Troy Stetina, guitarist and writter of over 40 guitar methods, specialized into metal music, speak about his carrer and share his vision of the music world.
Hi Troy, thanks to have accepted this interview with Guitariste-Metal.fr ! We will split the interview into different part as you have a long career, as teacher, writer, guitarist and as you own as well a recording studio. Let’s speak about your career, how did you fall into music and start to play guitar ? Are you completely self-taught ?
Well, in 6th grade at school they had music class and every boy lined up to play the drums, including me of course. But the teacher said that’s just not going to work, and we had to select from other instruments. One of my older brothers had tried to play the clarinet at one point, and that was the only instrument we had in the house… So if I wanted to play an instrument, it was going to be the clarinet! I did that a few years and learned how to read music in school band.
Then when I was 12, a friend of mine had a bass guitar and played me the Iron Man riff. I thought, “I could do that.” And he suggested I get a guitar so we could play stuff together. My mom was an opera singer and supported my interest in music, so when I asked, she went out and got me a beginner Strat copy and a little amp. My dad was totally against it. Thought it was a complete waste of money and got quite angry about it in fact.
First, I started learning in “Mel Bay book 1”, just reading the notation, but I got bored with that pretty quick and started learning Kiss songs by ear. The first song I ever learned was Black Diamond. It was the mid 70s so I started learning all kinds of 70s rock by ear. Kiss, Aerosmith, Rush, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Kansas, whatever. In the late 70s I heard Van Halen 1 for the first time and that really lit a fire under me just as I was getting serious about developing fast lead technique. I learned every note off that record!
Then in 1981 I made a recording off the radio of an Ozzy Osbourne concert with Randy Rhoads. I absolutely loved that recording and learned everything off of it. So I was pretty much self taught, in the sense of learning by ear. There were no tab transcriptions back then, and I never took lessons in regard to learning rock.
Around the early 80s I was also getting into classical music and started taking classical guitar lessons. And I went through a short Al Dimeola phase and took some lessons with a fusion player to help me get a handle on that stuff. Then later when I was teaching at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music I took some theory lessons with a pianist going over the Paganini 24 Violin Caprices, which I was learning at the time. So I did take some lessons at a point. But I learned rock and metal all by ear. When I was first teaching rock guitar, kids would be bringing stuff in on cassette and I’d learn it on the spot and show it to them. That’s what really developed my ear.
What was your influence in the past? Who was your “favorite” guitarist at this time ?
Van Halen was the first lead player to really inspire me, but Randy Rhoads was the influence I connected to most deeply. By the time Yngwie and the whole neo-classical thing came along, I was already playing Paganini, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven. So while I learned some of Yngwies stuff, even covered “Far Beyond the Sun” in a band, my interest always remained more about playing the original classical music on electric guitar, rather than doing the neoclassical metal thing. It was actually the classical stuff that really developed my technique. To play that music, you need a technique that allows you to do anything.
How did you became Director Music as Rock Guitar Studies at the Wisconsin Conservatory ?
My publisher Hal Leonard is headquartered in Milwaukee. So the editor at Hal Leonard was Will Schmidt (who wrote all the basic Hal Leonard Guitar method books), and he happened to know the Chairman of the Guitar Faculty at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, John Stropes, who was looking for someone at the time to teach rock and contemporary guitar. Will suggested me. The publisher also benefited from me coming to Milwaukee, in order that I could work more closely with them on new books. So it made sense; I moved from Indianapolis up to Milwaukee in 1986. I started a rock program at the Conservatory, kept writing more stuff for Hal Leonard, and kept trying to do something with bands on the side.
Does your methods and songs has been well accepted by the Conservatory management and by the students ?
Yeah, I built up quite a program there. Developed a curriculum and a diploma program, attracted a lot of students and even brought in student teachers to help with classes. But I became very restless with teaching. I never sought to be a teacher, I just fell into it and happened to be able to do it well. So while I didn’t hate teaching by any means, and I do care about the students and their progress, it was always secondary to being a player and artist myself. The problem began as everything in the teaching world just opened up to me, and everything in the music world just hit a brick wall and went nowhere. I wasn’t finding enough creative outlets and was teaching too much, and I started burning out and left the Conservatory in 1993.
