Steve Krenz

Joel, I saw your registration this morning. What a joy to have you with us! It should be an amazing time. I'll be sending out information as we get closer. I look forward to meeting you! - Steve

Doug, No problem. I'm sure Neil will be around. Good luck on getting your cable fixed! - Steve

Tuesday July 10th, 2018 Topic: Fingerstyle with Casper Esmann! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. Our Guitar Gathering conference is in the books and it's time to get back to live lessons and we've got a great one! I've long admired 25 year old Casper Esmann's amazing artistry and arranging. A brilliant Fingerstyle guitarist from Denmark, has taken the guitar world by storm. He's in the US for a rare tour and I'm honored he could be part of our show. His website is here... https://www.esmannmusic.com/ A few videos.... Casper and Tommy Emmanuel... Should be an amazing night! Make plans to join us! Great Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve

Nice!

Great advice from everyone on this. In addition to all that was suggested let me add... 1) Neck Radius - you might want to experiment with a guitar with a thicker neck. For me, a thin - necked guitar feels great at the beginning but aches at the end of a long night of playing. So, a thicker neck starts to feel really comfortable at the end of a long night of playing. 2) Stretch Before You Play. - Simple hand stretches or shaking out your hands is always a good idea before playing. 3) Check Your Strap. - Make sure your strap is at a comfortable height so that your hand, wrist and arm aren't at a stressed position. Also, make sure your strap has enough padding and is wide enough so that you aren't putting unneeded pressure on your shoulder. 4) Temperature Shifts - Experiment with the ice packs or hands underneath warm water to relax them. Find which works for you. 5) Check your Hand Position. - Make sure you are using a good hand position. Keep that wrist low with a little bit of air space between the palm and the neck. Hope this helps. Let us know how it turns out for you. - Steve

Daniel, Ideally, you would leave your index finger in place forcing you to stretch your pinky to get where it needs to go. If you raise up your index finger and shift your hand to a more comfortable position then that defeats the purpose of the exercise. I'm more concerned that the index finger and hand stays in the right position (forcing the pinky to stretch) than I am about whether the index finger is actually on the fingerboard. The idea is to get the hand to stretch. Hope this helps. It sound like you are doing great work. Keep going! - Steve

Perfect! - Steve

"Playing guitar is what separates us from the apes." I love this! - Steve

Great advice! - Steve

Thanks for the question. I apologize I'm just now getting to this. Yes, saying the note names is a mental juggling game. I wouldn't worry too much about it. The main idea is that you can play them and when you play each note you know what note you are playing. In other words, as you are playing the note, in your minds eye you are saying "C" or "E" or whatever. Verbalizing or physically saying the note names is just a way to demonstrate that your mind knows the names of the notes that you are playing. So, it's less about physically saying the name and more about knowing the note name when you play it. Hope this helps! Keep up the great work. - Steve

Matonajin, Great question. Yes, sometimes it's nerves but in this case I think perhaps the culprit could be.... Syncing up to an external group. When you're at the house, it's just you playing. You don't have to worry about playing along with anyone or anything - you just play. But when you're with a group, you need to take some one else's tempo, rhythm, and flow of the music - instead of just doing whatever you want. It's a different skill - trying to sync up to something else. Playing along with tracks (YouTube or others) might be helpful. Just type in "Blues Backing Tracks" and try to play along with the track. Don't even look at the chords, just try to keep up by listening. The Blues is a standard 12-bar form with only slight variations so this might be a good place to start. Let me know how it turns out. - Steve

Wow, thank you guys for being the guinea pigs on this information. This will eventually get sifted out and hopefully become something that will be useful for folks. - Steve

Wow, what a joy to stumble on this thread! Paulette and I have been recovering and digging out from the amazing conference. The more I reflect on it, the more I'm convinced it was the best one we've ever had. Our minds and hearts are filled with ideas for next year and we are, once again, blown away and humbled to be among such a wonderful collection of people from all over. Thank you all for an amazing week of getting to know you and playing music. - Steve

Tuesday June 12th, 2018 Topic: Ask Your Guitar Questions & Albert King's Guitar! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. It's time for a relaxed Guitar Questions and Answers night but we've got one surprise for you. Greg Voros will stop by and show us Albert King's amazing Flying V guitar! Ask your questions below and I'll try to get to as many of them as I can. Make plans to join us! Great Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve

Tuesday June 5th, 2018 Topic: Flatpicking Champion Adam Wright! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. Very excited to welcome, Flatpicking Guitar champion Adam Wright to Live Lessons! An amazing player that has won multiple times at the Winfield Flatpicking championship, Adam is a wonderful blend of musicianship and effortless technique. He is also going to be joining us teaching flatpicking at our Guitar Gathering conference. Here are a few videos... Make plans to join us! Great Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve

Hey gang, So sorry about the delay in getting a chance to response to all of these. We've been out of town and many other issues going on. But finally I've got some quiet time to listen carefully to all of these and thoroughly enjoyed them. Here they are...

Very cool! - Steve

Hey Gang, I added the links to the pages I'll be referring tonight in the top post on this page. See you tonight. - Steve

Tuesday May 22nd, 2018 Topic: Classic Blues Riffs & "Tom Sawyer" by RUSH! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. I'm excited to be back at live lessons and we've got a good one! I'll be showing a few of my favorite Blues riffs and we'll be learning the main parts of the classic Rock song "Tom Sawyer" by the legendary RUSH! Here are the PDFs for tonight... Blues Riffs Moveable.pdf Blues Riffs.pdf Tom Sawyer.pdf Print them out and we'll go through them in the lesson. Learn all you can! Here's a little "Tom Sawyer" to get you in the mood... Great Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve

Jason, Yes, there's no time to start like today! After you finish the first session in Learn and Master Guitar then I would start to incorporate the Speed & Agility workout into your daily learning. It will help your hands start to be more efficient when you play. Hope this helps and thanks for being a great part of our guitar family! - Steve

Hey gang, I like to think that I have a good handle on things but I realize my perspective and your perspective can be different. So, I wanted to see if you could help me out with something - a sort of, "...Help me - help you" moment. If you have a moment can you answer a few questions for me... What kinds of resources would you like to see us put out? What kind of guitar resource do you need? What are you looking for in your guitar learning that you wish there was a resource for? Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated to help me know if I'm on track for helping you as much as I can. Thanks, Steve

Tuesday May 8th, 2018 Topic: Tips for Soloing with Dino Pastin & Collin Hill! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. Sorry about the late notice on this. This live lesson has changed a few times. But it looks like it ended up being a good one! We'll be discussing soloing concepts with the great Dino Pastin (Alabama, Barbara Mandrell) and we'll also have some fancy fingerstyle by our own Collin Hill. We'll be referencing two PDF's tonight. All The Things You Are.pdf Tune Up.pdf Lots of Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve

Tuesday May 1st, 2018 Topic: Ask Your Guitar Questions PLUS John Mayer's New PRS! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. Don't let anything stop your learning. What has you stumped? Ask your questions in the thread below and I'll answer as many as I can tonight. PLUS Desi Serna (Guitar Theory for Dummies) will be stopping by to show us John Mayer's new PRS Silver Sky guitar - the guitar that broke the internet! Lots of Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve