Steve Krenz

Great question. Using flesh is fine. Nails will add volume and give you some tonal options you wouldn't otherwise have. But, if having nails is impractical for you then don't worry about it. Just use your fingers. The technique is the same either way. Hope this helps! The main thing is to keep learning. - Steve

Hey look who I found on the floor of NAMM 2019, our good friend and fingerstyle guitarist extraordinaire Trevor Gordon Hall!

January 15th, 2019 Topic: Blues Guitar with Claudio Tristano! Finalist of Guitar Center's Blues Master competition, Claudio Tristano, is an up and coming young LA-based guitarist turning heads with his fresh approach to Blues. Claudio has shared the stage with Joe Bonamassa, Vince Gill, composed music for "Undercover Boss" and is quickly establishing himself in the west coast guitar scene. Here's a couple of videos of Claudio. Claudio with Joe Bonamassa... Claudio with Vince Gill... Great music, laughs, giveaways and more Watch it live at 7pm Central tonight HERE Great music, giveaways and more. See you there! Make sure to subscribe to our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE Learn all you can - Steve

Tuesday January 8th, 2019 7pm Central Topic: Guitar Care & Setup with Greg Voros! It's the beginning of a new year and time to check in with our good friend Greg Voros. Greg will be stopping by to talk about guitar care, setup and answering your questions. Greg is the head of the legendary repair department at Gruhn guitar and has worked on guitars for some of the most well-known guitarists in the world. PLUS, I'll be giving some easy to implement Tips for Guitar Learning Success This Year! If you have any questions for Greg please write them below and we'll try to get to as many of them as we can. Great music, laughs, giveaways and more Watch it live at 7pm Central tonight HERE Great music, giveaways and more. See ou there! Make sure to subscribe to our Guitar Gthering YouTube Channel HERE Learn all you can - Steve

Thanks Henk! And keep those pucks flying! - Steve

No disrespect to Popular Mechanics, but you know what I've found has a profound and immediate impact on my tone... Practice. (But I am a sucker for a pretty red guitar!)

Watch all live lesson broadcasts on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Page Tuesdays at 7pm Central OCTOBER 2019 Oct 29th: Tips for Strumming Like the Pros NOVEMBER 2019 Nov 5th: Next Level Fingerstyle with Ian Ethan Case Nov 11th: SPECIAL MONDAY EVENT: Classical Guitar with the Grigoryan Brothers Nov 19th: Classical Guitar with the Belmont Guitar Ensemble DECEMBER 2019 Dec 3rd: Learn a Holiday Song Dec 10th: Tuesday Night Guitar Chat on Discussion Board Dec 17th: Learn a Holiday Song JANUARY 2020 Jan 7th: Live from Gruhn Guitars Jan 28th: Live from Gruhn Guitars FEBRUARY 2020 Feb 4th: Live from Gruhn Guitars Feb 18th: Live from Gruhn Guitars

Wonderful! Learn all you can. I am glad you’re part of our guitar family. Kerp learning! - Steve

Hey gang, Just a reminder, you can go back and watch any of our live guitar lessons on our Guitar Gathering YouTube channel. GUITAR GATHERING YOUTUBE CHANNEL Make sure to subscribe to get notifications whenever we go live! Learn all you can! - Steve

Just booked the man, the myth, the legend, Johnny Hiland and his band for the Guitar Gathering 2019 Thursday Night concert!! Johnny and band will be playing and we'll have a few surprise guests as well. Have you registered yet? http://www.guitargathering2019.com/ Just in case you might have forgotten how good Johnny is, here's a little reminder... It should be an amazing time. See you at the Guitar Gathering! Have you registered yet? http://www.guitargathering2019.com/ - Steve

Jusca, It's great to see you again. Yes, being sick can really limit your playing. But, as you've seen, it doesn't take too many days of consistent effort to be back making progress again. Glad you're back making music again! - Steve