I remember developing all these curriculum materials for the classes the first time through, and I thought, “Yeah this is a lot of unpaid work, but next semester it will be easy!” And when the next semester came I was bored out of my mind! Just a repetition. I learned that I needed to keep progressing, to have new challenges, in order to stay interested. That’s why writing books works better for me as a means of teaching.
How and why have you created your first book and how did you approach Hal Leonard ?
Will Schmidt, who wrote the basic Hal Leonard Guitar book series, came to meet with all the teachers at the music store where I was teaching, in order to show us what was cool about his series—in an effort to get us to use more of the Hal Leonard guitar system with our students. At the end of his presentation, I asked him, “How come you don’t have any books that teach what all my students really want to learn—how to rock??” He said, “You’re right, we should have a method like that. How would you like to write it?” So I did.
Actually, it wasn’t that simple. First I wrote a book using other people’s music to teach the techniques. I used popular solos. Hal Leonard wanted to publish it, but after checking out permissions, they found that they couldn’t publish it. That was quite disappointing. All that work for nothing. Then I figured, what if I wrote the music myself? I went back to the drawing board and came up with original music and wrote the method around that, and it became the first “Heavy Metal Rhythm Guitar 1 and 2” and “Heavy Metal Lead Guitar 1 and 2” book/cassette packages that came out in the 80s.
Later, Will told me that he had said exactly the same thing to at least 20 other people before me, but I was the first guy that actually followed through and submitted a manuscript.
How did you became redactor for Guitar One magazine ?
GuitarOne magazine was a joint effort between Hal Leonard publishing and the people at Cherry Lane, and the Creative Director at Hal Leonard, whom I worked with on a lot of books over the years, was actually the Editor in Chief of GuitarOne for a long time. So that kind of put me in a good position for that gig.
On the Internet I can read that you wrote over 35 books / methods, may we know how many has been written, what is the exact count, including DVD ?
It’s a little complicated because some of the work I’ve done for Hal Leonard and some of the magazine writing I did for GuitarOne and GuitarWorld was re-released within different books. I don’t much keep up on how my work is “repackaged” by the publisher. But let’s see… if I look over my discography webpage: I’ve authored 31 book/CDs specifically along with 6 DVDs, and I also did almost half of the licks in the Hal Leonard”Goldmine Series 200 Rock licks” DVD, so really 7 DVDs. That’s 38.
Plus some of my magazine articles have been republished in compilation books (at least 2 that I’m aware of, maybe more), plus I know some of my video excerpts were included in 2 more book/DVD packages mixed with other authors’ material. So that’s 42. I also did the audio recording on “Joe Satriani Signature Licks” book/CD (although I didn’t write the text). And I self-produced my Beethoven masterclass available at www.stetina.com which teaches my version of the Appassionata sonata.
That’s 44 products currently. I have also filmed a number of video lessons for GuitarInstructor.com, which is connected with Hal Leonard, so those may have shown up in other products as well; I don’t know.
Does some of this books / methods has been translated in another language ? It is plan to translate few of them for the future?
Yes there have been a number of translations, but the publisher doesn’t inform me when that happens. I only really find out anecdotally when someone tells me this or that book is in German or Italian, or whatever. Over the years I have become aware of a number of unauthorized translations—a lot of people have just translated, copied and sold the books on their own.
In some places, like Iran, this is unavoidable since they cannot be sold legally; in fact my methods are quite popular there in the “underground” and throughout the Middle East. That’s exciting, that my work has inspired a whole generation of musicians there to develop their self expression and artistic voice. The Philippines, Indonesia and South America have a lot of unauthorized translations, too. And China is another area with that in the past, although I just heard a big sale of new translations just came through there. Happy day for me!
