and also informative, telling the reading most things he or she would want to know. It’s also not restricted simply to guitars, (though, obviously a lot of guitars get reviewed). Recording equipment, FX-Pedals, amplifiers, etc. also get reviewed from time to time, so typically you’ll be able to find useful information about virtually any guitar-related product you might be interested in.

The CD that comes with the magazine features the tracks of the tabbed music, (both full tracks so you can hear what the complete song, minus vocals, should sound like, as well as backing tracks so you can play along as you learn). This is an invaluable way to ensure you’re learning the music correctly and they are on the whole well recorded and produced, making listening and playing along easy and enjoyable.
At the start of the CD they’ve also included ‘Tuning Notes’, which means you can easily make sure the your guitar is in standard tuning, (or ‘concert pitch’ if you prefer) before trying to play along with the CD.
Also on the disc are video lessons, which allow you to see how certain pieces are played when viewed via your PC. Obviously, this is no use to you if you haven’t got a PC, (though that does raise the question of how you’re reading this review?!) but I think for the vast majority of people this is a useful addition. Again the videos are well recorded and have high productions values, (they’re not simply webcam images or something similar). The one complaint I would have about these is that quite often they’re rather short. I think a little more time could be devoted to showing the playing at various speeds, (which does happen on some videos, but not all) as this would help some people get to grips with certain things quicker.
Another slight issue is that you’re supposedly able to play the audio tracks through you PC, though for some reason my PC only shows me the data, not any audio tracks, no matter what I do to try and find them. This might be related to my specific machine though as I haven’t tried to listen to them on another PC yet, so it may or may not be a regular problem.

Obviously, ‘Total Guitar’ hold little or no interest for non-guitarists, but for those of you who do play, whether it’s shredding like you’re back in the eighties, or chicken-picking in a country bar, or even just chugging out some simple power-chords, I would recommend buying at least one copy ‘Total Guitar’ and see what you yourself think. I’m not saying this is the greatest magazine in the world, but it’s certainly more than good enough to learn from and keep up to date with what’s happening guitar wise and I for one think I’m very likely to continue buying it and using it as a resource to further develop my playing.

Summary: All things told a worth-while magazine for guitarists to read