First of all, welcome and I'm glad you're here. When your hand is doing something comfortable and familiar there's no need to tense up. But when you start getting to the edge of your ability and your hand can't keep up with what your brain is telling it to do, it starts to tense up. There is always going to be this increasing muscle tension as you approach the edge of your current ability. The good news is that the "edge of your current ability" moves. What is causing you tension and stress today at a certain tempo you may be able to play completely comfortably in a few months. Tension is always something we want to minimize in our playing. We need to be ever aware of it and constantly try to consciously relax our hand as we get into musical territory where it wants to tense up. Just keep working at it slowly. As you become more familiar and competent at doing the task at increasing tempos your hand will relax. Hope this helps! - Steve

Ian, I looked up your town Warrington. It looks beautiful! Let's have the conference there! - Steve

Updated. Welcome Ian! - Steve

The Deuce, I'm sure I'll be back in San Antonio before too long. I'll get the word out when I get back there. Keep Learning! - Steve

Hey gang, Here is the official registration list for the Guitar Gathering 2019 conference as of January 2, 2019! 36 Registered Clarke B. from Sisters, OR Nadine B. & Guest from Brooklyn, NY Diane B. (DianeB) from Newark, DE Eugene Callebs & Guest from London, KY Mark C. from Versailles, MO Andy C. (cookie) from Houston, TX Ian D. from Warrington, United Kingdom Steve D. from Gladstone, MI Dwayne F. from Caddo Mills, TX Paulette F. from Winter Springs, FL Peggy G. from Raleigh, NC Bob H. from Canton, OH Mark J. from Minneapolis, MN Curtis K. from Coulee City, WA Martin K. from Salt Lake City, UT Patricia L. from Alto, MI Jack L. & Guest from Cedar Park, TX Brian M. from Milwaukee, WI Kurt O'Neill from Laurel, MD Greg O. (gotto) from Battleground, WA Joan R. from Tamiment, PA Dale R. from Gastonia, NC John S. from Kearny, NJ Barbara S. (k9kaos) from Pahrump, NV Chris S. from San Antonio, TX Bob S. from Robinson, IL Gerald T. from La Crescent, MN David T. from Richmond, TX Michael T. from Fredericksburg, VA Reg W. from Georgetown, IN David W. from Asheville, NC Ken W. & Guest from Jacksonville, FL

Here are some tips for Session Four as you begin it... And, here are some tips for Session Four after you've been in it for a while...

Yes, great idea. - Steve

Yes, great insights. Usually it's pretty clear, after some experimentation, which hand has the dominance - and to what degree that dominance has. I brush my teeth and eat left-handed. Throw a ball and write right-handed. Can bowl with either hand. So, my "handed-ness" is more right handed - but not exclusively. But with guitar (since it is a two-handed endeavor) it's a bit more complicated. Do some in-depth experimentation and you'll start to feel how playing guitar one way feels more comfortable and natural than the other. - Steve

I see you're from San Antonio - my home town! Go Spurs Go! (Although this doesn't seem to be that great of year for them.) I would say, yes, continue to look at Session 10. Just get a feel for it. Don't let your one finger injury hold you back - just work around it as best as you can. Don't worry about nails. Fingerstyle is more about getting your fingers to cooperate in moving independently. It's a great style. Let me know if you have any questions along the way. Keep up the great work! - Steve

Old Jock, Congratulations on a great Christmas gift! It looks like a cool pedal with some probably great sounds once you find them. Yes, there's always a learning curve and a lot of experimentation when dealing with multi-effects processors. There's just lots of menus, sub-menus and tweaking involved. The pros are you get a lot of effects bang for your buck. If you've got the time and patience to tweak it, you can find some great sounds. The cons are it's often hard to get to that great sound quickly when you need it - particularly in a live performing environment. Zoom makes great stuff and the MS-50G looks like a premiere unit. Let us know what you think of it when you get to know it better. Maybe do a "gear review" here on the board for it. - Steve