I suppose that’s a nice compliment to know that people all over are using my work; that it has an even bigger reach and influence than I can see. The same holds true about illegal downloading… my guess is that more copies have been “shared” than officially purchased at this point. It seems a lot of people think that because my work is popular, I must be fabulously rich, and therefore it’s okay to take it for free. Or perhaps they just don’t care. But the truth is that music education is a small niche market and I make only a modest living from this… less than a manager at a fast food restaurant. In fact, for a while I stopped writing books altogether because it just didn’t pay well.
That’s why I started www.music44.com (a sheet music retailer) with a business partner, because there is more money in the retailing of products than in creating them. In any case, internet downloading has certainly changed everything.
Basically, what the world pays for, more of that gets created. And what the world takes for free, less of that gets created. That’s just the way it is. If we don’t support financially what we like and find useful, we undermine the creators and they won’t continue to create as much. That’s not been true just for my stuff, but it’s true for everyone.
Speaking about your materials, how many books / methods have you sold in total? Which one had the greatest success ?
“Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar“is the biggest seller now. Maybe 300,000 units sold over the 25 years it’s been in print. The core metal guitar methods have done very well, too; “Metal Lead Guitar Vol 1” and “Metal Rhythm Guitar Vol 1” are similar. On the other hand, some only sold five thousand copies and are out of print. But all together they have sold something over 1,000,000, total. Divide that by 25 years of sales and you get an average of about 40,000 books per year. Sales are lower now in the US. But like I said, lots more people using them than these numbers reflect.
Do you plan to sell some new material in the near future (books, dvd, etc) ?
Yes. I just finished a “Dream Theater Signature Licks” book, which should be out in early 2015. That is the first book I’ve written in about 8 years, since “Fretboard Mastery”. I am also working on two new books with co-authors. One is “Speed Mechanics for Drums” with an awesome session drummer in LA named Chris Moore; the other is a new guitar book. But it’s a slow process because I basically have to work without getting paid, which is difficult to manage.
If you have to choose one word, or one sentence, about each of your book, which word / sentence will you choose ?
Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar – “the physical skill set for guitar mastery and how to get it”
Fretboard Mastery – “the understanding side of guitar mastery”
Metal Lead Guitar 1, 2 – “It works. A mix of technique and music to deliver a pro playing level.”
Metal Rhythm Guitar 1, 2 – “Teaches you to actually feel rhythm, what you need to get from beginner to pro.”
Troy Stetina: The Sound and the Story DVD – “My best work to date IMO. A good overview of all the components of playing and artistry. Digs deep into the higher-level concepts and applies them in a lot of music. Plus Fret12 really did a great job with production.”
Total Rock Guitar – “Fun book. No exercises; just 23 songs progressing in a graded system and covering the range of rock styles. The ultimate ‘application method.’ Surprisingly, it works!”
Beginning Rock Rhythm Guitar, Beginning Rock Lead Guitar videos – “An embarrassment. Hate seeing myself on DVD especially in this time period… my first videos were quite awkward IMO. Plus the material is a little thin in comparison to my other work.”
The Ultimate Scale Book – “My view of the fretboard, condensed. The full version is found in “Fretboard Mastery.”
Barre Chords: The Ultimate Guide – “Essential chord shapes, condensed. Again a fuller understanding is laid out in Fretboard Mastery.”
Goldmine 200 Rock Licks DVD – “Contributed 80 of the licks here. I’m not big on licks; more interested in teaching how to create the skills that enable players to create their own. But there is a place for learning licks and these are some cool variations off of licks on the Second Soul CD, Beyond the Infinite.”
Very Best of Ozzy Osbourne Guitar Signature Licks– “A labor of love. Randy was my biggest inspiration as I developed my style and technique as a player.”
Best of Deep Purple Guitar Signature Licks – “Ritchie Blackmore was never a player I was that into. He came a little before my time. But when the publisher asked me to do this book, I came to admire his work as a lead player greatly.”
Best of Foo Fighters, Best of Rage Against the Machine, Best of Black Sabbath, Best of Aggro Metal (Guitar Signature Licks book/CDs) plus Modern Rock and Black Sabbath Guitar Signature Licks DVD – “Fun, easy stuff. I like a lot of the music, and getting paid to write about it and record it is… well, not a bad gig!”
