EP 1: Tim Lerch on Fingerstyle Mastery, Musical Journeys, and Navigating the Digital Age

Jesse Paliotto (00:01)
All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Guitar Journal, a podcast where we love to talk about making music and particularly through the lens of guitar and fingerstyle guitar. I'm your host, Jesse Pagliato, and I love connecting with the music community here on the Guitar Journal. I am super pumped to have Tim Lurch here today. Tim is a world renowned jazz and blues guitarist, educator, popular YouTuber, Emmy award winning composer. He's also a member of Northwest Gypsy Jazz group called Pearl Django.

Leader of the Tim Lurch Trio and half of a very popular guitar duo with Jamie Finley. You got a lot going on man. And over the past 50 years Tim has performed with a long list of greats and a lot of styles. And then in addition to this, he is also busy playing with his busy live playing. He's also doing a lot of educational materials. So his own private lessons, master classes, workshops, new platform, which hopefully we'll talk about in just a second. So lots going on. Tim, I'm so glad you're here today. Thanks for doing this.

Tim Lerch (00:58)
Well, thanks for having me, Jesse. I've I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your kind words and featuring me on your, was it called Guitar Journal, the Guitar Journal pages. And, it's very nicely done and I appreciated it. So when you asked me to come on here, I was really happy to do it. Happy to be here.

Jesse Paliotto (01:08)
Car Journal,

Yeah, was originally, think I first kind of heard your music through YouTube and just loved it. just the, mean, it's your tagline, taste, tone and telecasters. And you put that all together, you got the telecaster in the lap right now. And that's how I came to know your music was like that finger style guitar through that lens. But I wanted to hear a little bit, maybe you talk a little bit about your own journey, like how you ended up doing that. Because that's a very specific niche. Like how did that become your thing?

And where did you come from originally? Maybe you could kind of give us a quick walkthrough on that.

Tim Lerch (01:50)
Sure, briefly, because I've told this story a little bit. early on, I was playing guitar, just trying to do what I could do. got into, you know, any kind of music, pop music was my thing, you know. And then I wanted to, I don't know why, but I sort of wanted to play by myself, you know, early on. And maybe it was because the guitar friends that I had, some of them were like,

Jesse Paliotto (01:54)
Yeah, sure.

Tim Lerch (02:20)
into John Denver, which I was not hip to, although it's wonderful music, it wasn't my thing. And others were into like Kiss and Aerosmith and stuff, and it wasn't my thing either. And somehow I found out about like this ragtime style of a guitar, they call it ragtime or ragtime blues where, you know, it's lot of this sort of...

Jesse Paliotto (02:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (02:54)
And so I started learning how to do that. There was this record label called Kicking Mule, which Stephen Grossman had, you know, kind of procured these old recordings and then re-recorded them and found new people, younger people who were playing similar style. There were the British contingent and the American contingent, guys like Roy Bookbinder and...

and Dale Miller and of course, Stefan Grossman, those guys. And then there are some European guys who I probably can't pronounce their names right, but they were playing everything from actual ragtime to sort of blind Blake influenced things, Reverend Gary Davis influenced things. And I love that. And so I started trying to learn to do that and I could sing a little bit. So I was playing finger style guitar in that kind of...

But most people, when they hear it, they think, Alice's Restaurant, know, or Taj Mahal. I know that, you know, and Leon Redbone. you sound like Leon Redbone. So I heard a lot of that kind of stuff, and all of which was fine and wonderful. And then I heard jazz and wanted to play and thought it was sort of more to my interest and liking and gravitated sort of toward that. And the fingerstyle things that I had learned helped me

Jesse Paliotto (03:53)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (04:19)
And I had this idea that I wanted to play, I'm gonna turn just ever so slightly to get the glare off the thing. I wanted to play, you know, the whole thing, you know? And when I was in the big band in high school, you know, I could play well enough to get into the band, but the job was, you know, this, which is fine. I've gotten very fond of that style, you know, now. But what I really wanted to do was go,

Jesse Paliotto (04:30)
You wait.

Right.

