Send Steve a Text Message I went Live on Social Media with this, so if you are interested in watching the video, here it is: https://youtube.com/live/IaBZQVuPCDI?feature=share Your solos can have perfect timing and perfect notes and still feel lifeless. Today I go live (on my birthday, no less) to show the opposite approach: how to make guitar leads sound more authentic by adding grit on purpose. We start in A minor pentatonic and build a small set of tools you can use anywhere, from a quick...
Jul 30
20 min
Send Steve a Text Message Your guitar can feel rock solid indoors, then completely unravel the moment you roll up to an outdoor gig. Heat, humidity, and direct sun push the wood and hardware into fast changes, and that shows up as tuning instability, sticky playability, and sometimes a neck that suddenly needs attention. We walk through what actually helps when the weather is the problem, especially during those brutal hot and humid summer shows where everything feels damp and rushed. ...
Jul 23
12 min
Send Steve a Text Message Your major key solo sounds “happy,” but it does not sound believable. That is the gap we close here, using a track in A major and a chord progression that stays diatonic and musical: A major, C sharp minor, D major, and E major. We start with the practical foundation most players skip, knowing the key, hearing the chords, and understanding why those changes matter even if you are “just jamming” over a backing track. From there, we zoom in on rhythm subdivision, beca...
Jul 16
19 min
Send Steve a Text Message Thirty songs for Saturday. A totally different set for Monday. No rehearsals. If that sounds familiar, you already know the real enemy isn’t your technique, it’s the scramble to keep everything in your head while you switch styles and expectations from gig to gig. We talk through the exact approach we use to stay organized, reduce panic, and get songs back under our fingers fast when we’re playing with multiple bands or rotating church sets. We start with a si...
Jul 9
12 min
Send Steve a Text Message Your guitar solo can have the “right” notes and still feel wrong. The gap is usually groove. We jump into a practical, no-hype approach to soloing that starts where real music starts: locking to the beat. Using a “Groovy Fine Blues in B Minor” backing track as the example, we focus on finding the quarter note, then treating the eighth note as the true pulse for most lead guitar. From there, we show how the B minor pentatonic becomes a usable palette when your timing ...
Jul 2
23 min
Send Steve a Text Message You can love guitar for decades and still feel like you’re spinning your wheels. Ken joins me to talk through that exact frustration, from years of casual playing with no structure to a clear, focused plan that finally makes progress feel real. His story starts with classic rock inspiration and a powerful family moment, then turns into the question so many players avoid: what are you actually practicing, and why? We dig into the practical stuff that moves the ...
Jun 25
27 min
Send Steve a Text Message Your hands know what to do until someone is watching, and then everything tightens up. That’s where this conversation with Stan goes immediately: intimidation, shaky confidence, and the quiet fear that you’re the only one who doesn’t “get it.” Stan is a retired guitarist and a longtime student inside Guitar Zoom Academy, and he shares the parts most players don’t say out loud, including how easy it is to drift when you have unlimited online guitar lessons at your fin...
Jun 18
30 min
Send Steve a Text Message You can spend 30 years with a guitar in your hands and still feel like you’re guessing. That’s why this conversation with Perry lands so hard. He grew up in Casper, Wyoming with music in the house, built a band in the early 80s, and even got the kind of wild, last-minute call every guitarist dreams about: his group stepped in as a backup band for Blue Oyster Cult when another act didn’t show. Amazing story, but it also revealed something deeper. Surviving a gig is no...
Jun 11
40 min
Send Steve a Text Message Remote collaboration sounds like magic until you try it and realize the real challenge is boring: everyone needs the same roadmap, the same tempo, and a track that starts cleanly. We walk you through the exact home recording process we use to prep a remote band collab, using a fast, punk-leaning version of “Help” (in the style heard in the movie “Yesterday”) as a simple, practical example. We start where every successful remote recording starts: listen, confir...
Jun 4
17 min
Send Steve a Text Message A kid gets a guitar with strings so high it’s basically unplayable, struggles for two years, and then hears the sentence that can haunt a musician for decades: “Stop wasting your money, it’s hopeless.” Our guest Elad did what a lot of people do after that kind of moment, he quit. Then life happened in a big way: he grew up in the suburbs of New York, found himself pulled toward identity and purpose after the Yom Kippur War, immigrated to Israel, and helped build a br...
May 28
37 min
Load more