Best of Joe Satriani Guitar Signature Licks (by Dale Turner) – “I didn’t write this book, but I did the note for note recording because Dale was having tendon problems at the time. This was a real challenge, as my technique is more alternate picking based; Joe plays differently than I. So it took a full month to get the material all down and it definitely stretched me as a player. I consider this one of my personal bests to be able to get outside my zone and cover Joe’s best work so well.”
Hard Rock Guitar Signature Licks DVD – “Fun stuff to play. Takes me back to my roots.”
Beethoven Masterclass lesson downloads – “Beethoven is my favorite composer. It’s the classical music like this that really honed my technique. I just love to play it! So I put this 7 part lesson series together for other people who are as nuts about guitar mastery as I am.”
Those are the highlights; I’ll let the rest of them Rest in Peace…
How did start your participation with Fret 12 about your DVD “The Sound and the Story” ? Does another DVD is planned ?
I had been coaching Mark Tremonti (Alter Bridge/Creed) on lead technique for a few years when his brother Dan Tremonti started Fret12. It is an artist-centric vision that capitalizes on and brings together all elements of an artist’s career, including performance, recording, instruction, merchandise, gear… everything. The first Sound and Story DVD was Mark’s, for which I was content consultant. After that we did Leslie West. I was the third artist in the series. Now there are several more out.
Unfortunately, my DVD hasn’t sold as well as was hoped for. It is a $39 DVD so I think a lot of people stay away from it and go for cheaper things. Plus, of course a lot of people expect to download that kind of stuff for free. But the truth is that a quality product costs a lot of money to produce well, and you basically get what you pay for.
This is a great product, a 3 ½ hour DVD packed with information, lessons and music. It’s my crowning achievement to date on the instructional side, so it’s definitely worth $39 if you are serious about mastering the guitar in a rock or metal style. My hope is that as Fret12 continues to build momentum, sales will continue to pick up and at some point we will be able to do a Sound and Story II. But whether or not that happens is entirely a function of how many people pay for the Sound and Story “1”.
Beside your books let’s speak about your bands. You played in the past in few bands and it seem that you are now focusing on SECOND SOUL.
Second Soul self-released one CD “Beyond the Infinite” in 2011 and was poised to tour in 2012.
Of course by then the internet had already destroyed the ability of record companies to make money, so bands were all self promoting, and selling music was no longer really a profit center; the music had become something you basically have to just give away as a promotional vehicle—at best you hope it would pay for its cost in the short run. The money had shifted into live performance and merchandise. Funny, the same person that won’t buy a CD for $12 will easily spend $30 on a concert ticket and another $30 on a T shirt!
But of course for a new band there is no money in live performance, because you have no draw. It’s the headliner that has the draw. So at best the new band gets lucky because a headliner picks them up and takes them “under their wing” or they happen to have enough money to buy their way onto a tour. Either way, the trick is to get the band in front of enough people and be exciting enough to sell enough merch to keep that wheel turning, to pay for the tour in a sustainable way and keep building your audience. If you fail to make enough money it will be the last tour you do (unless you are so fabulously rich you can afford to keep pouring money down the drain).
The other method, the more traditional approach, is to play locally and build your audience gradually. But locally here at least there just isn’t enough support for that; people don’t care about original music, and frankly that’s because most of it is quite bland. There is no local “scene.” The clubs around Milwaukee are basically 15 drunk people in a bar telling us, “You guys f***ing rock! What are you doing playing here!?! You should be in an arena!” And we go home having spent more in gas than we made. That just wasn’t working. There has to be a market to build on. Without a local market, we had to look to the larger market, which was cool because we had some “in’s” there.