Tim Lerch (04:47)
Let's see. Right? I wanted to play the song and not just one role. So I think I was doomed to be a solo guitar player even from that early. Because I asked my teacher, said, how do I play like the horn section? I want to play like, you can't do that. know? Then I heard, you know, Joe Pass and

Art Tatum and all these great musicians, Charlie Parker, and it really got under my skin a lot, still does. And then I heard about Ted Green. He had that solo guitar record and then his books. And then I ended up running into him at the NAMM show when I was maybe 17, I think. I went to the NAMM show with my boss who...

Had a music store. He was going down there to do what you're supposed to do at the NAMM show which is order products and whatnot and I was there just to tag along and I happened to be walking by the Dales is dead Nick is a dead Nick booth Who's publisher of Ted's books and there was Ted playing guitar a yellow telecaster with humbucking pickups in it

Jesse Paliotto (05:48)
Yeah.

Tim Lerch (06:06)
And he had must have, I don't know if you had that famous Tan Leisure shoot on at that time. But, you know, he was sitting there and I listened to it for a long time. I just stood there for a long time and I didn't make any contact with him. I was very intimidated, but it was wonderful. And I kind of stood there like a like a happy moron, you know. And then, you know, things went on and on. I met Herb Ellis at that show as well, and that was fun.

Jesse Paliotto (06:32)
wow.

Tim Lerch (06:35)
And so I had this idea of playing solo guitar, but I was also trying to learn how to play jazz and blues guitar in a conventional way as well. you know, I lived in Sacramento, near Sacramento. And so I would go to San Francisco sometimes to hear my favorite jazz guitar players. So I heard Jim Hall and Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel and John Abercrombie and some other, you know.

newer guys. And so I was really, you know, that was just what I was chasing. Of course, then eventually I had to start working as a musician more and more and not just sort of playing as a soloist at parties or something. And so I started learning how to be in a band. That was a little hard for me because I to strip away a lot of the stuff that I worked on so hard, you know, like playing the whole song, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (07:30)
Yeah, it's interesting to come at it that way. feel like probably most people come the other way where they play with a band. They're trying to figure out how to build it up and you're like, I'm used to all of it. I got to strip it down.

Tim Lerch (07:35)
Yeah, yeah. Either way, I think is difficult. And so my difficulty was sort of taking up a song that I knew and could play as a solo guitar piece and then taking and then learning the actual guitar part like an old school R &B song or something like that. I might play, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (07:52)
We're here.

Tim Lerch (08:05)
or whatever or something like that. But then what's on the record is just this. Oops, sorry, rocky. Right? So I had to learn that and had to let my learning it was no problem, but telling my brain to not do the other thing, even though I thought it was hipper and cooler, you know. So I learned how to do that. I played in, you know, classic rock bands and soul bands and

Jesse Paliotto (08:08)
Yeah, yeah.

Tim Lerch (08:35)
and, you know, country bands. And I even played in a Russian restaurant for a couple of years and played music. had no idea what it was. It was just following the bass player on these Russian songs and, you know, bar mitzvah songs and all that kind of stuff. got up. So in an attempt to avoid playing in a top 40 band and playing Madonna and Huey Lewis or whatever it was at the time, I just took these weird gigs at

Jesse Paliotto (08:51)
That's awesome.

Tim Lerch (09:05)
where my skill set was somehow valuable. And I just poked around and did that for a long time. But I always had solo guitar kind of, you know, as my main thing somehow.

Jesse Paliotto (09:19)
Did you reconnect with Ted Green or how what was the what was the influence that he had on you going forward because you kind of had that You know NAMM experience. I'm watching him play but this is overwhelming No, no interaction like did there how what happened?

Tim Lerch (09:31)
Yeah, yeah, can tell you there's a story. I was in Sacramento out gigging and doing my thing, hanging out, going to guitar, you know, seminars and whatever else I could do to learn. I went, I had gone to a Howard Roberts guitar seminar even before I met Ted. And that was really my sort of a big leap toward being able to play, you know, the first thing, one of the first things I learned at the Howard Roberts seminar was this.

