PRESENCE - Volume 51
Inspiration For Guitarists
Several years ago, one of my old bands — The Swingin’ Richards — played a private party for NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson.
He was celebrating a NASCAR Cup Series Championship, and let’s just say… this was not your average bar gig.
There were TV celebrities, sports icons, and people who probably made more in a day than I made in a year as a musician — and they were getting down. It was a real party.
Jimmie was friends with Darius Rucker and Edwin McCain, so our band was hired to back them up for the night. Edwin was doing most of the songs, with Darius jumping in for a few.
We had about a dozen tunes to learn — mostly their originals, plus a couple of covers.
The plan was to rehearse with Edwin when we arrived for soundcheck…
Except he was running late.
We waited.
Then waited some more.
Eventually, the guys left.
I was the last one out the door — and that’s when Edwin walked in.
I asked, “Should I call the band back so we can run through the songs?”
He smiled and said,
“Nah. You guys got it.”
And he meant it.
We’d played a few events he’d been at before, and he knew we were pros.
The gig absolutely killed.
Maybe it was the adrenaline.
Maybe it was the pressure.
But everything locked in.
Here’s the part most people don’t realize about how pros learn songs:
We don’t start with the details.
We start with the big picture.
One of the covers we played was Maggie May by Rod Stewart.
Here is a tab I just found online — This is just a few bars of the song… you can see it’s packed with tiny details.
When I went to print it, it was 11 pages long.
That’s not how professional musicians think about music.
Here’s what I actually used for the gig:
A simple chart I sketched out. (Nashville Style)
Just the structure.
Just the roadmap.
Because that’s what matters first.
Edwin was playing acoustic, and I had no idea exactly what he’d play on stage.
So I listened.
I reacted.
I used CAGED shapes and the pentatonic scale to support what he was doing.
Darius said to me afterwards that it sounded like we had been playing together for years.
Not because we rehearsed it.
Not because we memorized every note.
But because we were speaking the same musical language.
When you’re learning a new song — or revisiting one you already know —
start with the framework:
• Key
• Chords
• Song structure
Then worry about the details.
That’s how the pros do it.
And it works.
Most guitarists get stuck because they're trying to memorize every detail before they understand the map. They're learning solos note-for-note without knowing what key they're in. They're drilling scales without understanding how chords connect them.
It's like trying to navigate a city by memorizing every turn instead of just looking at a map. Once you know the framework — the CAGED system, how the pentatonic shapes connect, how chord progressions move — you can handle anything that gets thrown at you.
A jam session.
A song you've never heard.
A guitarist who plays it differently than the recording.
You're not locked into one "right way." You're free to play.
-Dustin
This week’s YouTube video is about an underutilized shape of the Pentatonic Scale - Shape #3
P.S. I'm launching Office Hours in March — a small group coaching program where you can bring your guitar questions and get real-world feedback on your playing. I was aiming for February, but I'm taking a bit more time to get the tech dialed in so everything's clean and simple from day one. More details coming soon.