Guitar magazines, anyone?

[SH73]

Past few months I have spent more time playing guitar than bass. I have never bought a single bass mag but thinking getting a guitar magazine. Anyone buys any?

Guitar techniques

Total  guitar 

Guitarist 

My aim is to improve/ learn playing guitar. 

[vantagepointrocks]

Haven’t bought one for years, but I always thought Guitar Techniques was best for improving guitar playing, just seemed a bit more grown up than Total Guitar and provided more proper lessons as opposed to just transcriptions. But a lot could have changed since I last bought either, and with all the lessons and videos available on the internet, I’d have thought it would be difficult for the magazines to survive these days.

[ezbass]

I haven’t bought one in years, but I used to. Like most of this type of magazine, eventually they start to circle and repeat themselves. Of them all, I think I preferred Guitarist. 

[MWH]

On 21/03/2019 at 16:16, ezbass said:

I haven’t bought one in years, but I used to. Like most of this type of magazine, eventually they start to circle and repeat themselves. Of them all, I think I preferred Guitarist. 

Yes, I buy Guitarist on an intermittent level, and try to play some of the blues licks that they have inside.  I subscribe to  Bass guitar magazine  though even if some months it's a bit of a waste. Actually,  I don't read books anymore really so mags are more my thing, ok, I like the pictures of what's available. 

[gary mac]

I've bought the last few editions of Guitarist and found it a good read, with plenty of varied content.

 

[EdwardMarlowe]

I bought Guitarist for years until they stuck a CD on the cover and massively upped the price. It also got a bit Old Fart for me (they went through a phase of being weirdly obsessed with Brian May and Paul bloody Weller). Total Guitar and Guitar Techniques I never really got into - expensive, plus I never got into the tuition side of it. TBH, when it came to the mags I was mostly interested in the gear news and reviews. Guitarist lost me a bit there too as it started covering mostly stuff I could never have afforded, though it was still nice to read about some (not all - fancy flamed maple and all that just isn't my bag) of it. I still see guitarist on the shevles in Sainsburys; occasionally it has articles that look intersting, butg I'm usually put off by the cover price of around six quid, and the fact that.... well, how many more articles can I read about Hendrix and *still* fidn something new? I know that guitar ain't as popular as it used to be in new music, but damn are the mags stuck in the past!

My default these days is usually "The Guitar Magazine". It's much better now than it was in the early 90s (it was a bit, eh... ITV in those days. A bit Melody Maker, if you catch my drift - no NME (RIP)). The best ones for me, though, were both UK mags that sadly didn't last long. There was Guitar Buyer which ran for a coupel of years arounsd 2000/2001, which was all gear - the odd interview, but it focussed on their gear very specifically. Then there was What Guitar?, which was really good on multiple tests... instead of getting a review of the latest Fender Tele variant, you'd get a review shootout of ten different Tele type guitars of roughly equivalent status. Was a great way of finding out what was available in your pricec range and narrowing to two or three to actually go out and try.

The worst bit about Guitar mags for me was always the almost inevitable line in the spec on anything both interesting and affordable: "No Left Handers." I remember reading several issues of Guitarist where not a single instrument was an option for me asnone were available left handed. Not their fault, granted.... and they did briefly in the late 90s do a nice little column where a left handed player reviewed a let handed guitar, though it didn't seem to last much longer than doing the obvious stuff (Strat, LP, Tele....).

I do miss having a mag I could get every month, though. The internet has largely taken over from a lot of hobbyist publications, but it's not entirely the same thing. Youtube is useful, but only to an extent. It's a pity something like Guitar Buyer doesn't come out even just as an annual thing. Some one of the American mags used to produce an annual guide to All The Gear on the market, but that was pre-web, and of limited use in the UK market where everything was less avaialble and more expensive.