The Steve Stine Podcast

Music Lives Between The Notes, Not Just On The Page

• Steve Stine

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What if your next gig felt clear before you even picked up the guitar? Steve walks through his complete prep system for tackling a massive score like Jesus Christ Superstar with a small ensemble and tight rehearsal window, turning complexity into confident, musical performance.

We start with bird’s-eye listening to map the architecture of each song—intros, verses, bridges, and drops—so the emotional arc is obvious. Then we zoom into the details: where guitar adds impact, where silence is stronger, and how to balance parts when the score expects an orchestra but the pit is five players. Steve explains how he studies multiple productions, from the original album to the 2017 John Legend staging, to separate essentials from style and shape guitar parts that fit the cast, room, and instrumentation.

From there, it’s practical tools: performance-focused cheat sheets, dynamic markings, and page-turn cues that keep the body ahead of the paper. We talk about fixing bad charts, choosing voicings that leave space for vocals, and creating textures that cover missing horns or keys without clutter. You’ll hear why some riffs must be faithful while others can flex, how to decide which part makes the band sound bigger, and what to practice so transitions, articulations, and tone shifts feel automatic under pressure.

If you’re a guitarist preparing for theater, church, or a cover set, this playbook shows how to think like an arranger while playing like a teammate. You’ll walk away with a repeatable workflow for deep listening, smart part selection, and musical dynamics that elevate every scene. Enjoy the process, serve the song, and make a small band sound huge. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a bandmate, and leave a review with the biggest prep tip you’re stealing.

Links:

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

Steve:

Hey Steve Stein from Guitar Zoom Academy here. I just want to talk to you a little bit about how I prepare for gigs and musical opportunities that I'm presented with. And I'm sure my uh my approach is going to seem a bit overkill, which feeds right into my OCD and uh perfectionist sort of way of approaching things. But so my example for you today is going to be starting that right now, it's it's October, all right, October 2025 when I'm filming this. In November, I'm going to be performing Jesus Christ Superstar for one of the local colleges. And it's going to be myself, another guitar player, uh drummer, bass player, and a piano slash key slash synth player. And if you know anything about it, which I did not, I've, I mean, I've heard of it before, but I've never actually listened to it. There's a lot of stuff going on in that musical. Lots of, there's, there's a ton of songs, there's a ton of music, and just a lot of different things going on in there. And the performances that I've listened to and watched online, things like that, there's usually more than just a band. You know, you'll have kind of an orchestra set up where there's different kinds of things. So my point is the first thing that I like to do when I try and get ready for some sort of performance, be it one of the rock bands I play in, uh playing with symphonies, playing a church, playing in a musical like this, is I want to get comfortable with the music that I'm going to be playing. So this is something that maybe a lot of people don't do, and it's okay. Everybody's got their own way. I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about how I do it. I like to listen to the music and get to know it in my head. Um, you know, not the chords and the scales and the solos and the whatever. Just, you know, as a very bird's eye view, like what does the song, let's just talk about one song to begin with. What does the song sound like? Like, is there an intro of some sort? Is there some sort of guitar thing at the beginning? And then the verse kicks in. Is there palm muting going on? You know, what happens in the bridge or the chorus? What changes there? You know, just generalized things that I'll get out of listening to a song. Where, you know, somebody who may, maybe doesn't play an instrument might listen to the lyrics and memorize the lyrics and that sort of thing. For me, it's less about memorizing the lyrics and it's more about kind of what I call going underground or going deep. Like I'll start listening holistically to the structure of the song. Again, from a very bird's eye view, just getting used to things. And then as I've listened to it three or four or five or six or seven or eight times, or whatever it is I need, then I start zooming in a little bit and start getting a little bit more. Oh, it sounds like there's a lick here. Oh, it sounds like there's something here. It sounds like I don't play here. Sounds like this is quiet here. Like I'll start creating, you know, an idea in my head of when do I play? When do I not play? Am I playing loud? Am I playing quiet? You know, is there what's going on there? Then I'll kind of zoom in even more. And and this is where it really happens more with situations like the musical, situations like church, where I'm not exactly sure what the instrumentation is going to be. So, in the the way I approach things is I'll start thinking, well, what are generalistically the guitar parts, right? G and whatever and whatever. And maybe there's a picking thing underneath there. So I'm already thinking, well, there's probably got to be two guitar players to do this. And if I wind up only being, you know, the only guitar player at church or something like that, I'm gonna have to choose one part or the other. Or maybe there's two guitar players, but there's a really important piano part, but there's no piano player this weekend for church. So I might give consideration of how I might, you know, cover that part. I don't do that most of the time if I'm in a rock band situation because, you know, an ACDC song is kind of an A C D C song. Now, I might not be able to cover, you know, the rhythm and the solo at the same time, but I can have more of a generalized approach to these songs and I can learn them more kind of in the vein of what they are. Although, you know, if if if you're playing Queens Reich and you're the only guitar player, and most of the time that music has two guitar players, you know, doing harmonies and different chord, you know, arrangements and things like that, you're gonna have to do the same thing. You still have to make some adjustments on what's the best thing I could be doing at this at this point. So the the bigger picture here is you can't just learn a guitar part necessarily, you know, a tab number one versus guitar one versus guitar two. It depends on the circumstance. It depends on the ensemble that you're playing with, whether or not there's enough people to cover everything. So because I've played in three beat three-piece bands a long time with one guitar player, one bass player, and a drummer, and then everybody sings, you get very used to how to approach, you know, carry on wayward sun that's got all these different parts, like different kinds of things like that. So you make the music sound as full as you can without missing things, but it's impossible to not miss things. You just try and pick the best things at that time. It's a lot more work to do that than it is just learning a guitar part. So moving into this um Jesus Christ superstar, there's a lot of music. So, you know, I started off just listening to trying to get comfortable with, you know, the the musical in its entirety, kind of getting used to holistically what everything's doing. And I have charts from the the college that they've given me. The the problem, though, is we aren't able to cover all of the parts that I'm hearing in this musical, watching the one with John Legend, watching the one back from 1992, I think it was. There's a London one, um, there's the original from 73, I think it was 72 or 73. Like trying to get a sense of what's different between these and what what do I see myself as a guitar player, as a musician bringing to the table? You know, I need to play what's needed of me, but are there other things that I could do as well to maybe thicken this experience a bit as opposed to just what's written on the chart? So this is a conversation that you need to have with the other musicians that you're going to be playing with. I'm I'm not trying to necessarily be an overachiever, although I'm sure I am. What I'm trying to do is think how can I give the best musical experience to the performers that then, you know, may feed them to the audience. And of course, the the musicality you're you know, connecting directly to the audience as well. So it's not just what's the least amount that I could possibly do to read the charts and get through the thing and be done. It's what can I do to try and make this as big as I can, as full