And that was to me, it was like, that's jazz. my God, you know. But anyway, so there was a group of guitar players in Sacramento that were, you know, helping each other out and stuff. And there was a, had played some, I think I played on the break. Say one of the, the olden days, you know, if you go in, there's an older, maybe more seasoned group of guys playing, you could say, hey, I play guitar. Can I play a couple of solo tunes on the break?

And they would usually say, yeah, sure, man, plug into my amp or whatever. So I did that. And this guy, Doug Paulie, I think was his name, Doug Paulie, but it's a long time ago. He said, hey, you play nice, man. Do you like Ted Green? I said, yeah, man, I love Ted Green. my God. And he said, well, I've got his phone number. Would you like it? And I said, you know, I was very, very happy about that. So he gave me his phone number and I went right home and called. And it was.

Jesse Paliotto (10:48)
Ha

Any pick up?

Tim Lerch (10:56)
it was the evening and he picked up, which I hear was very rare. So I introduced myself. I said, Hi, I live up in Davis, California. And of course to him, I think he immediately thought, he's a hippie, know, because in those days, this was 1981, maybe, I think. And we talked for a while and he said a funny thing. said, Tim,

Jesse Paliotto (11:00)
Okay?

Tim Lerch (11:26)
I hear you, man. I really want to hear what you have to say, but I got to go and do something. And so he went away and came back. You know, the phone was, and only three minutes, you know, and he said, yeah, I'm recording a Jimmy Cagney movie on my VHS machine or whatever he had. And I had to turn the tape over or I had to check to see if it was running okay. Cause what he would do is, he was famous for this. He would record TV shows and movies from TV so he could listen to the music.

because he loved film music. So he turned me onto that idea, you know. Sometimes the B movies, there were these, you know, there's a period of time in, you after World War II and a lot of Russian and Jewish, Russian Jews or Jewish from Europe came to America fleeing, you know, the war and all that. And they were high-class musicians, usually classically trained composers. And a lot of them ended up in Hollywood making music for

Jesse Paliotto (11:56)
interesting.

Tim Lerch (12:25)
films. so even a very low budget movie like a B movie or a C movie could have a great composer writing for a small orchestra or a nine piece string ensemble or something. So sometimes the music, sometimes the music on those old movies is really, really good. Sometimes it's not, but a lot of times it's really good. know, Ted was into that and he had all of his favorites of whom I have a list of and many of them I can't remember. But anyway, so

Jesse Paliotto (12:37)
interesting.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Tim Lerch (12:55)
We got to talking about music and I told him I wanted to learn from him and I Said I can play a little bit. could play some solo guitar But I don't know what I'm doing and I wonder if there's any way so how can you teach me and I? I wanted to learn about walking bass lines because that's what was really fascinating and

And so he said, well, I don't really do this, but if you send me $5, I'll send you, I'll write a lesson for you and send it to you in the mail. So I quickly sent him $5 and then about two months later, I got the lesson, know, the very beautiful handwritten letter, you know, hi Tim, I'm sorry it took me so long. I'm really lousy at this kind of thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's some pages that I thought you might enjoy. And it had some of his pre-written pages in this beautiful letter.

And so I went to work, you know, and then called him up a little while later and said, you know, I think I got what you're, you know, leading me to and maybe had a question or something. So we did that a little bit, telephone call and a mail order lesson. And then finally, I was, like I said earlier, my girlfriend's parents lived in Thousand Oaks, basically. And so we went down there for Thanksgiving and I...

Jesse Paliotto (13:46)
wow.

Tim Lerch (14:14)
called Ted and booked a lesson for the day after Thanksgiving and went to his parents' house, because he was living with his parents at the time in Woodland Hills, which was only a short drive away, and had an afternoon lesson, maybe four hours or something like that. yeah, yeah, I mean, just, he didn't have anybody else and he was, I think he was just happy to sit around and talk to this kid who, I mean, I was probably about...

Jesse Paliotto (14:32)
four-hour lesson.

Tim Lerch (14:44)
maybe 21 at the time. Yeah, and I taped it and I stopped, it's funny, I stopped taping my lessons with Ted because I found after that very first one, I taped it and I felt like I wasn't showing up for the lesson in my mind and in my heart because I was figuring I had it on tape. And so, yeah, right. And he would say,

Jesse Paliotto (14:46)
Yeah, so just eating it up probably and he's just

Yeah, you could kind of like mentally back up because you're like, let's do it again later.