This was the state of the music industry when we were trying to get Second Soul off the ground. But unbeknownst to us the whole rock industry in the US, even at the higher levels, was hurting so badly by 2012 that established bands were also struggling to make money on tour. So promoters weren’t taking any chances, which meant new bands had basically no real opportunities to put their music in front of a lot of people. Dwindling opportunities from a dwindling market. We hoped we could be the exception of course. Just because it’s harder doesn’t mean it’s impossible. But when all our manager’s plans failed to materialize, and my friend Mark also wouldn’t allow us buy onto any of his tours due to his own constraints, we saw no way to continue. No way to push it forward. Then the manager bailed and we put Second Soul into hiatus in 2013.
It hit me hard; after 10 years of effort we finally had everything in place — the music, the recording, the band members committed and ready to tour, the live show ironed out, a trailer full of whatever sound gear any headliner would want for free (our manager owned a sound and lighting company), a great soundman, the merch, and even the cash was available get this whole thing jumpstarted (no small miracle there!).
We had worked for it and we had everything in place! Plus — and here’s the kicker — whenever we played, people actually bought our stuff! It’s one thing for people to compliment and encourage you; it’s another when they put their money where their mouth is. That is real support. We were converting 10-20% of every room into sales, which is pretty amazing. When we played in front of 100 people we’d sell 10-20 items, when we played if front of 50, we’d sell 5-10, and when we played in front of 10, we’d sell 1 or 2. It was consistent. So if we could get in front of 2000 people every night, we could expect to be selling 200-400 items, which puts us well above breakeven—just in merch alone. It looked sustainable.
What could go wrong? It’s business after all, so who wouldn’t take our money to buy on a tour?!? Well, no one it turned out. WTF? Why had everything come together, only to have the rug pulled out again for reasons beyond our control? The feeling of powerlessness in this kind of situation is horrendous. The questions start: Why am I fated to fail in the one area I most want? Am I just cursed? It would have been one thing if we took our shot, and people didn’t like it. I could change my approach. But that’s not what happened. People did like it. We didn’t get a chance to show them!
My entire life’s work had centered on playing guitar; I was always an artist first, and only a teacher second. Teaching and writing was my “day job.” All my inspiration came from artistry, from perfecting the guitar and creating music. Only then did I have something to share by teaching. But when my centerpiece — my purpose — fails, well, how many times do you sacrifice and hold on to a dream before you finally let it go? How resounding a defeat does it take for you to start to question whether you are delusional or just don’t have whatever luck or “magic” it takes? When you get so close, when you have everything going for you, when you know in your heart this is what you are on this earth to do, when you give it what you’ve got, when people love it and buy it, and you STILL fail?! What then??? Shall I invest another 10 years, hoping all those elements come together again? Remember, every cylinder must fire together for success, every link in the chain must hold at the right time. The right opportunity has to show up. And we don’t have control over all those things. We never do.
Actually, it was worse than that. You see I had been blocked at every point when it came to bands, while the opportunities on the instructional side blossomed. I have no idea why. It was uncanny. But it was a definite pattern in my life.
Certainly I appreciate the opportunity I had in regard to teaching and writing. And teaching and writing about music is CLOSE to music, but it isn’t creating records and touring and performing. So I used the book/CDs and DVDs as a vehicle for my original music and my guitar journey to a point; maybe 10% of my life was right doing this. But I was straddling the whole time. Teaching and writing was my day job—and it was a good day job as far as day jobs go; it was close enough to music to keep me playing, to keep my dreams alive. But those dreams never actually arrived. I was stuck at a career plateau. It’s the oddest thing. People all over the world are thinking I’m this successful, famous guitar god, while I felt like a complete failure as a musician! To get to the next level and progress as an artist, I needed the business of music to fund my recording and performing directly.
I should make an important distinction here: I had attained a level of mastery on the guitar, which was something I sought. So as an artist I “succeeded” in that regard. I also managed to make a living in music instruction for 25 years. That is another “success.” But to develop myself further, to reach my full playing potential, I needed opportunities to play more, not to sit at a computer and type.
