Honest Feedback Is the Secret Weapon Every Guitarist Needs

Have you ever hit a plateau in your guitar playing despite hours of practice? The missing piece might not be more practice videos or tab books, but something far more valuable: honest assessment and feedback.

Steve Stine delves into why receiving quality evaluation of your playing is absolutely essential for guitar progress. Drawing from decades of teaching experience, he explains that without proper assessment, guitarists often develop blind spots—technical issues or inefficient approaches they simply cannot see themselves. As Steve puts it, "You don't know what you don't know," which perfectly captures why external feedback is irreplaceable.

The discussion explores practical aspects of finding the right assessment source, whether through formal lessons or trusted musical friends. Steve emphasizes creating a comfortable environment where you can play without performance anxiety, selecting someone whose opinion comes from a genuine place of wanting to help rather than criticize. He shares his approach to giving constructive feedback—focusing on one or two key areas rather than overwhelming students with a laundry list of corrections, and using the "compliment sandwich" method to keep motivation high while addressing areas for improvement.

Whether you're struggling with picking technique, finger positioning, or playing through complete songs, targeted assessment helps identify the specific adjustments that will make the biggest difference in your playing. Steve invites listeners to explore the GuitarZoom Academy, where personalized assessment and structured guidance create a roadmap to help you achieve your specific guitar goals. Ready to break through your playing barriers? The right feedback might be all you need.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Chapters

• 1:10 Importance of guitar playing assessment
• 2:20 Finding someone you trust
• 3:56 Giving effective feedback
• 5:25 Why assessment optimizes learning
• 6:39 Guitar Zoom Academy introduction

Transcript

Steve: 0:35

Hey Steve Stine, from Guitar Zoom here Today. What I would like to talk to you about is the importance of getting assessment about your playing okay, getting actual feedback of your playing so you know whether or not things are moving forward in the optimal way. Now, how do you get feedback? Well, or assessments of your playing. Guitar lessons is one way. That's really great If you can get into some guitar lessons with an instructor that you feel comfortable with and is available for you to. I mean, that's half the battle here, right, making sure that you find someone whose opinion is not stained for some reason in a negative connotation, that's really there to look at. This is where you were last time. You showed me what you were doing with this and now this is where you are now, and let's compare those two and see where you're at with things, so you know whether it's an instructor, whether it's a friend or a relative or something like that.

Steve: 1:50

Finding some way for you to get assessments of your playing is really important. Now, in order to be able to do that, you've got to be comfortable with playing in front of somebody, which again means that you need to find someone that you feel comfortable being around, oftentimes with guitar players. I find that people get really, really nervous when they have to play in front of other people, and I totally get it. That happens if you can find that right person and you can put your trust in them and you again really recognize that what they're doing is for your benefit. Their assessment has your best interests in mind. You can take that to heart and it's not an offensive thing If somebody says to you you know, I always think about the compliment sandwich, if you will where you can say something you know nice about person and then you can give them some constructive criticism or advice on something assessment, if you will and then say something that is positive again and that tends to work really well. But I also think just people tend to trust me that I'm coming from the right place when I'm trying to give them advice or assessment on their playing, because I have no stake in the game. Right, it's not about me. I want them to get where they want to be and in order to do that I need to be completely honest with them.

Steve: 3:11

If there's something about what they're trying to do Now when I'm giving assessments, I don't give them 35 things that they you know that could use improvement. I try and narrow that down. So what's? What's the bigger picture of what it is that you're trying to do here? Right, you're trying to play through this scale and it's struggling. Okay, is it a picking thing? Is it a finger? A string switching thing? Is it a fingering thing?

Steve: 3:37

Right, get something like that where we can say, hey, you know, one of the things I'm recognizing as I'm watching you play is it looks like you're kind of struggling with this. Can we talk about that a little bit more? And you know, play that again for me. And I want you to really be aware of what it is that you're doing right there, slow it down and really think about how that feels and how that sounds when you play it. And then you tell me what you think and then they'll do it again and then they'll say, yeah, that feels like I'm kind of struggling right there. It's kind of like I'm tensing up. Okay, let's start there and see what we can do to try and fix that.

Steve: 4:10

Now, if there's somebody that I know practices a lot, then we might go into a couple of the things that we could try and remedy along the way as well. If there's somebody that doesn't practice a lot. That might be enough for them to try and focus on, to try and redevelop, because they probably have five other 10 other things that they're working on as well, other than this conversation that we're having, and I can't forget about all that stuff, okay, this is why, the more I know about their journey and the more I know about what their goals are and what their plan is and what they're working on on a daily basis, it helps me to assess more properly what they're going to need to be able to achieve those goals and how much time they actually have available. So I think assessment is something that is really, really important, and it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's assessment of your work at your, your work at a restaurant, or your assessment of of how well you're doing in you know real estate or you know whatever, or carpentry it doesn't make any difference To have someone tell you you know I always use the analogy of like learning how to play pool or darts or something like that you can watch videos a lot and that's great, but you never really know whether or not what you're doing is maybe. You don't know what you don't know, so there might be something missing in there that could optimize what you're trying to actually do. You know, raise your shoulder up a little bit when you, when you throw the dart, or you know turn your wrist just a little bit or try and straighten.

Steve: 5:35

I think about that with golf when I was trying to learn how to play golf, like all these little things that you can do that make a significant difference in the, in the bigger picture. But unless you're working with somebody, how would you know? Like you're just kind of, you know, watching the video or listening to the thing, or reading the book or whatever it is, and you're trying to do it yourself? Now again, sometimes that works great. There are certain elements that you'll be able to do perfectly on your own, and that's awesome, but there's some things that you probably won't, and that's where assessment becomes very, very important, okay.

Steve: 6:04

So what I want to remind you is we have a thing called the Guitar Zoom Academy. Okay, it's a program that you can check out if you'd like to, and it is chock full of assessment. You know, that's the thing. We set you up with a game plan. We figure out what your goals are, what your struggles are, where you'd like to be, let's say, a year from now. What your North star, if you will, is what I'd love to be able to do.

Steve: 6:28

This I've always struggled with this thing, or you know, there's something missing here that I would love to be able to make this feel or sound a certain way.

Steve: 6:36

Or I'd love to learn to play songs all the way through. It could be anything. So we sit down with you and we make a plan, so you have an actual roadmap to get from point A to point B, and then we start working together, okay, on a daily basis if needed, interacting with each other, and one of the key elements of that is discussion, conversation, assessment of your playing, of your thought process, that sort of thing to make sure that you're really getting where you need to go. So, anyway, take care, stay positive. Think about what you could do to try and find somebody out there that you could work with and get true assessment of your playing in a positive. Think about what you could do to try and find somebody out there that you could work with and get true assessment of your playing in a positive, encouraging and useful way to get you to where it is you want to be able to go All right, so I'll talk to you soon, okay.