Latest / The Steve Stine Podcast / Inside GuitarZoom Academy: A Real Student’s Experience

Transcript

Inside GuitarZoom Academy: A Real Student’s Experience · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:35
  Steve: Hey Steve Stine here.
• 0:36
  Steve: Thank you for joining me.
• 0:37
  Steve: Today I got a chance to sit down and talk to a gentleman by the name of Chris Maccy.
• 0:41
  Steve: Now, Chris is a Guitar Zoom Academy student, and he's been here for gosh, a couple of years now, I think.
• 0:48
  Steve: And um he is one of our biggest motivators.
• 0:54
  Steve: Like he, you know, he's played in the past, he's done a bunch of different stuff.
• 0:58
  Steve: Um, but he, you know, struggled with getting better and and getting to a place that he felt really good about himself and joined and just became kind of a kind of a pillar of of the community here.
• 1:10
  Steve: People rely on him, they talk to him, ask him questions, things like that.
• 1:14
  Steve: And um, so I wanted to sit down with him and just talk about what his experience has been like both before and in the academy and how it's impacted not only his playing, but just his life in general.
• 1:25
  Steve: So I hope you enjoy this interview.
• 1:27
  Steve: All right, Chris, thanks for joining me today.
• 1:29
  Steve: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
• 1:32
  Chris Macry: Well, let's see.
• 1:33
  Chris Macry: What do you want to know?
• 1:33
  Chris Macry: I'm a 62-year-old man.
• 1:35
  Chris Macry: Um been playing guitar off and on since I was 12, but took a long break in between because I ended up being a single father with two small children and I raised them by myself.
• 1:48
  Chris Macry: And um, then when they were grown and gone, I started so that was about probably a fifth, well, 15, 18 year period of really not playing much guitar at all.
• 1:58
  Speaker: Okay.
• 1:59
  Chris Macry: So from the time I was 12 till 19, I was playing a lot and got fairly good, and then took that break.
• 2:04
  Chris Macry: Then several years ago started getting back into it, but not too seriously.
• 2:08
  Chris Macry: Um and then uh bought a few courses from Guitar Zoom, which helped me a lot.
• 2:14
  Chris Macry: Uh connecting with the fretboard, learning the fretboard was a big one for me.
• 2:18
  Chris Macry: And then I kept seeing your ads on um Facebook for the academy, and I figured what the heck?
• 2:26
  Chris Macry: I'll I'll I'll at least apply, and uh here we are.
• 2:30
  Chris Macry: So in a nutshell, that's a quick story.
• 2:33
  Steve: All right.
• 2:34
  Steve: So tell me a little bit, like when you were growing up, what was your first kind of instance where you realized that you really dug music and you wanted to start learning how to play guitar?
• 2:44
  Chris Macry: I can tell you the exact moment.
• 2:46
  Chris Macry: Uh my brother was 17 and I was 12, and he had a 17-year-old girlfriend, and she brought this album over to our house.
• 2:53
  Chris Macry: It was called Kiss Alive, the very first album.
• 2:55
  Chris Macry: And I put that thing on with a set of headphones in my bedroom, and about four days later I had a guitar.
• 3:02
  Steve: Oh, wow.
• 3:03
  Chris Macry: A cheap guitar from Sears.
• 3:05
  Chris Macry: Yeah.
• 3:05
  Chris Macry: You know, 20 bucks, I think it cost, or something like that.
• 3:08
  Chris Macry: You know, and that was it for me.
• 3:11
  Chris Macry: I I was just the biggest Ace Freely fan on the freaking planet, man.
• 3:15
  Steve: That's awesome.
• 3:15
  Steve: It's funny how many of us are out there like that, you know.
• 3:18
  Chris Macry: And I've been told many, many times that I look like Ace Freely.
• 3:21
  Chris Macry: I've even signed some Ace Freely autographs on occasion.
• 3:26
  Steve: That's awesome.
• 3:27
  Chris Macry: Yeah.
• 3:28
  Steve: So, okay, so you get your guitar.
• 3:29
  Steve: So so when you first started trying to learn, how did you how did you go about it?
• 3:34
  Chris Macry: Man, I don't even remember.