Ozy, First of all welcome! It looks like you're starting to meet some of the gang. Regarding Left and Right Handed-ness - I had answered this in a post on the old forum. Here are some thoughts.... Can the course be used for a left handed person and should I play guitar left handed? Thanks for the email. I play guitar right handed so naturally I instruct right handed. I have taught many left hand players and the material is identical. The only difference is that the left handed player has to interpret the visual elements in reverse. This sounds a little more daunting than what it actually is. Left handed players quite naturally make the distinction and capture the material with the same speed and comprehension that the right hand players do. Actually, when the material is presented on video, to a left handed player it will be an exact mirror image of what they will be playing. So, I have not found in my private teaching that left hand students have any problem applying the concepts to their playing any more than right hand students do. Here's another thought. I have found in my personal private teaching that whether a player is left or right handed in their playing is not as cut and dried as "All left hand players play left handed". I have actually found in the course of teaching many left handed people guitar that usually just about half of left hand players actually prefer to play the guitar left handed. As confusing as this would seem. It seems that it has something to do with how "left handed" each individual student seems to be - the level of their handedness dominance. On a beginner, I can usually tell within about two or three weeks how their motor skill development is doing. I generally start every brand new, never touched a guitar before, beginner (right and left handed players) playing the guitar right handed. (I do this for a variety of reasons, the largest being that left handed resources for the guitar are so limited. Almost everything for guitar is geared to playing right handed). For this new left handed beginner, if after three weeks they are still having great difficulty in getting their fingers to find the correct string when fretting a note then I would usually switch them to playing the guitar left handed. I flip the guitar and restring it in reverse or we try to locate them a left-handed instrument. We then start back at the beginning and after about a week of re-acclimating themselves to the instrument it becomes very clear which way is going to be preferable for the student to play. Whether a left handed player should actually play guitar left handed is an issue of motor skill dominance regarding their "handedness". Often this hand dominance is not clear in the first week or two, but by week three it becomes very clear which "hand" is more dominant for these fine motor skill tasks. I wish it were as easy as "If you're left hand, you play guitar left handed" but I have not found it to be that simple. (and from another post...) Choosing whether to play left or right handed as a left handed person depends on how dominant your handed-ness is. Typically, I would generally start a learner out playing right handed and see how it goes. You'll know in about a week if it is working for you. If you can't seem to do anything correctly and you are having incredible trouble just getting your hand to finger the right frets then that's usually a good indication that you probably need to try playing left-handed. But it takes a week or two of wrestling with it to really see. Because everyone is slow at the very beginning. So you really need to get past the first week or two of solid effort to get a good feel for how your fingers are doing. If by the end of a week or two and you are still struggling with getting your fingers to finger the correct fret (even though in your head you know which finger you need to play) then try switching to left handed. After you've done this, get a left handed guitar or re-string your guitar left handed and begin back at the beginning again. You'll have to go over the early things again, but this usually goes much quicker the second time. And within a week you are back to where you were and beyond. After this 2-3 week process it will be abundantly clear which hand you should be using to play guitar and you'll have the rest of your musical life to thank yourself for this small investment of a couple of weeks to figure this handed-ness issue on guitar once and for all. Also, I would suggest not spending more than one week on Session 1 of the Learn and Master Guitar course. The real learning starts in Session 2. I hope this helps. Please let me know how it turns out. - Steve

That's good advice! I practice.... Major Scales in One Position Major Scales: Three Note on a String - Playing normally ascending and descending, then in 3rds with hammer-ons and Pull-offs. Pentatonic Scales: Up and Down in Each Form, Up 4 Pattern, 3 pairs of Strings, then connecting the forms up and down the neck. Pentatonic Scales with Added Blues Note: Up and Down in Each Form When I change keys I like to go in a circle of Fifths rotation: C - G - D - A -- E - B - F# - Db - Ab - Eb - Bb - F or a circle of fourths rotation: C - F - Bb - Eb - Ab - Db - Gb - B - E - A - D -G Hope this helps! - Steve