So I got very bitter, getting so close to my dreams and seeing them evaporate. It would have been far easier to have failed earlier in life and then moved in a different direction. I even went so far as to resent for a time some of the opportunities I did have, since the outcome was failure. I mean, if I’m going to fail anyway, better to get it over with and move on quickly! It’s cruel to lead someone on, only to build up their hopes and then crush them. I felt like my entire life was a wasted effort. Like I didn’t matter at all. I stopped playing, claimed I “retired,” resigned myself to defeat. If the world didn’t want to hear me, if it didn’t afford a place for my dreams and my purpose, then f*** the world.
But after a time I finally surrendered to the spiritual journey of it. Do I really want to stay bitter, or do I want to be happy again? You can fight the world, you can fight God, you can fight “what is”, but when you argue with what is, you always lose. I was “Lieutenant Dan” in the movie Forrest Gump. Recently I started playing again for entirely different reasons.
Does a new album is plan for SECOND SOUL?
Not at this time. I’m not sure what kind of project I’m going to do next. I’m playing for me now, and only because when I’m not creative, I’m not happy.
I used to believe there had to be an audience to support me being a musician. Without that, you have to straddle, to work another job to earn a living, plus family, practicing, recording, composing, marketing yourself, etc. And there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all of it. (Well, I suppose if you are willing to leach off others or live in your parents basement your whole life you could keep at it, but I couldn’t.) So I went for it and got left holding an empty bag after 10 years of sustained effort and overcoming one obstacle after another. Hell, I even have a worldwide fanbase of guitarists and still Second Soul failed to launch! This was the log that broke the camel’s back. Because I was totally invested in getting a certain outcome in the world to make my life right, therefore I was at the mercy of the world. So when the world failed me, I failed.
Now I no longer care whether there’s an audience. I have surrendered to what is, and decided that whatever time I have to play must be enough… even though I have to keep my day job. It has to be enough because that’s all I have. Maybe I won’t be the musician I knew I could be, or thought I should be. I’m only the musician I am. When your plans fail, you have a choice—you either quit or you find a different reason to keep going. And I finally found a reason that is not dependent on the world’s rewards.
I may just record and not even bother “releasing” any of it at all. It hardly matters. I never liked the marketing, self promotion, distribution side anyway. What has that got to do with playing guitar being creative? I’m currently reading a book called “Art & Fear” on this subject. Very interesting. Being an artist is hard. There is a lot of risk and we are quite unrewarded in the vast majority of cases. That’s just the way it is. The world just doesn’t meet our needs very well.
There is a popular, naive assertion that if you just follow your heart and pursue your authentic artistic vision, that eventually the world will appreciate you and reward you for it. It is untrue. Yes, there is a certainly shred of truth in it; it’s certainly true that artists who achieve great successes generally do have an authentic artistic voice. But that is no guarantee that if you develop such a voice, it will follow that the world will reward it. There are talented, creative artists out there that go unrewarded despite their efforts, and there are also plenty of mediocre talents that shine in the spotlight for a season. Ask Schubert about music and art and reward. His music became successful only years after he died. A great talent, no doubt. No reward for him.
Everyone has their challenges, and everyone is putting a false mask on it to one degree or another, thinking they have to look “successful” in order to be “successful.” You should pay attention of MY band because other people think we are something! It’s all image management. And of course there is some truth to this, as the band that LOOKS like they have some momentum is probably the one that will get the opportunity to create that momentum. So everyone is out there lying, more or less. The truth is they are all struggling, and many are living in mom’s basement. If all our lives where really as wonderful as we made them appear on Facebook, it would be a happy, happy world indeed! But it’s a big gleaming pile of bullshit. Everyone has pain. Everyone is broken on some level and everyone is struggling with something. If you haven’t been broken yet, you probably haven’t lived very long—or you are living in denial of your own brokenness, dishonest and numb to it.
On the other hand, my spiritual journey in dealing with losses of various kinds has resulted in my writing a book entitled “To Love and To Teach” with a friend named Michael Baumann. After a decade battle with cancer, Michael died just 24 hours before the final proof was submitted. Maybe that’s more important than guitar. Really, what do I know anyway?
Beside SECOND SOUL you were also involved in another project called DIMENSION X, do you have any news to share about the band ?
