Guitar skills: Rakes can be picked in either direction, down or up. The idea is to pick the muted strings and then sound only the fretted note at the end of the rake. The mute is achieved by ...

“Okay, so I’m not an idiot, I’ve worked out what string bending involves, but, tell me, why bother?” Well, those pesky frets can make things sound a bit lumpy sometimes as there’s a defi nite point ...