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Writer's pictureMarkus Brandstetter

Tim Lerch Interview: „Anybody can be a saint on the mountaintop“

Updated: Jul 7



Tim Lerch is not only one of my favorite guitar players but also a brilliant teacher. I've done a lot of his online courses on Truefire.com, I am contiously working with his books, and I also subscribed to his Truefire Channel. His newest book is called "Melodic Blues Guitar Soloing" and, like his other books, comes with a lot of fantastic bonus material – see the link below.


But Tim's tremendously valuable lessons go far beyond Chord Melody, Jazz, Blues and all the other thing he teaches hus on guitar. In one of my favorite lessons, he talked about your own expectations when practicing. About not wanting too much and being happy with where you are at the moment. "You got to dig it, like a kid playing in the mud" was one great piece of advice he gave in the video – that resonated with me a lot.



For a while, I did not know about Tim's background as a Zen master, although I was not surprised at all to read that, as a lot of what he talks about is applicable to almost everything, not only guitar-related things. The playing in the mud, the suffering from your own expectations, the gentle approach: that's not just about guitar, that's the whole Dharma going on (although, as he said in our interview, he does not use Zen language when teaching music, but you get the point).


One thing that kept me coming back to his lessons, apart from his playing, was his calm, thoughtful, and altruistic way of interacting with people. I was very happy when I reached out to him and he agreed to an interview – and that he was kind enough to play a song made it even better.

You can find Tim Lerch's new book on GuitarVivo.com

Another valuable (and free) ressource is his YouTube channel

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