• 3:35
  Chris Macry: Uh, I didn't take any lessons and there wasn't YouTube.
• 3:38
  Chris Macry: So just books, I guess.
• 3:40
  Chris Macry: A lot of Mel Bay books, um, you know, listening to tunes, um, picking that needle up and moving it back and setting it down.
• 3:49
  Chris Macry: My cousin showed me how to play bar chords one day.
• 3:52
  Chris Macry: I remember that.
• 3:53
  Chris Macry: And uh that was that was huge.
• 3:55
  Chris Macry: That was huge.
• 3:56
  Chris Macry: Yeah.
• 3:57
  Steve: So is everything going pretty smooth for you as far as learning goes?
• 4:01
  Steve: And then life happened.
• 4:02
  Steve: Is that kind of what happened with you?
• 4:04
  Chris Macry: Pretty much, yeah.
• 4:06
  Chris Macry: Pretty much.
• 4:06
  Chris Macry: Yeah.
• 4:07
  Chris Macry: I I got married and um ended up having a couple kids, and my wife wasn't all I thought she actually had a six-month-old daughter when I met my wife, and I ended up adopting her and then having another child, which I ended up getting full custody of all of them.
• 4:20
  Chris Macry: So that kind of I had a book, I had a bike back then, as you can see.
• 4:23
  Chris Macry: I'm a biker.
• 4:24
  Chris Macry: Yes.
• 4:24
  Chris Macry: When I got custody of the kids, I immediately sold the bike, you know, and kind of put the guitar away for a while, working three jobs just to support my my family.
• 4:34
  Steve: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Chris Macry: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Steve: So during that time, when did it happen that all of a sudden you're like, I I'm gonna pick it back up again?
• 4:42
  Steve: Like, were your kids older, or what was the deal?
• 4:44
  Steve: Oh, yeah.
• 4:45
  Chris Macry: Yeah, they were uh my youngest daughter was already graduating and now I'm doing her own.
• 4:49
  Chris Macry: So and I just I went, what did I what did I do, man?
• 4:53
  Chris Macry: I I don't remember how I bought it.
• 4:55
  Chris Macry: Oh, I do remember.
• 4:57
  Chris Macry: I bought myself a guitar from Carvin.
• 5:01
  Steve: Oh yeah, direct, you would have to buy them direct, I think, right?
• 5:05
  Chris Macry: Yeah, and I was on my birthday, and I was very depressed.
• 5:08
  Chris Macry: And I said, I'm gonna buy this freaking guitar from Carvin for my birthday, and believe it or not, it showed up on my doorstep on my birthday.
• 5:15
  Chris Macry: Oh, wow, and I still got that guitar, and it's a fantastic instrument, bro.
• 5:20
  Speaker: That's awesome.
• 5:21
  Chris Macry: So, yeah, that's that's kind of how I got back, and then I still didn't do a lot of uh really playing serious just sitting around the house, you know, again doing the same things I did when I was a kid, playing with records and learning and things like that.
• 5:34
  Steve: And then so what made you decide to like do something about that and move to the next level then?
• 5:41
  Chris Macry: Um, I just wanted to go back and do the things now that I'm older that I didn't get to do earlier in my life because of my situations.
• 5:49
  Chris Macry: And you know, I thought, well, I'm too old now, but people kept telling me, dude, dude, you're never too old.
• 5:54
  Chris Macry: Just go back and do it.
• 5:55
  Chris Macry: So I felt like I owed it to myself.
• 5:57
  Chris Macry: I felt like I kind of cheated myself or or got cheated, you know?
• 6:00
  Chris Macry: Not that my kids were cheating.
• 6:02
  Chris Macry: I love my kids.
• 6:03
  Steve: No, no, no, I totally get it, dude.
• 6:05
  Chris Macry: I wouldn't trade a freaking second of it.
• 6:06
  Chris Macry: I mean, we went to bed many nights eating nothing but hot dogs and spaghetti, all that stuff.
• 6:10
  Chris Macry: You know, so but uh I just felt like I owed it to myself to try to go back and and get get where I wanted to be.
• 6:17
  Chris Macry: And I'm having a blast, dude.
• 6:20
  Steve: Yeah, I mean, that's one thing.
• 6:22
  Steve: I mean, w we might as well get into that.