as I can, or the opposite. Are there spots where I should just lay out where the piano or the you know the keyboard or whatever might be happening, even though there's chords written there, maybe that's a really good spot for me to duck out. Well, how do I know? Well, I listen to a number of different performances to see what other uh other people have done, right? Other performances have done from Broadway to you know across the world and see kind of how their approaches are. And that way I've got a little more ideas. So what I do, well, not that you're really gonna be able to see this, but um, so I'll create these charts that are charts of kind of an overview. So for instance, the first song, there's another guitar player that's gonna be playing. So uh in the overture of this, and it's again, it's perfectly fine if you don't know what this is, but I'm doing this lead guitar part, and then these punches come in. Well, of course, the other guitar player is gonna be covering those punches. And then he's playing some of these other things. And what I'm doing is I'm covering some of the horn parts at that point because we don't have a horn player, right? So I I've learned the horn parts. Now I know the guitar chords underneath, but I also know the horn parts up on top. So that way when we get together, if we say, hey, this could use a little more, you know, something up there, because that part's missing because we're nobody's covering it. I can cover that part. Or I could double maybe the keyboard player if that keyboard player is playing that. It all depends. But I like to go in with that idea. So I'll create these kind of cheat sheets, if you will. It isn't about G or C or B minor or this scale. It's it's about what's the what's the music doing? Are there parts where I should lay out? Are there parts that are more intense? Um, you know, uh, you know, because some of these songs are are kind of complex in their structure, I'll write down structure hints and different things like that on these sheets. Um, and that way I've got a little bit better idea of how I'm going to approach it. Then I take the actual charts that I was sent from the college to play the songs, and I'll start going through that and looking and seeing is everything correct? Like, are the keys correct? Are the courts correct that I'm hearing? And I'm not just using one resource, like again, because I am kind of an overachiever, I'm looking at two or three different resources here. And yes, whether we like it or not, there are some mistakes in the book that, you know, whether they say there's no mistakes, that there are. There are some things that aren't right. And so we've talked about and went, no, no, no, that chord is wrong. It's supposed to be this chord. Or you'll be listening and there'll be a you know no guitar written, but you can clearly hear these guitar parts playing. Now, again, maybe it's okay that the guitar isn't in at that spot. But maybe it, maybe it would thicken it up if it wasn't, if there was something there. Um, I don't remember which song it is off the top of my head, but there's a song that has these tritones that sounds really great. Um gosh, I don't remember which one it is. Maybe it's no, it's not that one either. I don't remember which one it is, but it sounds really cool and it's really, really dark. And um, and so, you know, it sounds cooler with some guitar parts written underneath there as opposed to just the piano doing it. So these are things that I'll write down. So these are opportunities. And then I'll go to my actual charts and I'll start marking down what you know, quiet down here, don't play here, play loud here, you know, change whatever it is, make any, you know, marks that will trigger thoughts in my head. Oh, yeah, here comes that part. There it is, that's that part, or here comes that that scale thing, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Right. So I'll see those on there so I have a better represent representation of what I'm going to do. Now we're only gonna get a couple of rehearsals together, and then we have rehearsals with uh the other performers. We'll have a couple of those, and then it's the shows. So there's not a lot of time to get ready. So I like to have, you know, multiple options available. So as soon as we start practicing, I can go, nope, I don't need to do that. Obviously, that's covered, so I'm gonna stay out of the way. Or yeah, that sounds kind of empty. I should probably add this in there and see how that sounds. And for me, it it moves the music off of the chart into my thought process, into my body. So yeah, I'm still gonna use those charts because there's a lot of information here. I have not memorized every aspect of Jesus Christ Superstar, but I have a really good sense of flow of things. And so if I need to flip a page, I know what's coming on the next page. And sometimes I'll even write a cheat on the bottom of the previous page so I can get ready for that page flip or whatever it might be, um, or memorize that part. The point being though, I've got a plan. So I'm not just relying on this. Because if I do that, the problem is I'm not aware of the dynamics. I'm not aware of how to make this thing ebb and flow in a more musical way. Because if we think about music, for me, that's what music's really about. It's not whether or not you know the G chord or you know the C chord or you know a B flat minor seven flat five chord. That's great. We need to know those. That we have to know those. If we don't know those things, we can't play those things. But the music doesn't end with the knowledge. The music is in the performance, it's in the approach. And so the more I can listen to things and get a sense of what it's supposed to sound like. So if we back up and I go back to church, for instance, okay, and play in church, a lot of times the church songs will have some broader dynamics. And, you know, maybe there's a guitar part that I should be covering, even though this guitar part seems like it'd be a lot more fun. This is what really needs to be there because without this, the music sounds kind of empty. And I don't want it to sound empty. So I need to make a, you know, adult choice and play this part, or maybe change the the chord of this, not the the quality of the chord, but where I'm playing it or how I'm playing it, so it sounds a little bit the voicing sounds a little bit better. Okay. Now these things take time to get to that level. I'm just saying, if what I see a lot is people will go, I can't play along with this, it's moving too fast. And and you you try and explain to them, look, if you learn, if you first listen to the tune, get a sense of what it is, and then go into your toolbox and say, well, what do I need to play this? Well, I need G and A minor and C and blah, blah, blah. Okay, do I know these? If I don't know these, I still can't play the song because I need to learn these things. I need to get not just learn them like I know what it is, I have to learn how to do them and I need to do them well, right? I have to have confidence and control in the things that I'm doing on the instrument. Strumming is another big part, or picking, or whatever it might be. So with Jesus Christ Superstar, I can't be, I can't be stifled by I don't know this chord, or I gotta know this stuff. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do this. This is a much bigger project than than you know, just learning how to play knocking on heaven's door or something like that. And no offense to that. It just is. It's a lot more stuff. So for someone like me who's a bit obsessive compulsive, you know, I really want to know, I want to know the music. And so I went from not having ever listened to Jesus Christ Superstar to my wife and uh, well, myself, and unfortunately, I suppose my wife having listened to it 85 billion times when we're in the car. But we've both uh, you know, developed a sense of appreciation for this musical for Jesus Christ Superstar. And now I find myself like I would listen to it even when this thing is over. I would go back to this and listen to this because I've I've found that I really enjoy it. The version that I found that I really enjoy is the 2017 version or whatever it was with John Legend. I I just think that that is amazing. If you ever get a chance to actually watch it, it's it's incredible. I love it. Not that I haven't watched and listened to other ones I think are amazing. Um, there are, but this is the one that I find myself really sinking my teeth into. And so when I make some musical choices, you know, out of all these versions that I've been listening to, I find myself gravitating more toward that one, going, I like how they did this with this particular part or whatever it might be. You know, there's there's some parts in this Jesus Christ superstar that has some really great saxophone lines. Well, one of the gentlemen that's playing with us, he's a really good friend of mine. He's an amazing musician on multiple levels. Just can't even stress that enough. But he's an amazing, amazing, amazing saxophone player. And for me, there's no reason why he shouldn't play. Now, I'm not in charge of this, right? I'm just playing this. But in my mind, I'm thinking, man, that's gonna elevate that musical moment if he can play sax on that. Even though this is of, you know, drums and bass and guitar and keyboard, right? That's what this is. I think that that would be elevated huge if he could play saxophone on those things. Because I can already cover the guitar parts that are underneath that. And he should shine on that part and elevate that thing. And so again, it's just a suggestion that I'll have. If if if the leader says, you know, the the director, whoever says, no, we don't really need that, that's fine. That's listen, I'm not in charge of this. These are just things that I've got written down to be able to present and go, this would be amazing. And if they're interested in listening to any of our ideas, including mine, that would definitely be one of my ideas. So anyway, I just thought it'd be kind of interesting to tell you how it works for me. I suppose part of the reason why I've I've done it this way is because when I was growing up playing guitar, there weren't I didn't have chord charts or there was no internet and magazines weren't even popular, like those early guitar magazines weren't even a thing in Fargo, North Dakota in 1983. Like, sure, they came out, but they weren't around ear. You know, it wasn't until a little while later that we started getting more of that kind of stuff. And even a guitar magazine is only going to tell you whatever it tells you in that month's edition. That's all you get. Like whatever song is in there, and whatever lesson might be in there, and whatever interviews are in there, or whatever. So I learned to play by ear, like a lot of people my age did. I learned by putting the needle on the guitar or on the um on the record and listening and figuring out what I was doing and take the needle off and work on that, put it back down, learn the next part, take it back off, and just keep going. But I think there's something that happens in your head where you start learning to visualize connectivity and colors of things, like chords and you know, different kinds of stuff. And so that's the way my brain works. So I would strongly encourage you if you are the kind of person that just really kind of just reads the chart or tries to learn things note for note. And please don't get me wrong, some things do need to be note for note. There's no doubt about it. You can't go changing the beginning of Crazy Train, right? But there are other elements inside Crazy Train that have a little bit of flexibility. They just do. I guarantee you that Zach Wilde does not play Crazy Train exactly the same way that Randy Rhodes did. And I can also tell you that Randy Rhodes didn't even play Crazy Train the exact way that Randy Rhodes did from the recording to the way he would perform it live. So there's always some gray area in there. That doesn't mean we can completely revamp the lick or, you know, different kinds of things like that. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is there's real approaches to things that we might change because this is a little more comfortable for us, whether it be in technique, approach, visualization, memorization, whatever it might be. So, anyway, hopefully that helps you a little bit. Um, you know, always remember that guitar playing isn't just about putting your fingers on the guitar and playing some exercise. There's a lot more to this that you want to be thinking about. So you're expanding your palette of daily engagement in the world of music, the world of guitar. So you're getting a bigger picture of everything, not just I'm getting faster. That's great. I'm, and that would be wonderful if that's if that's true. But there's a lot more to this than just an exercise or a scale or learning these chords or whatever it might be. So the more you can become kind of, you know, tuned into that, the better you're going to be. So if for some reason you have any questions, you know, you're looking for better direction, you're looking for assessments if you're playing, you don't really have a game plan, you want to start actually working with some instructors that I mean, we have this thing called Guitar Zoom Academy. We work with people on a daily basis. You and I connect daily and talk about whatever. We have conversations about all kinds of things, assessments of your playing. Um, there's a whole thing to that. And it's worth looking at if you're interested. All you got to do is uh check out Guitar Zoom Academy and, you know, get on a call to have someone kind of explain to you how all of this works, see if it fits your world, and go from there. So take care, stay positive, and I'll talk to you soon, okay?

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Steve Stine

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