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Looks like a good choice, Bob! Those rotosound strings are supposed to be good, though I've never bought any myself. I'd bet they will last you a few months. I hope you're feeling better and making more progress!

I don't want to derail the thread, but what do you guys use to record acoustics?

Thanks Dave! I've been working a lot on this lately, so I'm glad to have any more tips I can find!

Like others have said, the answer is just to keep at it! It takes time to build up the muscles to fret the strings and to articulate your fingers in those new ways, and your fingertips toughen up over time. If you have Light or Extra Light strings on the guitar then just keep working at it. All you can do is take breaks when your hand gets too tired and keep playing.

Modes are amazing, aren't they? Same notes, sure, but the intervals are all different. You start to realize over time that you don't hear notes, you hear intervals - and as such, every mode of a scale is really like its own unique scale. A Dorian isn't just some minor modification to G major. It's an A Dorian scale. (At least that's the way my muddled mind thinks of it.. maybe not the best, but that's where I am today) And when you hear the intro to your favorite song you don't think anymore "that's (this note) to (that note)", you hear "that sounded like a minor third I think?" or "what's that 'out' tone there, is that a flat 5?" Then your mind will really start boggling about these little details and you'll never hear your favorite song the same way again ?

Thanks for all the great tips everyone, I'm going to try making one of those spreadsheets. My practices tend to get a little... umm... free-form at times ?

Great video! Thanks! Glad I could watch it again!!

Hi RubberSoul! I have had to experiment with this a lot, and from what I have found every combination of guitar and amp is different. The best thing might just be to try everything! Not that I am an expert or anything, but I usually start with everything on the amp at 5 or whatever the middle is, and the volume and tone on the guitar at 7 or 8. From there you can play with all the knobs individually to get what you want. Often with humbuckers I end up dropping the mids to make the clean tones sound nicer, or you may find that you like a more mids-forward sound and boost them. I think single coil pickups can sound harsh at times, especially with distortion on, so experimenting with the treble or the tone knob on the guitar (which takes out some of the treble) can help. You might even find that rolling the volume on the guitar down not only reduces the volume but also takes some of the highs out. The volume often has a tone-effect with it too. I like to keep the volume at 7 or 8 so I can roll it up to get a little more distortion whenever I like - that's kind of fun. There are also EQ pedals out there too, as well as pedals that doctor your signal in other ways. Infinite possibilities!

That's great Diane! What a rush that must have been!

Congrats Mike! You'll never be sad that you put in all this time on the guitar. Music is so rewarding and it's a gift that not only blesses you, but others around you too. Sounds like you are quite dedicated and you're going to continue advancing steadily. This is one area where I think we are only limited by the limits we place on ourselves

I sprung for the 1-year streaming membership. It's only like $12 a month with the sale price, and there is such a massive amount of material I could probably do nothing but this for the next year and never get through it all! I started with the rhythm course by Lawrence Juber, I think it's pretty good so far, although I'm just doing the build up phase right now - I'm not really to the point where it's beyond my current ability, but I'm still picking up things along the way. I like how he mixes acoustic and electric and shows how the preferred techniques are a little different between the two.

Hi everyone! One thing I've been working on lately is really trying to refine my playing in the area of rhythm. Looking at my guitar goals and observing people who are where I want to be, it's clear that being in rhythm is just as important as being in the right key or anything else. I found the L&M course to be very helpful in getting my start at this, and I've been working through a TrueFire course on this as well as working a lot with my Dr. Beat (an overgrown metronome ?) But I want to take it even further - how do you go from being decent to being a great rhythm player? I'm thinking of things like being completely locked in even among a lot of different instruments, being able to play very complex rhythms that are beyond the more basic sixteenth note patterns, being great in time signatures besides common time, and applying great rhythm to all your playing, not just "rhythm playing" per se., developing the ability to be fast and very clean and articulate - etc. Just overall, taking rhythm to the next level kind of stuff ? For those of you who are very advanced in this area, what helped you the most? Any tools or learning materials that helped you move to another level in rhythm playing? Words of wisdom? Just want to tell me to get off the computer and go spend a million hours in the practice room? Any suggestions welcome!