• 6:24
  Steve: I mean, you know, Chris is one of those guys where, you know, he's been with the academy a long time.
• 6:30
  Chris Macry: And uh, 16 months or 16 months.
• 6:32
  Steve: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:32
  Steve: He's he's a motivator, like he's one of those guys that other students look at, look up to, and um, because I hear about it all the time, and they appreciate all of his input.
• 6:43
  Steve: You know, sometimes people think it's just about the the instructors, and it's not, it's about it's about the students as well, and how everybody treats everybody and interacts with each other and helps each other.
• 6:53
  Steve: You're absolutely one of the guys that we talk about as instructors all the time.
• 6:58
  Steve: That's really one of the primary motivators in in the academy.
• 7:02
  Steve: So I thank you for that very much.
• 7:04
  Chris Macry: So I'm glad to hear that, but I I'm just me, man.
• 7:06
  Chris Macry: Yeah, I just do what I do.
• 7:08
  Steve: Yeah.
• 7:09
  Steve: So what what made you connect?
• 7:10
  Steve: How did you get connected with the academy?
• 7:13
  Chris Macry: Uh scrolling through face Facebook and I kept seeing your your ads many, many times.
• 7:17
  Chris Macry: And I to be honest with you, Steve, I was intimidated to even fill out the application because I assumed that when I got in here, there was gonna be all these monster players in here with degrees from Berkeley and all that, you know, and just and I was gonna be, you know, I was just intimidated, and it will, it's nothing like that at all, you know.
• 7:39
  Chris Macry: So, but just your ads scrolling through Facebook over and over and over again.
• 7:44
  Chris Macry: And finally, one day I said, I'm just gonna look into this thing.
• 7:46
  Chris Macry: And uh, that's how how it happened.
• 7:49
  Steve: Well, that's awesome.
• 7:50
  Steve: I'm glad you did.
• 7:51
  Steve: So tell me kind of what's the experience been like for you, you know, anything with the academy.
• 7:57
  Steve: Once you got in and you started doing stuff and you started connecting and your practice, and I mean, dude, you've it's not that you couldn't play before, but I just really enjoy listening to you play.
• 8:07
  Steve: Yeah, all the videos that you post and things like that.
• 8:09
  Steve: Just tell me a little bit about what it's been like here.
• 8:12
  Chris Macry: Well, when I first came in, I I um I thought I could play, and I guess I could play, but I mean I I didn't I knew pentatonic scales, and basically that was it.
• 8:21
  Chris Macry: And I really couldn't tell you which pentatonic scale, I was just playing boxes.
• 8:24
  Chris Macry: I couldn't tell you this is a minor pentatonic or C whatever.
• 8:28
  Chris Macry: Um, so when I first came in, to be honest with you, Steve, I was a little overwhelmed at first because there is a lot of freaking material here, and I felt like I had to start from the beginning and take every module of every course, which of course is completely wrong.
• 8:44
  Chris Macry: You know, but I was overwhelmed.
• 8:47
  Chris Macry: I almost quit the first month.
• 8:48
  Chris Macry: Do you remember?
• 8:49
  Steve: Yeah, I took I I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 8:52
  Chris Macry: You know, you said, Well, I got sick for a week, then I went on a week vacation on a cruise, and I felt like I'm never gonna catch up.
• 8:57
  Chris Macry: I'm done.
• 8:58
  Chris Macry: Well, there is no catch up, yeah.
• 9:00
  Chris Macry: There's no catching up.
• 9:01
  Chris Macry: You just got right back to wherever you were and pick it up, man.
• 9:04
  Chris Macry: Yeah, that's right.
• 9:05
  Chris Macry: So um, it's been a great, great experience.
• 9:07
  Chris Macry: My playing has improved 200%.
• 9:09
  Chris Macry: I guarantee you 200.
• 9:11
  Chris Macry: I have learned so much, man.
• 9:13
  Chris Macry: So freaking much.
• 9:15
  Steve: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Steve: Well, I love having you in the classes.
• 9:18
  Steve: I always look forward to seeing you every week in those classes.
• 9:20
  Chris Macry: So sometimes I feel like I talk too much, I ask too many questions.
• 9:24
  Steve: Nope.
