**This issue will receive bonus distribution at Sweetwater GearFest and Artisan Guitar Show**

Special Focus: Guitar On a Budget

From finding the guitar of your dreams (on a budget), to low-cost items that deliver big tone gains, to getting the most out of what you already have, top pros offer advice and tons of low-cost hacks to make your guitar play and sound a little sweeter. Plus: readers chime in with hard-earned wisdom for the discerning guitar player of modest means.

Features and Departments

  • Guitar Talk: Bluegrass legend Del McCoury talks about the special challenges of playing rhythm guitar in a hot bluegrass band
  • I’m With Her: Profile of new acoustic trio consisting of Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz, and Sara Watkins. Includes a transcription of “Ryland (Under the Apple Tree),” I’m With Her’s sweet new vocal take on an instrumental by Julian Lage
  • Care and Feeding of the Picking Hand: All about good fingerstyle habits and technique, with exercises, borrowed from the classical literature, that can be used in any setting
  • Woodshed: Learn to play open-G moves like under-sung fingerstyle blues artist Memphis Minnie
  • Weekly Workout:  A toolkit for playing approachable blues accompaniments in the key of A, all using the open A, D, and E strings as root notes
  • The Basics:  Learn how to practice musically, not mechanically—no matter what you’re working on
  • Ask the Expert: Luthier and repairperson extraordinaire Mamie Minch answers readers’ tech-related questions
  • Songs: “Limehouse Blues”: learn a note-for-note transcription of a fiery Django Reinhardt solo; “When the Levee Breaks,” a blues classic played by Memphis Minnie, Led Zeppelin, and many others.
  • New Gear: PRS Guitars’ freshly updated TX20E and A50E acoustics and Yamaha’s new CSF3 parlor and FG-TA TransAcoustic reviewed
  • And much more!

Key Dates

  • Advertising reservations due by March 9, 2018
  • Advertising materials due by March 16, 2018
  • Issue on sale May 1, 2018

*subject to change