The Steve Stine Podcast
The Steve Stine Podcast is about more than just music — it’s about life, faith, and finding meaning in the everyday. Join Steve as he shares honest stories from decades of experience as a musician, educator, husband, father, and believer navigating the highs and lows of life. Each episode offers heartfelt conversations about purpose, spirituality, personal growth, and staying inspired — even when life gets messy or uncertain.
Whether you’re picking up a guitar, walking through a season of change, or just looking for encouragement to keep going, you’ll find something here to lift your spirit. With special guests, personal reflections, and real-world insights, this podcast is for anyone seeking a deeper connection to their creativity, their calling, and their faith.
Episodes
392 episodes
Find Every Essential Chord In Any Key
Someone calls a chord progression like “1 6 4 5,” then says, “Cool, now let’s do it in A,” and suddenly your brain starts flipping through a messy stack of chord shapes. We wanted a cleaner, faster way to find the chords that actually matter, n...
Inside GuitarZoom Academy: A Real Student’s Experience
A lot of guitarists don’t quit because they stop loving music. They quit because life gets loud and practice gets messy. Steve Stine sits down with Chris Macry, a 62-year-old guitarist who played hard as a kid, stepped away for years while rais...
How To Find And Play Octaves Across The Guitar Neck
Octaves are one of those guitar “unlock” moments: suddenly the fretboard stops feeling like random dots and starts looking like a repeating pattern you can actually use. We walk through what an octave is in plain language, then immediately turn...
What If Progress Is Just Better Conversations
If you’ve ever felt buried under advice, tabs, tutorials, and “one more video,” this one is for you. We talk about the biggest mindset shift students need to make when they join an online music academy: your job isn’t to research every answer o...
Too Much Advice Can Make You Worse At Guitar
Your guitar playing probably doesn’t need more information. It needs less noise. We live in a world where presets, plugins, YouTube guitar lessons, short-form tips, and endless gear reviews are always one click away, and that abundance quietly ...
A Student's Experience inside the GuitarZoom Academy
You can love guitar for decades and still feel like you’re standing outside the music, looking in. That’s where Cary Bynum found himself: a creative professional from Birmingham, Alabama, raised on the Beatles, the Stones, classic rock, blues, ...
Levi Clay Interview - The Master of Guitar Transcription
The fastest way to stall on guitar is to confuse memory with musicianship. That is where Levi takes us, starting with the honest origin story of learning guitar for the wrong reasons, then quickly finding the right ones: teaching, curiosity, an...
If You’re Not Setting Deadlines, You’re Wasting Practice Time
Your practice can be consistent and still feel like it’s going nowhere. When there’s no deadline, it’s easy to drift through scales, licks, and exercises without ever feeling finished, and that “unfinished” feeling quietly kills motivation. We ...
Why Most Practice Doesn’t Work (And How to Fix It)
Noodling feels like practice until you realize you’re getting the same results month after month. We sit down and get blunt about what actually creates progress on guitar: a plan that matches your real schedule, plus the discipline to practice ...
How Great Guitar Players Use Slides (And How You Should Too)
Want your solos to breathe, sing, and feel human without learning a new scale? We dive into the art of slides and show how three simple categories—intentional slides, subtle half-step drifts, and “airplane” landings—transform stiff lines into v...
The One Guitar Pedal I Always Travel With (My Live Rig in a Backpack)
Ever wish your live rig could fly under the seat and still sound huge? Steve Stein breaks down a travel-first guitar setup that trades heavy amps for a Quad Cortex without sacrificing feel, clarity, or stage confidence. We walk through why port...
Stop Chasing Gear, Start Making Music
Feeling stuck even with endless lessons, tabs, and shiny gear at your fingertips? We dig into the surprising reason progress stalls for so many players: overload. From preset chasing to YouTube grazing, we unpack six traps that quietly drain yo...
The Real Reason You’re Not Getting Better at Guitar
Feeling stuck even though you practice daily and binge guitar videos? We’ve been there. The real blocker isn’t effort—it’s the lack of a focused plan that turns scattered experiences into absorbed skills you can trust when it counts.We ...
Make Real Progress by Practicing with "Intention"
Stuck playing the same licks but not getting better? This conversation maps a clear path from autopilot to intentional practice so your limited time turns into visible progress and real confidence on the fretboard. We unpack how to set precise ...
Gig-Ready: Build Your Guitar Emergency Kit
Shows fall apart for simple reasons: a dead tuner battery, a snapped string, a noisy cable. We decided to stop gambling with luck and build a compact guitar emergency kit that turns potential disasters into quick, quiet fixes. This episode is a...
Practice Vs. Progress For Guitarists
Want real progress instead of the same comfortable loops? We break down the simple shift that turns practice from maintenance to elevation, so your time actually maps to your goals. It’s not about grinding more minutes; it’s about choosing what...
The FIRST STEP in Learning to Play Authentic Sounding Solos
Ever run the pentatonic scale perfectly and still wonder why your solo doesn’t sound like a song? We shine a light on the missing link: groove and phrasing. Starting with a deep soul A minor backing track, we walk through how to hear the downbe...
Four Guitar Patterns That Break Pentatonic Ruts
Tired of solos that feel stuck in the same box? We dig into four compact shapes in E that instantly add color, movement, and melody—without burying you in theory. You’ll hear how each pattern sits over familiar E major pentatonic territory, the...
New Year, New Goals - Stop Old Habits and Make a Change
You know that feeling when a year goes by and your playing sounds the same? We’ve been there—wanting confidence, freedom on the fretboard, and finished songs, yet slipping back into the same routines that never moved the needle. Today we draw a...
Learn A Simple Three-String Shape To Add Power, Groove, And Flow To Your Solos
Want a soloing shortcut that actually sounds bigger, bolder, and more musical? We break down a simple three-string shape in A—5-7-8 across the third, second, and first strings—and turn it into patterns that inject rock grit into blues vocabular...
Do You Really Need Music Theory?
Ever wonder if learning more music theory will actually make your playing better, or just add noise to your practice? We unpack the real value of theory for guitarists by separating the essential language—keys, diatonic chords, song form, and c...
From Noodling To Noticing: Long-Term Plays And Short Wins For Guitarists
Ever feel like your practice sessions are busy but not better? We dig into a simple, reliable way to turn scattered effort into musical progress by pairing long-term plays with short-term wins—and then slicing through both to make actual songs ...
How To Grow As A Guitarist Without Touching The Guitar
We break down the hidden skills that make guitar progress stick: deep listening, patience, consistency, mindset, and confidence. Then we connect theory and fretboard knowledge to real musicality so you can play with certainty and stop getting l...
Learn The Vocal Tools That Turn Scales Into Music
One note can say everything—if you know how to shape it. We dig into the practical craft of turning scales and theory into expression by focusing on what we call vocal tools: bends, slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and vibrato. The thread running...