The Steve Stine Podcast

Exploring Guitar Versatility: Miguel Navarro's Path Across Classical, Tango, and Rock

• Steve Stine

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What happens when curiosity meets musical passion? For Miguel Navarro, it sparked a remarkable journey across genres, techniques, and even countries. In this captivating conversation with Steve, Miguel reveals the winding path that brought him from childhood lessons in Chile to becoming a respected instructor at GuitarZoom Academy.

Miguel's story begins with childhood inspiration from a popular puppet show, leading to his first guitar lessons at age eight. The social aspect of learning alongside his best friend created a motivational foundation that would shape his approach to music for years to come. His narrative takes us through his progression from simple open chords to formal conservatory training, where he embraced classical guitar technique and traditional Chilean folk music. The most pivotal moment came when Miguel discovered Argentine tango guitar—a versatile style that combined technical demands with collaborative performance opportunities. This passion ultimately led him to relocate to Buenos Aires, where he completed his musical education in traditional music programs.

What makes Miguel's approach so valuable to students is his unique perspective on teaching. Rather than focusing solely on technique, Miguel views teaching as "accompanying someone's journey"—connecting with students' lives beyond just the musical aspects. His versatility across classical, folk, tango, and rock styles gives him a rare ability to help students find their own unique voice on the instrument. When he names his current influences—tango guitarist Hugo Rivas, acoustic player Jungle Rainhawk, and jazz innovator Julian Lash—we glimpse the eclectic musical mind that makes him such an effective instructor. Whether you're a beginner finding your way around open chords or an advanced player looking to explore new genres, Miguel's multicultural musical journey offers valuable insights for guitarists at any stage of development. Ready to expand your guitar horizons? Listen now and discover how Miguel's diverse experience might transform your playing.

Links:

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

Steve:

Hey everybody, I'd like you to meet Miguel Navarro. Miguel is one of our instructors in the GuitarZoom Academy. He's an amazing guy, amazing player, really compassionate. I love the way that I get responses from students about the way you teach, and thanks for joining me today, buddy.

Miguel:

Thank you, Steve. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Steve:

Well, that's awesome. Tell me a little bit about your history, like first starting to learn how to play. What inspired you to want to learn how to play guitar?

Miguel:

Well, I you know what? I was one of those kids that was pretty much into everything. So you know, in school, when we have these kind of extra lessons after the school hours, that you get to play football or do science, experiments and things like that. I was into all of that. So I was spending all my time at school taking all these courses. I took tennis, kung fu and all those things. There was a guitar course that I took for one semester I think I was about eight, nine and there was this very popular kids show. It's called 31 minutes okay the translation and it was very, very popular and it was a puppet show and it has a lot of songs and very, very, very cool songs. This is probably like 20 years ago.

Miguel:

And they're still very popular, especially among people of my age. So I started learning those songs, you know, basic chords, open chords with, and I didn't even had a guitar. So I I was playing with the guitar at school, learning all that, and that was my first interaction with with guitar and pretty much pretty much with with music. But that was just, you know, um, uh, six months and, and then they changed the teacher, something happened and didn't continue and I didn't play the guitar until maybe when I was 14, 15, a little older, and there I got back to play the guitar, also because of a TV show.

Miguel:

At the moment there was also the main character was this young guy that was in a music school and he was playing the guitar and there were also a lot of songs from the TV show. So again, I grabbed my guitar, my old guitar that I finally got from the closet, out of the closet and started learning those songs. And with the TV show, youtube was kind of starting at that point. So they were putting out these videos of the same guy, the main character, teaching how to play these songs with the open chords. So I really learned those chords and started playing those songs and then I never stopped from since then.

Steve:

Oh, that's great so when you started doing all of that, how did you transition into uh, you know playing, like performing, you know? What schooling did you have like? How did all of that work for you moving from that into your later teens, into your your uh, you know 20s?

Miguel:

yeah. So one kind of key thing for me was, uh, that that I was learning to play the guitar with a friend that was pretty much my best friend at the time and we were both watching this TV show. Then we started getting more into guitar, learning new chords, new songs, other genres, other type of music, and we started taking lessons, so both. So it was private lessons with an instructor, but both of us at the same time. So that, for me, was most of my motivation was coming mostly from playing with my friend and being able to play together, more than the music itself. So that's kind of funny, and so so, yeah, we then we started playing more rock music. We switched to electric guitar. You know, my, my teacher was also a huge rock guitar player. So we started learning Journey and Guns N' Roses and Led Zeppelin and all that classic rock music, some blues. But he was also a very good teacher. He was a teacher at a pretty well-known school of music in Chile Well, I'm from Chile and so we got also a little bit of how to read music, learning how to read music, the basic theory of the scales, all the keys and all that stuff that at the time I didn't pay much attention. It's kind of understandable at that age, you just want to play. But it was good to have that first contact with reading, with sheet music, with theory.