• 9:24
  Steve: No, and that's the thing, is people look up to you too.
• 9:27
  Steve: I mean, people are looking for your input.
• 9:29
  Steve: So when you talk, or you know, you you mention something, or Roger mentions something, people use that information just as much as they do for me.
• 9:36
  Steve: That's that's the power of this thing.
• 9:38
  Chris Macry: Right.
• 9:38
  Chris Macry: And I've been trying to do a little more of that.
• 9:40
  Chris Macry: Like I've been posting some some of my practice stuff that I do when I'm just screwing stuff up but just going over it.
• 9:45
  Chris Macry: And this morning I posted a video of something I was working on, and I even put the tabs up if the guys want to somebody wants to look at it and try it, you know.
• 9:51
  Chris Macry: And I and you had said something to me about being a mentor at one point.
• 9:55
  Chris Macry: And that's something I would love to do if you're still looking for those guys.
• 9:57
  Steve: Oh, totally.
• 9:58
  Steve: One million percent.
• 9:59
  Steve: That's as a matter of fact, we just had a a meeting a couple of days ago and we were talking about you.
• 10:04
  Steve: So that's a new thing that we're implementing is making sure that you know, guys like you are are available if somebody else has something on their mind and they don't want to reach out to one of our instructors for like when you first started, you know what it felt like when you got in here, and you're like the the the anticipation of what it was gonna be was different than what it was once you actually started settling in.
• 10:24
  Steve: Right.
• 10:24
  Steve: But that first week or so, people are like really kind of nervous, and it's like, you don't need to be that way.
• 10:29
  Steve: Talk to Chris.
• 10:30
  Steve: Chris will tell you how it is.
• 10:32
  Chris Macry: I was intimidated, bro.
• 10:33
  Chris Macry: I'm lucky a lot.
• 10:33
  Chris Macry: But I got over that shortly.
• 10:35
  Chris Macry: It it I think it took me probably maybe two months to really settle in and figure out how this thing really works and and to just work on what it is I want to work on, not everything that somebody else is doing, you know.
• 10:48
  Steve: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:49
  Steve: That is exactly right.
• 10:50
  Chris Macry: Yep.
• 10:51
  Steve: So I'm easy to get overwhelmed.
• 10:53
  Steve: And that's that's what yeah, and that's why we try and make sure that you know, when we set up a plan and then we have those Monday check-ins that everybody's actually doing what they should be doing and not just you know, over consuming like you did on YouTube or whatever it might have been.
• 11:07
  Chris Macry: But and the practice log is huge because I I neglected to use it almost my first year.
• 11:12
  Chris Macry: Yeah, and then when I re-upped and you know, Manny really got on me.
• 11:15
  Chris Macry: He's like, dude, you got it.
• 11:16
  Chris Macry: And it's been just doing the practice log has made huge, huge amounts of difference.
• 11:21
  Chris Macry: Because I can go back and see, oh, I've I made a note here, I suck at that.
• 11:24
  Chris Macry: I gotta go back and work on that some more, you know, or whatever.
• 11:26
  Chris Macry: You know, yeah.
• 11:27
  Steve: Right.
• 11:28
  Steve: So, how do you feel as far as like, and again, you were already a player before you got in here, but when you got in here, do you feel like your your confidence in yourself or your in your skill set?
• 11:38
  Steve: Because you had mentioned about your skills getting better.
• 11:40
  Steve: How do you feel about yourself as a player?
• 11:43
  Chris Macry: I'm always looking for people better than me to go play with, brother.
• 11:45
  Steve: That's great, dude.
• 11:46
  Chris Macry: And before I came in here, it was the opposite.
• 11:48
  Chris Macry: I was looking to play with people that were less than me, if that makes any sense.
• 11:52
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:53
  Chris Macry: You know, and now I'm I'm always looking, I'm not in, I'm not intimidated.
• 11:56
  Chris Macry: My my confidence level is high.
• 11:57
  Chris Macry: I don't want to be cocky or arrogant.
• 11:59
  Chris Macry: You know, I get you, but I'm very confident.
• 12:02
  Chris Macry: Yeah, I'm very confident.
• 12:03
  Chris Macry: That's awesome.
• 12:04
  Chris Macry: With you anytime you want, bro.
