About Don J MacLean

Don J. MacLean is one of the world's leading authorities on accelerated learning systems for guitar—with students using his methods in more than 50 countries worldwide. Don is the author of over 60 books including The World of Scales, the Absolute Essentials of Music Theory for Guitar, How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of a High School Shredder, 21 Secrets to Learn any Guitar Song Super-Fast, and Guitar Essentials: Chord Master Expanded Edition.

How to Play Scotland the Brave on Guitar

left hand guitar fingering indications

Here’s a quick walk through for Scotland the Brave in guitar tab, chords and standard notation. To make the chords easy for the beginning guitarist, I’ve transcribed the song in the key of A major.

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Want to Play Better Country, Rock, Blues, Folk, or Jazz Guitar?

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Want to play better guitar? Whether you play country, rock, folk, blues, or jazz, here’s a fun song that sounds great on guitar and will help improve your overall guitar technique. This piece, called the “City of Savannah Hornpipe”, covers … Continue reading

What is a Sus 4 Chord and How is it Played on Guitar?

D sus 4 guitar chord fingering diagram

You’ve probably seen the chord symbol D sus 4 in many popular guitar songs. But what does this really mean?

Let’s start by looking at what a chord really is.

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Lead Guitar Solos: 5 Tips for Creating Your Own Unique Guitar Solos

Lead Guitar

How to Solo on Guitar. One of the biggest questions I get from guitar students is, “How do I get my own style?” Here are 5 tips for getting started on creating your own unique guitar style.

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Can Guitar Music Theory Destroy Music for Pleasure?

If you really understand guitar music theory and how to apply music theory to guitar, are you forced to analyze everything you listen to, or can you shut it off whenever you want?

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7 Reasons Why You Should Learn and Master Guitar Scales

a minor scale with a minor barre chord 2

You’ve heard that you should learn to play guitar scales, but let’s be honest…you would rather play your favourite guitar songs instead of playing boring old guitar scales.

So is it really worth investing some of your limited practice time into learning and mastering guitar scales?

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Is This The Most Expensive Guitar Book Ever? A Guitar Hanon Book for $998.98?

Mega Chops: Scale Mastery Beyond Hanon

I was surfing the net this morning and came across an Amazon.com listing for one of the guitar books that I wrote in 2005. The book is called Mega Chops: Scale Mastery Beyond Hanon for Guitar.

I was totally blown away when I discovered the price that one seller is currently asking for this book.

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