Speaker: Gary R.
Tell us about your Guitar journey before you discovered Steve Stine and GuitarZoom.
Gary R.: I started playing guitar when I was like 16 and now I'm 76 and at 16 I was playing in a little band and, and I was a rhythm guitar. So I, you know, I could play chords and, you know, new four or five chords for a couple of keys, 2-3 keys. And that was enough. And, and we had a great time and I did that for years and, and, later on, you know, a little bit leading some worship music in small groups and stuff. But I was doing the same thing. I was, I was playing a few chords and, a few songs I'd memorized, you know, I'd, I had maybe, I don't know that I could play, you know, maybe, maybe 40 songs I could chord with and, and sing along and, and I relied on singing really for interest and for, to any embellishments and for anything tricky, the guitar was not it, you know, the guitar was still the same four chords, five chords. And, and that was it. And, but now I'm retired and moved into a co op and I have the opportunity to do something else. And that is, I have the opportunity to actually try to improve my guitar playing itself and, and Steve Stine is terrific and the course has been fantastic and, and I'm loving it because my wife always said you gotta learn some new songs and you know, new rhythms, new something. And so I'm doing that and, and I'm just enjoying the process and enjoying that. And I think already now I can play, you know, if you had to talk about a percentage, I can probably play, you know, 20 or 40% more than I could play then. And that's just going through this course. The course is terrific. He explains stuff and he hits the stuff that you need or that I need to, to extend my playing from singing with a guitar and just, just doing that to actually being able to do something interesting about the guitar where I could actually be sitting in a chair and just be finger picking or picking flat picking and do something interesting that might be somebody might want to listen to. So it's great fun. And, I appreciate Steve Stine. I wish he was sitting here in the room with me. And, I think, you know, I think in, in probably 10 minutes he could, he could advance me another, another five years in my playing ability if you if you, if you do Steve Stine course you'll enjoy it. You'll love it and you'll play better than you ever would have and learn faster than you ever would have without it. Thanks, thanks Steve. And, God bless you.
How would you describe the results you’ve seen in your personal playing and learning of the guitar?
Gary R.: One of the best things about Steve's courses is that I've, I've learned to have fun just practicing and playing and I'm getting better at it and, and the fact is that there was stuff that I thought I had to have it down and do it perfectly or I wouldn't do it at all. And, Steve's always quick to, you know, hey, it doesn't matter if you, if that note is a little bit dampened or, or, you know, you do this and you can change that rhythm up and part of it is just the fun of, of playing has, has changed my attitude where, where I don't mind playing and practicing stuff that, that maybe I'm not great at. And, and I think it's not wrong. It's just, you know, it's just where I'm at or it's as long as it sounds. Ok. it's pretty good. So, it's great, change in my practice and learning to play guitar.
What was something you didn't expect from GuitarZoom that really surprised you?
Gary R.: Some years ago, I tried to learn to play the piano and, and I got so I could pick out maybe a few tunes and stuff. But part of it at the time was that I thought that the way to do that is I had all these lessons that you would do scales and, repeat them and these exercise daily exercises and spent a lot of time on that. And I found it kind of uninteresting and boring. And the, one of the things that's great about, Steve's course is that it seems like every part of it, every, every little piece, every unit or whatever. I don't know what it's called. You know, every little small chunk that you, that you end up learning, they're all individually fun to do and fun to play and you feel like you're making music essentially right away and, and you're not trying to learn a bunch of theory or just, scales or something like that. everything that you learn seems immediately applicable to what you're, what you're trying to do, which is make music and that's great.
If you have to compare GuitarZoom to any other alternative, what would you say?
Gary R.: If you look behind me, you can see, I have a, squat rack back there. You know, I do squats and exercise. I had been exercising my whole life. I, I was, started wrestling when I was in junior high school and now I'm mid seventies, late seventies and, still work out and, and part of that is just consistency and, and being able to do it every day. And one of the things about GuitarZoom is the way the units are broken up and the little pieces of it, it's easy, it's easy to be consistent and to sit down every day because every day is interesting and every day is something new. And, there's a lot of, you know, there's, lately there's been a lot of in exercise, science and stuff. There's been a lot of notions about crossfit because it, every, every time you go to a workout, it's a different workout. So you never know what to expect. And with Steve's course, you've got something interesting to do every day and, and it's not just dragging out the same stuff you had the day before and it's, and it's super fun. To do.
What would you say to someone who's thinking of signing up for a GuitarZoom Course?
Gary R.: If you're thinking about signing up, it's a great idea. You know, you should do it. One thing is, you know, I signed up for GuitarZoom a long time ago. I think it was a few years back. And, at the time I was still busy, I was still, work, work life and I just didn't feel like I had time for it. But it's weird, you know, it's not the type of a thing where you sign up and then, you know, you didn't use it in the first six months. So it's gone rather, you know, I just jumped back into it fairly recently after I retired and you can come back to it and, so you you're not out, you know, if you have to lay off or you're thinking a lot of stuff you won't do because you think, well, I'll be going on vacation or I got this coming up or that coming up and I'm studying for this or whatever else it is. But with GuitarZoom you know, you can do that. You know, you, you're not, you're not dead in the water just because you take a week or a month off, you can go back to the course and, and pick right back up. so, you know, it's a great course to sign up for. And, if you do it, you'll end up being a better guitar player and having more fun at the same time.