• 12:07
  Steve: And hopefully we'll be able to do that sometime soon.
• 12:09
  Steve: So yeah, that's the that's the next phase is trying to get us all together and actually hang up the channel.
• 12:14
  Steve: Can't wait.
• 12:14
  Steve: Can't wait.
• 12:15
  Chris Macry: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:16
  Chris Macry: So but it's been great, Steve.
• 12:18
  Chris Macry: I love every freaking second of it, man.
• 12:20
  Steve: Yeah.
• 12:20
  Chris Macry: I'm already trying to plan how to do the third year.
• 12:24
  Steve: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Steve: Well, uh, like I said, I mean, I I what I love is the fact that we we have something here where we can help people learn how to play, but the other thing that I genuinely love is the relationships.
• 12:36
  Steve: Like I I I genuinely look forward to seeing you each week.
• 12:40
  Steve: Um and I just appreciate what you do here, like all the things that you do to make other students feel comfortable and the positive things that you you post in comments and things like that.
• 12:51
  Steve: Because that's that's this what this whole thing's about is is trying to wake up every day and be motivated and you know, feel like I want to check in with everybody and see what everybody's doing and how everybody's doing.
• 13:02
  Steve: And yeah, and it seems like we've got that going, you know.
• 13:05
  Chris Macry: And I watch almost every post that everybody makes, you know.
• 13:08
  Chris Macry: I love looking at that because you can see where you can say, Man, so and so has come a long way in the last three months.
• 13:14
  Chris Macry: Yeah, you know, and I like watching that.
• 13:16
  Chris Macry: So yeah, but I think what I like the best about the whole thing is other than the camaraderie, because that's great, but you guys really care.
• 13:22
  Chris Macry: There's no question.
• 13:23
  Chris Macry: It's not like you guys are just collecting the money and we don't see you again.
• 13:26
  Chris Macry: Yeah, you guys are every day.
• 13:28
  Chris Macry: I you guys are available.
• 13:29
  Chris Macry: I can call you or Manny or whoever every freaking day if I want to.
• 13:33
  Chris Macry: And um, I just think it's it's the most I don't know how you guys put this thing together.
• 13:37
  Chris Macry: I have no freaking idea.
• 13:38
  Chris Macry: It must have taken a lot of planning.
• 13:40
  Steve: It took a while, yeah.
• 13:42
  Chris Macry: Yeah, but I love it.
• 13:43
  Steve: And we're learning all the time.
• 13:44
  Steve: Like, that's the thing, is we have meetings all the time with stuff that you guys will say, you know, what we can do to do something a little bit better, or like you're you're one of the people that there were a few people, but you were definitely involved in our elevation into the improvisation element that we've added in on weekly um, you know, open rooms and that sort of thing.
• 14:03
  Steve: That was I love that too, man.
• 14:05
  Steve: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:05
  Steve: You were you were integral in that part as well.
• 14:08
  Steve: So cool.
• 14:08
  Chris Macry: I'm glad to hear that.
• 14:09
  Steve: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:11
  Chris Macry: It's uh it's the greatest thing ever as far as my musical.
• 14:14
  Chris Macry: Um I don't want to say career, but you know what I'm saying.
• 14:18
  Chris Macry: I gotcha.
• 14:18
  Chris Macry: For my for myself improved, and you know, that's another thing, dude.
• 14:22
  Chris Macry: I've taken some of the stuff I've learned here about discipline and added it to my life.
• 14:27
  Chris Macry: You know what I mean?
• 14:29
  Chris Macry: Outside, like my job, for example, same type of I try to apply the same.
• 14:34
  Chris Macry: I've learned a lot from you guys, just about not only guitar, but just about how to how to be, how to live.
• 14:39
  Steve: That's awesome.
• 14:40
  Steve: Well, Chris, again, thank you for your time and and uh genuinely thank you for being here.
• 14:45
  Steve: You've I love it, you've done a lot for all of us as instructors too.
• 14:48
  Steve: It's it's a real blessing to have you in here, man.
• 14:50
  Chris Macry: Thank you.
• 14:51
  Chris Macry: I appreciate it.
• 14:51
  Chris Macry: And thank you guys for everything you've done for me.