Miguel:

Because later on, you know, when I was reaching my age of finishing school, high school, I'm starting to think about, okay, what I'm going to do now. And when I finally decided that, okay, I want to continue with this, I'm going to apply for the conservatory, then it was very helpful for me to have that. Even if it was a small background, it was something that I had a little advantage because in my school we pretty much didn't have any music lessons, or that was very, very little. We had one hour kind of an ensemble lesson that we would play songs, but, yeah, nothing that could prepare me for, you know, to apply to a conservatory. So all that I did it kind of by my side. I had friends that were older than me, that they were already studying in the same conservatory that I wanted to apply. So that was also a huge help for me and also, again, motivation to have friends, good friends, that they were doing the same thing, that I liked it. So that was more or less the path in my early studies.

Steve:

Right. So when you got done with your studies at the conservatory, did you go on to like did you start teaching right away, or did you play in bands? Or how did all of that transition after that?

Miguel:

Right. So you know, I started teaching pretty much right away, kind of you know, as soon as I learned a couple of open chords, you chords, I was giving lessons to my classmates. And then, yeah, since then until now, I've been giving private lessons mostly. So yeah, you asked me about the band. So yeah, so I was playing with my friend, this good friend, the beginning we were playing just the two of us, so just two guitars and most of the classic rock repertoire. It's perfect for that, because you have a rhythm guitar and a lead guitar you can switch back and forth. So we were playing all that stuff.

Miguel:

And then at the conservatory I kind of switched the genre of the music that I was playing because I started learning classical guitar. So that was a big change and actually I stopped playing with a pick at all and I learned the classical technique and started playing in all the kind of ensembles. I got into traditional folk music from Chile, from all the neighbor countries, and Latin American music and I discovered kind of a new world. And those were kind of three, four years that I pretty much didn't play the electric guitar at all and switched to this kind of new world of music. But I felt kind of the same way. You know that when I was eight I was doing kind of everything, so the conservatory was a great place again to to meet people. So there was this, this traditional folk band that I was in. There was the classical choir, so I was there singing Bach cantatas, then I was playing with the guitar quartet and so I did a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff, and one of the groups that kind of changed then my path in my studies was a tango orchestra, an Argentinian tango. So there was this bandoneon player from Argentina, daniel Lewin, that's his name, and he set up this orchestra. We call it a school orchestra. He set up this orchestra, kind of we call it a school orchestra, so we will learn the basics of the, the genre, and then play some repertoire.

Miguel:

And you know, argentinian tango is huge in in guitar. It's played mostly in in nylon string guitars and you you have you got a different also style. So there's people that plays with with a pick. It can get very uh shreddy. You know there's more people that play more in a classical way with with fingers. You can play as a lead soloist or you can accompany singers or other guitars. So it's a very wide range of things that you can do in tango guitar and that was kind of the thing that caught my attention because I wanted to play all that and still being able to learn and go deep into music. And so I found out there and it's more of a popular music that you play and people dance and very different to, for example, a classical guitar concert.

Miguel:

But it's also another thing that was kind of in my head at that time was that the classical guitar repertoire is mostly for soloists. You play by yourself most of the repertoire. You get some ensembles and stuff like that, but, yeah, most of the repertoire is for soloists, and that was also something that I didn't like that much. I love the repertoire, I love playing and I still play classical guitar, but, yeah, I prefer playing with someone else, you know, with a senior guitar player.

Miguel:

So that was also something that interests me a lot of this music, so much that at the end I ended up moving here. I'm living now in Buenos Aires, in Argentina. So I came here and I finished my studies of music here. Wow, because here it's pretty much as opposed to Chile, when we have a lot of traditional music, but it's not something that you can learn at a school with a full program, a conservatory program, and here they have that very well developed. So you have a lot of schools and conservatories with like a normal conservatory, like a classical conservatory, but they teach jazz or traditional folk music or tango, and that's what I did here.

Steve:

So you've I mean that's pretty amazing. You've done a lot of stuff on the guitar. You studied a lot of different things. You know I'm primarily a rock player. I mean I did a little classical in college, but I've always been. I really like that. You've done so many different things. So what I mean. I suppose it's kind of hard to say, but from a guitar perspective, what kinds of things do you love most, like what kind of styles of music or what kind of things do you like to play?