Tim Lerch (15:12)
Well, it'll be on the tape. And so when I went to him again, I said, you know, Ted, I really don't want to tape the lesson because his style was just to go 90 miles an hour. You know, his speed wasn't 90 miles an hour, but just flow of consciousness, play, play, play, talk, talk, talk. And then you get it on tape and then you had to do the work of transcribing and everything. And I said, you know, I'd really just like to come to a lesson and learn one thing really well and ask you to.

clarify it or write it down or whatever and really get it under my fingers and stuff before I leave, rather than just sitting here and watching you talk into the tape recorder, you know? And I think, yeah, yeah, I think he was reluctant, but because, you know, for whatever reason, he had his own way of doing it. sure, I know it's for me, when I teach online, I do the same thing. I say, just record this bit. Not just the whole, some guys like to record the whole lesson, but I actually like it if they,

Jesse Paliotto (15:47)
What did he, he roll with that? Did he do it?

Tim Lerch (16:07)
if I say, okay, turn on the movie and then let's get this. And I'll give them a three or four minute video of something specific. Then it's a little bit more doable. But anyway, from then on, I didn't tape the lessons. would, I'd go away, the stack of paper would come back three months later and you know, it's like that. so I've been adding, oddly I didn't study with Ted.

very much, actually. I didn't go to his place very often. It was hard for me to get there. By the time I moved to Hollywood, I moved to Hollywood to go to GIT, and I would try to get to it. You couldn't take a bus there, you know, and so I'd borrow a car or something and try and go up there. And it was quite an ordeal to get there. So, but he would give me a stack of paper and then a bigger stack of paper, you know, and I just would go home and work on it, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (16:35)
Okay.

Tim Lerch (17:01)
And then I went on the road, got my first real kind of, you know, road gig in 86 maybe, 85, 86. And I don't think I saw him after 86. Then we left the area. I was married at the time and, you know, and this little kid and everything. And so we moved up to the Seattle area where I am now.

Jesse Paliotto (17:17)
wow.

Tim Lerch (17:31)
And then all sorts of stuff has happened in between.

Jesse Paliotto (17:35)
Well, yeah, if I fast forward to like today from, which that's super interesting and I like any story with Ted Green is always interesting because he was an interesting guy. But if you fast forward to today, you're doing so much different types of music and I say different types and not really thinking like style or genre, but format, like with the Pearl Django group, trio group, duo, solo gigs. How do you, how do you, I'm very curious, how do you weave all that together in the day to day?

It feels like there's a lot of practice. That's a lot of different types. Like you were saying, like, do I just play the part or do I play everything? And so you're having to come from a lot of angles and how do you, how do you do that? How do you make that all work?

Tim Lerch (18:15)
Well, I love guitar music and music in general, and I keep my head in it, you know. you know, Pearl Django is a sort of a full-time steady gig. The pandemic took a little bit of wind out of our sails, but it's not like I take some of the gigs and take up and then not take others. It's like they have a gig, I take it, right? I'm there. I'm in the band. am a...

Jesse Paliotto (18:42)
Yeah.

Tim Lerch (18:44)
partner in the band. And they, you know, expect me and I love playing in that band. It's an archtop guitar gig where I play sort of early swing and early bebop or swing and early bebop in a Django inspired gypsy jazz or hot club type band. And I've been in the band for almost nine years now. Made three records with them so far and we're working on the

Jesse Paliotto (19:10)
right on.

Tim Lerch (19:14)
probably the last one. And we were just over across the state this last weekend playing shows. It slowed down a little bit. It used to be about 100 dates a year. Now it's less. And so during the pandemic, I started saying yes to things that I had written. know, since I've been in that band, I hadn't been saying yes to much because I just didn't have, I was teaching three days a week and playing gigs two days or three days a week.

Jesse Paliotto (19:28)
.

Okay.

Tim Lerch (19:44)
and that's a lot.

