Steve Krenz

Fantastic play by play as always. I love your pictures. We're often too busy to grab many shots so it's wonderful to see these. Hope you made it back safely. We are catching up on our sleep and basking in the afterglow of the fantastic time we had. Love you guys. - Steve

I fixed it. It might be something in the program. - Steve

Absolutely wonderful! I loved reading all of the updates and got a few ideas for how to make our events better. Looks like a wonderful time! - Steve

Doug, We can accommodate 24. Currently we have about 17 registered. Always a great time. I look forward to it all year. -Steve

Hey all, I wanted to give an official announcement about our annual Summer Guitar Gathering conference. We will not be having a Summer Guitar Gathering conference this year. We're not stopping the summer conferences - we're just taking a break for the year. The reasons... 1) Our previous venue - Trevecca University - has dramatically increased their facilities use expenses. Trevecca has made the decision to start charging "facilities" fees. This has happened across the board, in every department, for every use, for every building. The fees they are requiring are to the tune of over half of our current conference budget. The conference has always been a bit of a labor of love and not a huge money maker by the time everyone got paid. The addition of these new "facilities fees" just took it out of reach and over the top. So, long story short, we're looking for a new host venue and didn't want to try to force it this year just for the sake of having the conference. 2) Paulette and I have put on the conference for 10 or so years by ourselves - from months of planning, to moving every chair to writing every check - and in short, we simply felt we needed a year to rest, and get new vision for the event. So, we're not stopping the summer conferences - just taking a break for the year to regroup, find a new venue and get some new ideas and vision for the future. Just wanted everyone to know. It's a joy serving you all in this way. Looking forward to 2025 and getting it back going again. BUT, the 2024 Fall Fingerstyle Guitar Retreat is still on and un-affected. (And it's going to be a great retreat). Love you all, - Steve and Paulette

Such wonderful insights. A decade of music making. A day of making music - however big or small - is so much better and greater than a day not making music. Thank you Diane. - Steve

Ha! I love the discussion. Of all the guitars I've owned, I still think if I had to choose one - based on just "loving to play" factor and not value. I still think I'd choose my Yamaha Nylon string. Again, this is strictly just for my personal opinion. Here are my reasons... 1) It's acoustic. I can play it in any situation (other than a very loud situation) - with or without power. Just grab it, sit on the couch and play. 2) It's easy to play. The nylon strings make it very easy to physically play. This means that long after my hand strength starts to fade on other instruments, I'll still be able to play this one. 3) It's a smaller body size. It just fits me better. I'm sure I'd like any sort of parlor size guitar. I just prefer the smaller to larger size guitars. A side note - this also makes it lightweight and easy to carry. 4) Finally, and most importantly, I just enjoy playing it. I can play classical, fingerstyle, jazz and whatever else on it. I can't do bends and distortion on it but that's ok. I can honestly say, if given a choice of "you can only play electric or acoustic guitars for the rest of your life" I wouldn't even hesitate and gladly walk through the acoustic door grinning. - Steve

Hey gang, I just got a new Strymon Cloudburst reverb pedal. So far I'm loving it and it should replace a couple of pedals on my board. But I'll run it through it's paces over the next week of playing, rehearsals and performances. I'll keep you posted and should be able to give a full update on a future live lesson. Here's a video about it...