Sorry to say, no. Although it received some good reviews, again it came along at a bad time for selling CDs and didn’t get enough support. Or maybe it did sell something, I don’t know. But I wasn’t paid a dime for it; no one in the band was as far as I know, and the band parted ways.
You own your own recording studio called “Artist Underground”, may we know what are you doing (recording, mastering, etc) ? What are the planning for your studio for this year ?
I’m producing a metal release for a local musician here in Milwaukee that I really like, named Tommy Lodwig. Kind of old school metal but very authentic, very emotive and a lot of heart. Really good artistry in my opinion. And I’m also toying with recording a local Christian rock thing with my wife Jennifer and a few local musicians. No big aspirations. Just doing it for fun.
Never thought I’d embrace something like Christianity, but these difficult life questions made me search further and deeper than I ever thought I’d go. Still, I think I’m sort of a Thomas Jefferson “Christian of one” because I don’t buy most of the doctrine in the way it’s presented; I don’t buy their simple version of who Jesus was or what Scripture actually is and what it means. Or I guess I should say I think they ask the wrong questions and inappropriately expand the context. I’ve been a spiritual seeker my whole life, but that’s another story… maybe I have another book to write 😉
Let’s speak now about your role as one the greatest guitar teacher of the world. When did you start to give guitar lesson to some students ?
I started teaching at a local music store in Indianapolis when I was 18 years old. I was playing at the time in a cover band and writing some original music, but the gigs were so infrequent that I decided to teach on the side to make some money to get by.
What is the best advise that you can provide to a totally new guitar player ?
Follow your inspiration!!
And to a mid/advanced one which seem to do not improve his skills anymore ?
You need to assess more accurately what you are doing and how you are doing it. To some degree, short plateaus are unavoidable. It’s part of the process. But when it is persistent, there is something wrong. I would advise a person in this situation to seek out a much more advanced player/teacher skilled in their style and desired technique, and ask for an evaluation and help to identify the problem and how to overcome it.
I do this kind of thing via skype lessons, if anyone out there is in that situation. I also happen to be particularly good at this. But it doesn’t have to be me. There are many skilling players out there who also teach. Just find someone to help you through it. To do otherwise is to waste a lot of time, or even lose your joy and motivation to play. There is nothing quite like the thrill of breaking through your every barrier and seeing yourself master things you previously only dreamed of!
Which books do you recommend to a new guitar player ?
For a beginner interested in rock and metal, start with “Metal Rhythm Guitar Vol 1”, and after you are about halfway into that, supplement it with “Total Rock Guitar”. Progress from Vol 1 into Vol 2, and around that time, also pick up “Metal Lead Guitar Primer” and start on those techniques. Continue through Lead Guitar Vol 1 and 2. After you get deep into Lead Vol 1, I’d also recommend you supplement that with “Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar”, and after that, dig into “Fretboard Mastery”. And of course, the whole time, you can supplement with learning songs and solos that inspire you, and stuff like Signature Licks books can be helpful with that. Plus, of course, get your band going and write and record music!
Which advises could you provide to people who often stop to play guitar and restart, again and again ?
Haha! That would be me giving myself advice, because I’m probably the worst offender! Hmmmm… motivation is a tricky thing. Keep evaluating your goals and what motivates you. Keep moving toward something. It’s not about the goal. It’s about the direction.
What is the most common mistakes that you see from other guitarist? What is the greatest default of a guitarist?
Self absorption I think. Paying too much attention to playing the guitar and not really listening to the music. In popular music, I’d say underplaying. It could be so much more interesting. And in shred circles, overplaying. Notes and more notes that don’t really mean anything. Of course, that’s a personal, subjective preference for the most part. But I tune out after a while. There is a point, I think, at which playing fast just becomes boring.
When you used to practice guitar exercises, how and when did you decide that is the time to move to another exercise ?
Ah, probably the best question anyone every asked, who wants to master their technique. And it’s the hardest to answer! The way to answer it is to lay out the basic principles, and use trial and error, watching yourself and how your technique responds as you try balancing the principles differently. Here they are: 1) repetition, repetition, repetition, 2) variety and creativity, 3) maintain your focus.