Miguel:

things do you love most, like what kind of styles of music or what kind of things do you like to play? Yeah, so it's curious, because what I said before is that I love playing with, with other people. But one of the things that also got me studying classical guitar was that kind of that polyphony of the that you can play a bass line, that you can play a bass line, that you can play a melody just by yourself with a guitar. That's something that really blew my mind. I remember seeing piano players and I couldn't understand how they could play both hands at the same time. I wanted to do the same with the guitar when I discovered that it was through classical guitar.

Miguel:

So that's something that I love, even though I am not that much of a soloist. It's something that I love playing that thing and that's something that can still happen even if you're not playing alone. You can still have that polyphony going on if, even if you're, for example, accompanying a singer, for example. So, so that that I love, or I love, um, yeah, all the things that you can do when playing with, with another guitar player, or playing harmonies, for example. I remember you posted that a while ago in the in the school forum, you were playing the the Eagles Hotel, california solo. Yeah, at the end it has that, I remember. I comment oh, I couldn't help myself, so I grabbed the guitar and played the second line. Oh, that's great.

Miguel:

So, yeah, I love those kind of stuff and those were the kind of things that also I was playing with my friends, trying to play, for example, that exact solo. You know they have like three guitar players or they can do all those kind of stuff. Yeah and yeah. And also I love acoustic music. So I'm a huge acoustic guitar guy and there's something different than the sound coming out of an amp that I still love. It's different, but the acoustic guitar has something that kind of resonates with me a bit more.

Steve:

Let's talk a little bit about your teaching. What do you enjoy most about teaching?

Miguel:

most about teaching I really enjoy. You know, when you teach, it's not only that you pass your knowledge or you teach a chord, you're accompanying the journey of someone, and that comes not only with the musical stuff and their struggles with the right, the left hand, it comes kind of with everything, with what happens in their daily life, what mood they're in, and so I like that to kind of feel part of their life in a way, and being able to accompany all those processes. And then in the more musical stuff, when you are able to see that one thing that they can change and in change everything, those those aha moments that we talk about all the time here at guitar soon, that's, that's wonderful, that you know. That doesn't make me feel very, very good after a lesson, when a student tells me well, miguel, you really helped me. I never saw this this way, or no one ever told me this that thing. For me it's super valuable. And those are the moments that I say, well, okay, this is worth it.

Steve:

I agree man. That's awesome, that's awesome. I love your attitude. I, I, uh, you know I've been working with Miguel for quite a while, but we just don't really get much of a chance to talk personally about things, so it's nice to hear your story a little bit. Um, let's, let's end with a couple, couple things. So name me three of your favorite artists right now. It can change tomorrow. Right, let's use three today.

Miguel:

What would they be Three today. Okay, let me see. Well, I will say what comes to mind right now. There's a guitar player called Hugo Rivas. It's a tango guitar player and he's just out of this world. It's unbelievable what he plays. I definitely recommend you to check it out because it's unbelievable and he's super versatile. But he plays acoustic nylon guitar. He plays with a pick, he plays plays with a pig, he plays with with, also with the finger style. So it's pretty much uh, you know it's, that's my jam right right then I it comes to my jungle rainhawk.

Miguel:

So also again, another acoustic guitar player, but totally different style, different genre. Lately I've been playing a lot also of that music, so, yeah, that's something I really love. And the other artist that comes to mind I would say maybe Julian Lash. Okay, he's a jazz guitar player, very modern, very authentic, you could say kind of original, very fresh, and that's maybe more in the improvisation world. Yeah, a new, different sound. So all three of them very, very different. Uh, but yeah, those are the guys that first come, came to mind and that really inspired me that's awesome.

Steve:

Well, thanks, thank you, miguel. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. I don't want to take too much time, but I really do appreciate talking to me. And for those of you that are either watching or listening out there, um, you know, miguel is one of many instructors that we have in the academy, and you can see how he is unique in the ways that he plays and the way that he approaches things, and that's what makes the academy a really amazing place is that you can work with professionals like Miguel, whether you're on a beginner level or you're on a more advanced level, and he's got a lot of just really wonderful perspectives on everything from, obviously, acoustic, picking finger picking styles to electric and rock and all sorts of different things. So, miguel, thank you so much for taking time out to talk to me. I appreciate that, buddy.

Miguel:

Thank you, steve, my pleasure.

Steve:

You have a great day. Okay, you too. All right, thanks, bud. Thank you.

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