Guitar World Vs. Guitar One: Which Guitar Magazine is the Better Choice for You?

Guitarists are always looking to improve their playing abilities. While lessons are great for improving your skills, sometimes you might want something different to work on at home. Guitar magazines can come in handy for these reasons. I will be comparing two of the more popular guitar magazines, Guitar World and Guitar One, and telling you which one is best for what, and what each one has to offer. While both of these magazines are made from the same people, they are completely different and have completely different things to offer. I am an avid user of both of these magazines, and feel that they have a lot of information that any guitar player, new or old, could improve from.

Guitar One is mainly an instructional magazine. They recently adopted a new format, which makes it more user-friendly and allows for better use of the magazine. The magazine is broken into three sections: Lessons, Gear reviews, and Song tabs. It is very well organized and makes it easy to find what you're looking for. The lessons sections have little "blades" on the side of the page, which allow you to navigate your way through the magazine better. The lessons blade usually starts off with "Guitar school" which is when a certain guitarist demonstrates some of his/her techniques, licks, and also has an interview in which they describe their playing style and gear. After "Guitar school" comes the soloing and rhythm sections. These sections give tips and licks on soloing strategies and rhythm patterns. The last couple of sections give you tips and techniques from certain genres of music. These genres range from rock to shred to blues to jazz, and all of the exercises and tips are extremely helpful. The next section, the "Gear" section, gives you a look at some of the newest gear out there, and also gives some "How-to's". All of the reviews are very unbiased and helpful. The final section is the Tab section, where they have certain songs tabbed out for you. These songs go from some of the newest songs, to the classics. Every magazine comes with a DVD that has videos of most of the lessons, and videos of some of the gear reviews, so you can actually hear what the gear sounds like. Overall, this is an absolutely great magazine for someone looking to improve his or her skills.

Guitar World, while it does have lessons in it, is not written for instructional purposes. It usually has one or two main articles about a certain guitarist or two. The magazine serves the purpose to keep you updated on guitar gear, up and coming bands, classic bands, and interviews with some of the greatest guitarists ever. It will keep you updated on everything guitar related, and inform you on classic players, concerts, and songs. It also comes with 5 or 6 songs tabbed out, and they are always pretty accurate. Every magazine comes with a DVD that has videos of a few lessons, and gear demos.

These two magazines are both for guitar players, but they offer completely different subjects and themes. If you are looking for lessons and to improve your playing, you can't go wrong with Guitar One. If you are looking for a wide range of guitar related stories, interviews, reviews, and a few lessons, Guitar World is perfect for you. Both of these magazines incorporate many different genres into them from blues to metal, and classic rock to jazz, and I feel that this is vital to any guitar player. One of the best things a guitarist can do is to explore new genres, and both of these magazines will help you do that. Whether you get Guitar One, Guitar World, or both, you with benefit tremendously. I hope my review of these two great magazines have helped you, and good luck in finding the one that fit's you and your needs best!