The Five-Phase Journey to Becoming a Confident Guitarist

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What really holds most guitar players back? After teaching thousands of guitarists, I've discovered it's rarely about technical ability—it's about confidence. That feeling of certainty when you play, knowing who you are as a musician, and being comfortable in your own skin.

The journey to guitar confidence follows five distinct phases, each building upon the last. It begins with curiosity—that moment when you hear Hendrix, Van Halen, or whoever your inspiration might be, and think "I want to do that!" This natural motivation fuels your early development. Next comes foundation building, where you develop the essential skills needed for your musical goals. This is where many players get distracted by "bright shiny objects" instead of focusing on the fundamentals that will truly advance their playing.

The third phase—developing actual confidence—is where most guitarists get stuck. It requires something scary: being vulnerable enough to play for others and receive feedback. "I'll play with people once I'm better" becomes a perpetual excuse, creating a cycle where improvement stalls because you're not getting the feedback needed to grow. Breaking through this barrier transforms your playing.

Once confidence develops, you enter the creative expression phase, where your playing begins to sound more human and personal. This naturally evolves into the final phase—musical identity. The liberating truth is that even guitar legends have limitations. Tommy Emanuel doesn't play like Eddie Van Halen, and Joe Bonamassa doesn't sound like Steve Vai. These players succeeded not by mastering everything, but by embracing who they are musically.

The guitar truly is Pandora's box—endless possibilities that will outlive us all. Don't let that overwhelm you. Finding your center and developing confidence in your unique voice is the real path to becoming the guitarist you want to be. Where are you in these five phases, and what's your next step toward confident playing?

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Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
Hey Steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy here.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Today we're going to be talkingabout the five phases of
becoming a confident guitarplayer.
Not necessarily just a guitarplayer that practices a lot of
things, but a guitar player thatfeels good about themselves and
feels confident.
And oftentimes what I find iswhen I talk to people is that

(00:22):
there's just a lot of lack ofconfidence in their playing, and
so you know they'll start offconversations with me like, well
, you know, I never want to.
This isn't about playing onstage, or it's not about playing
with other people, or.
And then, as you dive deeperinto the conversation,
oftentimes the reason whythey're saying these things is
because they don't feelconfident with themselves, and I

(00:43):
totally understand that.
So let's just talk about somefive phases of becoming a
confident guitar player.
So phase one for me, starts withcuriosity.
You're watching a video, or youknow you go to a concert or you
hear a song or whatever, andyou're like, oh man, I really
want to do that, I really wantto learn that, I want to be able
to play that, and for a lot ofus, oftentimes that starts in

(01:07):
our youth, where maybe youbought an album, if you know
what an album is, of course, orwhatever.
You heard a song on the radioand you're like, oh my god,
that's the greatest thing ever.
And, of course, for me this allstarted with.
I mean a lot of different bandsACDC and Jimi Hendrix, hendrix

(01:27):
and Rush and Led Zeppelin andall these things but the big one
that struck me was Kiss, when Iwas a little kid and I went, oh
my god, I want to be able to dothat.
So it started with thiscuriosity of of interest.
Right, instead of wantingfootball or wanting, you know, I
don't know, whatever might be,the guitar became the focus in
my brain and I went man, that'swhat I want to really be able to
do.
Further along, you mightalready be playing, and that

(01:51):
same thing can happen.
You're learning how to do stuffand you watch a video, or you
hear a song, or you go to aconcert or whatever it might be,
and you go oh my God, thatsounds great, I want to know
what's going on there.
So that curiosity is reallyimportant and you know, a
natural thing that we want to beable to feel, it's a
motivational thing.
So the next thing for us, phasetwo, for me is foundation.

(02:12):
So now we have to startlearning the essentials, the
tools needed to be able to dowhatever it is that we're
talking about, and sometimesthese can be out of place, like
we might get that inspiration.
Now I'm watching Eddie VanHalen and I'm like, oh, I want
to be able to do that, but Idon't play guitar yet.
So there's going to be workinvolved, from getting from

(02:33):
point A to point B to point Cand so on.
But developing these tools,knowing what it is that we need
to be able to accomplish thesegoals, that we have right, the
foundation, which I always thinkabout it like this this is your
foundation, this is your whoyou want to become, and
underneath here are all thetools that you need, and out
here are all the things that arereally really, really cool,

(02:55):
bright and shiny objects.
But we don't need those yet.
What we need are these to getgoing.
We need these to develop thatgoal.
So developing and understandingthe foundation, which often
will attribute to what yourpractice routine is going to
look like.
Okay, so if I hear a song, Ihear you know, I don't know
shock me by kiss and I'm like,oh my God, I really want to

(03:17):
learn how to play that.
Okay.
So it starts with thiscuriosity, but then the next
thing is is I need to start deepdiving into it and figure out
what it is that I need and howto develop these things right.
That can be really difficult todo on your own, of course, but
that's that's how this wholething works.
The next thing for me, phasethree, is confidence.
Okay, so, playing with otherpeople, playing in front of

(03:40):
other people, right, jammingwith backing tracks, um,
corresponding back and forth,maybe you make videos and you
you post those for for um otherpeople to see.
You ask questions and you playin front of people, right?
I call that assessment, ofcourse, is where you know you.
I say to you hey, play that forme, let me see what it is that

(04:01):
you're doing and let me let megive you some insight on that,
and the insight isn't negative.
The insight is here's what ishappening and here's what I
think you need to work on alittle bit more, to try and get
that a little more where youwant it to be.
You need to focus on this thinga little bit more, of this
thing a little bit more, whichfeeds your foundation, it feeds
your practice, you see.

