Most of the time, a dream only needs a spark. In the case of musicians, it just takes one song to set you on a path to superstardom. The three songs from the 1970s below have inspired countless guitar ...

A Ramones’ classic makes it onto the list – but which is it? - Roberta Bayley/Redferns We’re going to fall out about this, obviously. But here we go. Let’s just start with the idea that a riff is a ...

From the archive: When Total Guitar met Brian May back in 2001, Queen weren't a going concern, and wouldn’t be until the 2004 reincarnation which saw May and Roger Taylor (John Deacon having declined ...

Chuck Berry started a revolution when he put the guitar front and center, paving the way for classic riffs in rock music. By 1969, Jimmy Page set the standard with “Whole Lotta Love”, and decades ...

There are a number of factors that might make a song immediately recognizable—a whisper, a cough, a G note… But nothing gets our little black hearts racing quite as rapidly as a guitar riff we know ...

Guitar skills: The pedal tones we're talking about here don't come from effects pedals. They're actually a reference to the pedals found on organs – like those you see in churches. The organist would ...

Any boy growing up in the Seventies did their basic training with car noises. That vibration at the front of the mouth came quite naturally and enabled us to move effortlessly on to guns (imaginary ...

It’s no secret that the guitar is the backbone of pretty much every song. Whether it’s a railing, electric solo that makes listeners want to break out their best air guitar, a stripped-down acoustic ...

The '80s were a golden age for guitar-driven rock and roll. Coming strong off the hard rock scene of the '70s and bolstered by the emergence of MTV, riff rock has never been as popular as it was ...

Virtuoso guitar playing has come to define rock ‘n’ roll. Greg Kot looks back at its colourful history. Rock guitar solos? Often they’re overblown, overrated and a waste of precious notes. To those ...