
“Little Joe the Wrangler”—Learn Dom Flemons’ Fresh Take on a Classic Cowboy Ballad
The transcription here is based on the version Flemons recorded for his 2018 album ‘Black Cowboys,’ which highlights the African American experience in country music.
These articles originally appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.

The transcription here is based on the version Flemons recorded for his 2018 album ‘Black Cowboys,’ which highlights the African American experience in country music.

It’s time to face the elephant in the room: there is a compromise built into
the tuning of every fretted instrument.
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With its 16-inch head, this oversized instrument—Dubbed Big Head Joe by its owner, Dom Flemons—has all the punch and power you could want.

As with all of the duo’s songs, the basic ingredients of “Empty Trainload of Sky” are dead simple, with just two sections and four chords.

Walk through three approaches for flatpicking melody and chords together using the classic spiritual “I’ll Fly Away.”
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Learning to play songs in different keys by actually transposing and understanding the resulting chords and melodies can transform your guitar playing.

The song is a lament, performed in the style of an Irish slow air, so take it slowly, making every note count to convey the song’s brooding mood.

While compression pedals for electric guitars are fairly common, the Acousticomp compressor/sustainer is voiced specifically for acoustic guitar.
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Melodic bass lines are a great skill to add after you’ve mastered the alternating thumb style.

The Fairbanks Guitars founder talks about his journey from being a jazz trumpeter and guitarist with coffee-shop day jobs to becoming a master luthier.

With its simple, movable chord shapes—many requiring just two fingers—open-D tuning adds a shimmering quality to this traditional song.
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We look back at some of the year’s most exciting guitars, accessories, and amplifiers, as well as albums that captured the diverse voices of acoustic guitar music.

East meets West in this fascinating collaboration of classical guitar and sarod, captured live at the Aspen Music Festival.

It’s a simple song with just four basic chords, but the most challenging aspect for some beginners may be the spirited tempo.

In a wide-ranging phone interview, Goryachev discusses his early training, interactions with Paco de Lucía, arrival in America, and approach to performing.
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Taylor's 50th anniversary lineup revisits some of the brand’s most iconic designs, blending the character of the originals with modern innovations.

No matter how far the Ireland-based guitarist travels, both physically and musically, his connection to Congo is ever-present, as this Zoom interview reveals.

We’ll start off with a series of examples that use a bass run to connect two chords, and then we’ll try out bass runs in a few classic progressions.