Molly Tuttle’s prodigious songwriting chops, ethereal voice, and physical command of the guitar join forces in service of a sound that is equal parts traditional and transcendent.

Molly’s bluegrass bona fides will be instantly recognizable to aficionados. Her musicality is deeply rooted in the genre’s standards and culture, and her command of notoriously challenging flatpicking mechanics easily ranks her among the guitar’s elite technicians. None of this is especially surprising considering she is the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year for 2017.

What is unexpected is how this traditional mix of ingredients results in a sound that is just as at home on Spotify as it is in Walnut Valley. With over a million plays, Molly’s tune Lightning in a Jar is a breakout success on the platform’s “Indie Bluegrass” playlist, and as of this writing Molly herself is the playlist poster image. If the time is right for a mainstream take on bluegrass musicianship, Molly would seem perfectly poised to provide it.

In this hands-on interview, we get to the bottom of Molly’s astonishing right hand facility, including her approach to flat pick rudiments and roll patterns, gymnastic bass/chord rhythm techniques, and her very cool banjo-inspired clawhammer fingerstyle technique. We talk about fretboard visualization, songwriting techniques, and the additional polishing of all of these during her time at the Berklee College of Music.

The interview includes 42 tablature examples filmed in high frame rate, slow-motion video, with complete transcriptions of Girl in My Shoes, Save This Heart, and Molly’s blazing cover of the Townes Van Zandt classic White Freightliner Blues.

It’s one thing to understand music theory, and another to apply it to the complex arrangement of overlapping strings and repeated notes on the guitar.

In this second interview with Martin, we deconstruct his process for improvising over flowing chord changes, arriving at a simple checklist that anyone can follow to start developing a mature improvisational vocabulary.

For experienced jazz and fusion players, this is an interesting glimpse into the workflow of an ace soloist. And if you’ve ever considered getting under the hood with jazz harmony and improvisation, this a great primer on how that kind of work is done.

Our interview with Terry Syrek is a revealing conversation about an elite player learning to live with a condition that severely affects his playing.

Terry is not only an incredible shredder, but a vocalist, producer, writer, and instructor. He’s been recording and releasing music for decades, and has performed alongside such legends as Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, and Zakk Wylde. He studied at Berklee, and has over 20 years of teaching experience.

He also has focal dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that affects the motor control of his fingers and limits what he can play. It’s not well understood, and there’s no magic bullet treatment. Terry visited a number of experts to try to figure out what was going on, and his diagnosis was just the start of learning to live with a new reality.

While it’s altered his relationship to playing the guitar, this condition hasn’t entirely quelled Terry’s virtuoisic chops, and it certainly hasn’t dampened his musical creativity! In this interview, we learn how Terry found ways to continue to write innovative prog guitar excursions despite his dystonia.

The conversation ranges from Terry’s time studying at Berklee, and the rigors of professionally competitive practice schedules at a top-tier music school, to his journey of self-discovery and healing after being diagnosed with this condition.