Steve Krenz
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Posts posted by Steve Krenz
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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
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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
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Perfect!
- Steve
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"Playing guitar is what separates us from the apes."
I love this!
- Steve
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Great advice!
- Steve
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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...
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Very cool!
- Steve
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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
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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...
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
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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
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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
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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.
Lots of Music, laughs, giveaways and more!
Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE
- Steve
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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
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Gotto,
I'm not sure what bar you're talking about but In a couple of bars there is a Bm7 followed by an E/G#. This is just an E chord with a different bass note. Whatever note is under the slash indicates the bass note. In this case they wanted the third of the E chord, which would be a G#, as the bass note.
Giving different chord tones as the bass notes gives a chord a different flavor in their sound.
Maybe we can talk more about this in the next live lesson.
Learn all you can!
- Steve
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Nice! - Steve
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Hey all,
I thought you might be interested in this. I play all kinds of things during the course of a week or month.
This week, I'm playing a small book signing with multi Grammy nominated singer, Michele Pillar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Pillar (Fun Fact: She was previously married to Larry Carlton.)
A mutual friend gave her my number a couple of weeks ago and she needed a guitar player for just a vocal/guitar couple of songs during this book signing event coming up on Thursday.
She sent me audio versions of the two songs we would be doing and I needed to write out the charts for them.
Here are the two songs...
And here are the charts I wrote out tonight. See if you can follow along!
We've got a rehearsal tomorrow then the book signing on Thursday.
I'll let you know how it goes. - Steve
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Hey gang,
I've come across this handy little guitar tool from our friends at Music Nomad. It tightens all of those little hex nuts on your output jacks, volume pots, even effects pedals. It saves me from having to use some clunky socket from my tools for the car - while panicking about whether one false move is going to scratch the finish of my guitar.THE 8 IN 1 ULTIMATE GUITAR TOOL
Here are some of the things it adjusts....
It's a handy little tool to have in your bag of cables or in your guitar case.
I showed it to Greg Voros from Gruhn's and he was impressed with the functionality and quality.
If you're interested, you can check it out HERE
- Steve
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If you have any questions for Howard on Jazz Guitar, 7 string guitar or anything else, please let me know.
- Steve
NGD - Taylor 714ce
in Guitar Gear, Amps, Effects, Pedals
Posted
Nice!