I've got the fingerstyle course (ahead of the Fingerstyle Retreat this fall, woohoo!), and I've been at it for several weeks now. I have to say, this course is a lot of fun! Two things have been surprising me so far - first, how difficult it proves at certain times to learn how to play the instrument in a whole new way and to keep time accurately without the pendulum of your forearm helping you... and secondly, how great and musical even simple things can sound when you're playing fingerstyle. It's really satisfying! I'm up to Canon in D and Bach's Cello Suite, but these are coming pretty slow for me. It's a bit difficult for your fingers to determine what to do when you don't always have a familiar chord shape that you can lean on. I will press ahead every day, but these two songs are kind of a bear for me. Did anyone else need to slow down quite a bit on these? For those of you who have an actual nylon string classical guitar, do you find that they make things like this easier to play? I love the way they sound, but at the same time, I'm playing all this stuff on my OM which I am absolutely in love with. I have an embarrassment of riches in terms of guitars... but I do love the sound of Steve's classical in the videos too! Just a roadside update... for those of you who have done the fingerstyle course, how did your progress come along in lesson 5 and after? A few weeks for each one, or a month or so?

So great to meet you Marion! Hope to see you at a future Gathering!

For those of us who were in the advanced theory class on Friday of the Gathering, a few people wanted to see the images of what Steve wrote on the board, or to have the information transcribed into Excel. I've done my best to reproduce it here. If you see any mistakes let me know. There were one or two places where I wasn't 100% sure of what was written, so I either put a question mark or just guessed. I suppose you can try to figure it out for yourself and find any mistakes, it would probably be a good exercise to do so. ? Thanks to Steve for an awesome session with a high "whoa!" factor! Steve's Chord Tricks.xlsx

If you want to keep costs as low as possible, look for used bodies, necks, and other parts on ebay or reverb. You know what they say, buy used and play for free.

Nice! Glad you're going to give it a go! I think more experienced players are probably happy to jam with someone who can just play chords behind them while they play leads. If you learn a 12-bar pattern in a few different keys, maybe with some common blues variations and a turnaround or two, you could take your turn around the campfire and have fun. When I mess up, I just laugh it off and try again

Yeah! We would be remiss to not thank everyone else who attended for attending! It's all the people there who you meet and play with and learn with that make the Gathering great.

Thanks Nancy and Dave! I hope to see you at a future Gathering, it was a pleasure talking to you as well Dave.

Steve, you put together such an amazing week. On behalf of all of we Gathering folk, thank you so much! Once you’ve been to one, as I have now, you see how much Steve, Paulette, his family, the other instructors, Greg, Paul, and everyone else is working to bring us a great week. It’s inspiring and so nice to see people engaged in a labor of love like this. I had never met Steve before this week, but I honestly felt like I had known him for years and he was a close friend. I’ve spent a lot of time with him in videos and live lessons, etc! His working so hard to give the gift of music to so many people had been a great kindness for my life and I know many others. The guitar and the skills I have learned in part from Steve have been a companion to me in good times and bad. Sometimes I have been in places where having a passion for guitar to work on when life isn’t going well has really saved me from getting pretty down. Without the fantastic materials Steve has produced I might have given up on guitar, but now here I am. Traveling to Nashville and having a blast and finally meeting this guy who I dont know whether to high five or hug, I feel like he’s done so much for me! And what a Gathering! I have months worth of things to study and continue, I feel like this is really going to be an advancement point for me. Friday was especially a great day with steve’s Advanced theory class and then the master class with Dino continuing those ideas. So much to chew on. I was sad to have to duck out before the student showcase was over today, I wasn’t feeling well this morning, but again, thanks for all that you do Steve! And thanks to everyone else for making the event great too, by your being there! See some of you in October!

Greg, Thank you for being so kind and generous with your time and talent to all of us who attended the Guitar Gathering conference! You are so knowledgeable, personable, and fun to be around. Everything from my guitar setups to the class you taught to the Gruhn’s tour was fantastic. It’s an honor to be around someone at the very top of their profession, to say nothing of the admiration we all feel when that person is still humble and gracious. You didn’t have to do any of this, but you went a long way out of your way to give a great day to some total strangers. We appreciate you very much!

Hi Randy! I’m sure Greg can give you a more detailed answer but I heard him talking about this yesterday, and he mentioned that Big Bends makes some good guitar care products. Good luck!

Wow! Phil Keaggy, Will McFarlane, and the Blues Council blew it up tonight! Amazing! What a great experience this Gathering has been thus far! I’ve taken quite a few photos and will post the gallery after I get home. Johnny Hiland tomorrow! Night!

Amazing day today! So glad to see everyone and learn so much. My mind is kinda blown at this point. I loved seeing and meeting Christie Lenee as well, what an amazing talent and a beautiful person as well. Such an inspiring day one! Wish you were all here, but glad you are pushing ahead with your learning all the same!

Great to see everyone in Nashville so far! This morning is going to be a blast with Christie Lenee! Can’t wait! By the way, I got a blue lanyard but it’s my first Gathering so feel free to haze me ?