Total Guitar Magazine Analysis

Cover

The cover comes across as very stylish, with lots of writing and names of songs and bands to try and attract people who are interested in music. The main focus is on the cover star; Johnny Marr, which features a picture of him holding a beat up looking Fender guitar, showing road experience and memories of good times, which give the audience an impression of an experienced player. The background is a greyish colour, and from the looks of things was taken in a small room somewhere with the flash on. The main things which stand out on the cover is his name (Johnny Marr) and the magazine’s title (Total Guitar). The title appears to be beaten up with strips of paint missing, again giving the connotation of being experienced and road tested.

These features suit the theme of music and guitar playing very well. There’s loads of information on the articles, both specific to that issue (interviews, reviews, etc) and regulars (nail a technique, learn to play, etc). The tagline/usp of the magazine being “Europe’s Best-Selling Guitar Magazine” stands out very well, located in the upper right hand segment of the space allocated to the title. This attracts people looking for a reputable magazine; especially considering the subject of being taught to play an instrument it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

The cover also contains essential information which is located on every issue, such as barcode, price, issue number, issue date, publisher, website, contact information, etc. A CD/DVD is also with each issue of the magazine with lots of useful content for guitarists, such as backing tracks to jam along to and lessons for beginners and advanced players.

Contents

The contents page is a lot more basic than the cover. This continues the use of large pictures designed to make the cover story (Johnny Marr) stand out. There are only 2 other pictures, 1 being of a guitar in the reviews section, and the other being a cartoon of a hospital patient (humorous addressing the article on health & safety whilst playing such as RSI, Tinnitus, etc). These pictures are located to the right of the contents page whilst the small print summarising each section is located to the left. On the bottom right hand corner is also a page number and a small print of the title of the magazine’s name.

The colour scheme is fairly basic. Uses of red, black, white and a touch of yellow make the pictures stand out more, especially the cartoon. This is a continuation of the same colour scheme of the cover. However the cover does use a black/white background (photo flash effect) whereas the contents is purely a white background. This basic colour scheme creates a simplistic, punkish look, common associated with guitar.

Article

The article I chose to write about is “Nail a technique in a month” which is designed to teach guitarists to practise new techniques they may be unfamiliar with. I chose this article because I had the idea to do something similar in my Practise magazine for Music Technology students. The one in the issue I have been analysing involves exercises with the whammy bar. This article is a regular in Total Guitar and has been for some time. This article comes under the section “Monitor” which covers articles such as interviews. There is a continuation of the red, black, white and minimal amounts of yellow again. They use images of Nails as a pun on the title of the article; this has connotations of being firmly set in place, which is what the article aims to do with the technique’s exercises for the audience.

At the top of the article is what technique the article is on this month and what number it is (for example this issue’s version is #17). Below that is a short paragraph on the background of the technique you’ll be learning about and where’s it’s been used (as a cross reference for the reader). Then the exercises are set out as weeks. For example week one has easy, beginner uses of the technique to start building a foundation, week two is slightly harder, week three builds on week one and week four is a combination of the others. All of these exercises are found on the included CD. They are designed to keep the readers busy until the next issue (monthly). Under each exercise is a brief explanation of what techniques are involved and what they’re called to educate readers on what it is exactly that they are learning.