What that means is, you need A LOT of correct repetition, and in particular, repetition on the most troublesome aspects. But if you drill something to death, you seat your current playing motions into muscular memory, and that is the OPPOSITE of what we are trying to do! It also bores you and dries up your creativity. That’s no good. And the way muscular memory works is the more you repeat, after a bit of focused improvement, you generally lose focus and start making more errors. It’s like weight training. In a given session, it doesn’t make you stronger, it makes you weaker. But by resting and coming back to it again and again, you get stronger. Guitar skills are similar in a sense, except keep in mind that you can be “resting” on one technique while practice a different one.
So, there are a lot of factors to consider. Level of the player. How much time he/she can practice. Goals of the player. Temperament of the player. Motivation level. So what is “right” for one person probably isn’t going to be the perfect mix for you. Determining what actually works for you by having a more advanced player who understands all this actually watch you and guide you through the course of a few hours of skype lessons is probably the best real world answer. So you get a sense of it directly, what it feels like. But basically it’s about watching yourself practice and noticing your progress, your focus, your energy.
What are for you the best exercises / things to do when we do not have a lot of time to practice? How many time do you think is it require to practice per week in order to improve his skills?
Without a lot of time to practice, be careful not to force it. When you first pick up the instrument, you are not going to be playing as well as that night you soared to new heights after shredding relentlessly for four straight hours of highly focused enthusiasm. Don’t overplay when you warm up. Focus on touch and smoothness first, not speed.
How many times per week. I’d say ideally 6…. One day of total rest. But even if you can only make it 3, that’s still enough time to progress. There is this factor of diminishing returns that comes in. I’ve heard that the studies on this tend to confirm that skill development over 2-4 hours a day is minimal, typically.
What are your default exercise that you practice each time when you pick up the guitar ?
Don’t have any. Although until last week I hadn’t played for months and was very stiff and rusty. When that happens I usually start by playing some Bach pieces very slowly, because the music sounds good to me slow and I can lose myself in it for a while. Then suddenly I notice I’m playing better, without making any effort specifically to do so.
Which guitars / amps / pedals are you using ?
By big amp is an Engl Special Edition. But I use a small Vox valvetronics practice amp most of the time. No regular pedals.
For guitars I prefer my Signature edition Dimis Guitar, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plZ5MXxHVgQ
I am also a PRS Guitar artist, and sometimes use a McCarty and a Custom 24.
And now let’s speak about your general music vision. What have you listen over the last few months?
Little bits of this and that I come across while online, or someone sends me something. Also, the album I’m producing for Tommy. Love that stuff. But not a lot of listening to bands for the purpose of enjoying music. I don’t seem to have that much time.
The metal scene is bigger and bigger each year. What do you think about this new metal scene? Do you regret few things ?
I haven’t seen that happening here. Seems all the bands are struggling for an audience, including new metal. Seems to me it’s difficult to distinguish any from the rest; the form is so well established. Lots of energy, and technical precision, but not a lot of anything new to say IMO.
Do you go often to some gigs ? If yes do you take attention about how does the other guitarists plays ?
I saw Kiss and Def Leppard last week. First time I saw Kiss since the late 70s. It’s a circus; it was fun. Saw Vivian Campbell playing with Def Leppard, he looked amazingly bored. And why wouldn’t he be? I’d be bored too, playing in that band. Love some of the songs, but not exactly stretching into any new levels of artistry.
What make you the most proud ?
My wife Jennifer. My kids. And whenever I do a job very well; when I know in my heart I’ve done the right thing and held onto my integrity.
Just out of curiosity, do you continue to train yourself on a bike like before you start to play guitar ?
No. I will let me nephew Pete Stetina handle the bike training these days. He seems to have a knack for it. (Placed 35th in this year’s Tour De France.)
Do you have any last words or news that you will like to communicate?
Thank you for the opportunity, and I hope that my words may have touched someone else out there in a positive way.
Thanks for giving me your time. Wish you all the best !
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