Playing Guitar With Three Missing Strings

Studying jazz guitar in college, I had a professor that would force me to remove strings from the instrument. One, two, sometimes three strings had to be removed before I attempted a performance. You might guess that gutting half of my available resources would crush my ability to play, let alone be creative.

Yet a surprising and counterintuitive thing happened. When those strings were off, I could no longer rely on the patterns I knew. I was forced to solve musical problems in totally differ...