What Is a Luthier? The Craft Behind a Well-Set-Up Guitar
The word covers everyone from Stradivari's heirs to the person who fixes your buzzing nut. Here is what the trade actually does, and when you should hand over your guitar.
Strum Magazine
Drop D Tuning: The One-String Change That Reshapes Rhythm Playing
Lower one string a whole step and you get a deeper low end, one-finger power chords, and a droning open sound that rock and folk players keep coming back to.
Fort Smith Symphony's Opener Shows Why Regional Classical Season Announcements Matter
A single concert listing reveals how regional orchestras structure a season opener to hold onto an audience.
How Often Should You Change Your Strings? The Honest Answer
String makers' published guidance lands at roughly 100 playing hours or three months for a casual player — and your ears are the final gauge.
The Right Humidity for an Acoustic Guitar, Explained
Wood expands and shrinks with the air around it, and both Martin and Taylor document what happens to a guitar outside a narrow humidity band.
Guitar Cables and Signal Loss Explained
Cable capacitance rolls off your high end as length grows — a measurable property of every instrument cable, and the reason a 20-foot run sounds darker than a 6-footer.
Pin vs Pinless: Acoustic Guitar Bridges
Pin bridges anchor strings with six bridge pins; pinless bridges thread strings through the block from inside the tail — and the practical differences are speed, string cost, and one controversial claim.
Reviews
How to Choose a Guitar Humidifier: Specs, Prices, Trade-Offs
Two-way packets or a refillable soundhole tube? A buyer's primer built entirely from the makers' own documentation and published federal wood-moisture data.
Reviews
Electric-Acoustic Guitars: Sourced Guide
Four acoustic-electric guitars compared from manufacturer spec sheets, centered on Fishman and LR Baggs pickup systems.
Reviews
Capos Compared: A Sourced Guide
Four capo mechanisms compared from manufacturer documentation, with clamping specs, radii and dated street prices.
Reviews
Classical Guitar Setup Checklist
What to check on a new nylon-string guitar, built from manufacturers' published setup ranges and care documentation.
The Eras Tour Became the First $2 Billion Tour — and Reset Live Music's Numbers
Taylor Swift's 149-show tour crossed $2 billion in ticket sales by its December 2024 finale, a figure no tour had ever reached.
Truss Rods Explained: The Mechanism Behind Neck Relief
A guitar neck is under roughly 200 pounds of pull from a set of light-gauge strings, and the thin metal rod inside it is the only thing keeping that force in check.
NAMM Pushes Back on Tariffs Threatening Guitar Prices
New Guitar Gear to Catch This August
July's release wave — Gibson, Marshall, MXR and a baritone build worth a closer look — lands in stores as August opens.