(04:21):
So, coming out of your shell andbeing okay with the fact that
you because here's the problem,let's just kind of deal with
this right now People will keepsaying, well, I don't want to do
this until I'm better at this.
Or, you know, I really want tobe able to play with people, but
I need to learn this, this andthis and this first, and then
time keeps going and they're notdoing this and this and this

(04:44):
and this, which leads to notever doing the playing with
other people stuff.
So at some point you've got tofind a way of exposing yourself,
your inadequacies of playingguitar and being okay with it.
I need help.
What is it that I need to do tofix the problems that I have in

(05:05):
my guitar playing?
And the answer is I need tohear you play.
I need to see you play to beable to fix these things.
You have to be confident enoughto play in front of me for me
to be able to hear you and makean assessment and give you some
insight so you can go back andstart building that foundation.

(05:26):
Okay, now it might not bepublicly posting it on YouTube,
right, that might be a bit much,but it might be something a
little bit smaller, where you'redoing it in a community of
like-minded people that are alsotrying to do the same thing.
Very encouraging, right?
This isn't a competitive kindof environment.
This is something where we'reall trying to help each other,
so developing that confidence.

(05:47):
Once you develop thisconfidence, you start
recognizing the things that youcan do and the things that you
can't do, which, believe it ornot, even the most your favorite
guitar players on the planetcannot do everything, and that's
just the truth, and I apologizeif that is a shocker to you,
but it's true.
If you take Tommy Emanuel,who's an amazing, my favorite

(06:11):
acoustic guitar player on theplanet, okay, Love the guy to
death.
He doesn't play anything likeEddie Van Halen.
He doesn't play anything likeSteve Vai and Steve Vai is an
amazing guitar player, one of myfavorite guitar players, but he
doesn't play anything likeTommy Emanuel, and neither one
of them play anything like JoeBonamassa and again, insert

(06:32):
names here.
They're all incredibly good atwhat they do, but they cannot do
everything, and they certainlycan't do it to the capacity of
each other.
So what we have to do is getover this thing that we're
supposed to be good at everysingle thing on the planet when
it comes to guitar playing,because that's impossible.
What we do is find our goals,find our interests, and we start

(06:57):
developing and building to thatand maybe somewhere along the
lane, somewhere along the line,excuse me our interests change a
little bit.
Okay, well, that's fine.
So we're going to shift overhere.
Hey, I started playing rock andnow I'm interested in jazz.
I started playing jazz and nowI'm interested in country,
started playing country and I'minterested in acoustic playing
or God knows what it is.
It could be anything and we cancertainly do multiple things.

(07:19):
I'm just saying they're alldifferent players and so for you
to develop that confidence, youstart figuring out who you are
and where you want to go and youstart developing those things.
So Joe Bonamassa, for instance,doesn't wake up every single
day and hate his playing andjust want to be Steve Vai

(07:42):
because he wouldn't be JoeBonamassa.
Then he knows who he is and heknows what he does and he's
going to keep working at gettingbetter for the rest of his life
, I am sure, just like we do.
But that's what's missing for alot of people is that they
don't know who they are and theydon't.
They're trying to be everythingto everybody and the goal is is
you got to figure this out,like, who are you?
Who do you want to be?

(08:02):
How do we get there?
And then, if we need to beother people a little bit, there
are shortcuts that we can taketo be able to fill out those as
well.
Or, if you have lots of time topractice, maybe you can look at
a couple of different things,just being honest and I'm just
being real about it.
Okay, things I'm just beinghonest and I'm just being real
about it.
Okay, it's just.
There's so much the guitar is.

(08:22):
I always tell people it's likea Pandora's box.
When you open it, it's endless.
The guitar will outlive all ofus because there's so many
things that you could do and ifyou let that overwhelm you,
you're never going to getanywhere and you're certainly
not going to develop thatconfidence.
Okay, once you've got thatconfidence, then you can start
working on creative expression.
Now that you feel good aboutyourself and you've got this

(08:44):
thing working for you, you'vegot a center to your guitar
playing, you can start trying towork on the creativity of what
you're doing and how it sounds.
And again, that's where thishuman thing comes in and all of
a sudden, what you're doingbegins to sound more real, both
to you and to your listener.
In that you develop the fifthphase.
Fourth phase was creativeexpression.

(09:06):
Fifth phase, to me, is identity.
So as you start getting intothis creative expression, you
start moving into this new realmwhich is identity, this
personal way that you approachthings and people get used to
hearing that.
We can call that your musicalvoice, if you will.
So that's to me how this wholething works here at the Guitar

(09:26):
Zoom Academy.
That's the goal is for us tohelp you understand what those
things are for you and how toachieve those things, how to
work together to get you tothose places.
So you develop a foundation,you develop that confidence.
Once you've got that, then westart working on creative
expression.
How do you do these things?

(09:46):
So you are the end result.
That's your identity.
Right, that's what we try andwork on here in the Academy, and
if that sounds like somethingthat you might be interested in,
please do me a favor check outGuitar Zoom Academy and talk to
one of us and we'll see whetheror not the Academy would be a
good fit for you.
So take care, stay positive,keep practicing and I'll talk to
you soon, okay.