Jesse Paliotto (19:45)
So that sort of almost opened the calendar a little bit, like I can actually take on.

Tim Lerch (19:49)
Right, then I started taking more gigs that might have been closer to home, playing more jazz stuff, know, pick up bands and things. And then I started taking more solo gigs. I had a long standing gig at a casino, like at the fine dining restaurant inside the casino. Actually, I had that before I joined Pearl Django. I was in bands like I was in Lee Oscar's band, who's a harmonica player from war.

And but we wouldn't play very much. play, you know, a couple of times a month or something like that. And I was in a blues band with Mark Dufresne. Mark Dufresne was a really well respected and great blues singer and harmonica player. So I did all these things. You know, when I took the gig with Pearl Django, a lot of things because it was so busy, you know, and I was always teaching two, three, you know, maybe twenty five students a week, you know.

And so then the pandemic came and all the Pearl Django gigs just went completely away. were down to like literally down to zero. Building back up now for the, know, kind of the last legs of the thing. But I got these other gigs, started playing singles in like little wine tasting things and singing and playing and doing all that stuff. And so...

you asked about how I keep it all together. Well, basically I write it in the book, and I put it in my calendar, and the day of the gig I say, okay, what am I doing today? I better brush up on those songs I sing, or I better look at these two new tunes that we put into the Pearl Django list, or I better listen to these songs on YouTube, and so I can make the gig. It's the same old thing.

Jesse Paliotto (21:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's taken day by day. Yeah, I mean, it strikes me too, like with the Pearl Django playing for nine years, I would guess like there's just a certain amount of you've got it under your fingers. Like you've played these songs.

Tim Lerch (21:50)
Yeah, yeah, we do. I mean, there's a book we probably have about, I don't know, an active book of about 100 tunes and maybe a deeper book of another 100 tunes that on any given time, something they might say, hey, brush up on these things because we're going to we got to play this special gig. they requested these seven songs or whatever it is. And no, and I might have to go back and listen to the record or something that I'm not on.

to learn what the band expects us to do. Pearl Django's been a band for 30 years now.

Jesse Paliotto (22:28)
OK. I didn't realize that. So yeah, so you've been there for nine years, but there is this sort of tradition and history.

Tim Lerch (22:31)
There's this very long, there's 17 CDs and a very long legacy in a big book. And so yeah, it definitely some homework sometimes. Playing gigs with a singer, I gotta learn all of her songs in her key or whatever it is. And it's just the same old thing. But the good news is I'm not playing in an Elvis band on one day and then on old school soul.

group at a casino the next day and then a country gig the next. I'm doing mostly, I'm getting called to do what I do. Yeah, Which is a long time coming. mean, for a guy who's been, you know, having to play like somebody else this whole life, now I'm actually playing like myself. I'm doing me, you know, and people want that. So that's good. That feels good.

Jesse Paliotto (23:08)
Yeah, that's kind of like the connecting line. This is, I do these things, there's different formats, but yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's got to be an encouragement for younger players too. Like, yes, you do have to put in time, but there gets to a place where if you can do you, you can actually increase productivity because you're not showing up for eight different genre gigs in a week.

Tim Lerch (23:42)
Yes, yeah, yeah, and I don't want to play loud music with loud drummers and,

harmonica players deafening me. I started having trouble. As we get older, know, stuff starts to go. And I started noticing that I was having a lot more ear fatigue after the gig. And I just realized, if I'm going to keep doing this until I'm 85 or 90, you know, which I kind of hope I will, I want to be able to have at least, you know, something of the rest of my tools. They're going to go, you know, if anything, like my older siblings, you my ears are going to go all by themselves.

without me, you know, subjecting them to a ride cymbal and a snare. I just... Right. So Pearl Django is a drummerless band. I play in duos a lot with bass players. I have a trio and the trio is drums and bass usually. And we don't play very loud either. You know, we play in, you know, most of the time we're just playing little small places that...

Jesse Paliotto (24:24)
Right. Let's not help it along. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (24:50)
that'll hire us to play jazz, you Sometimes we get more higher paying concert type gigs or whatever, but usually it's just trucking along, doing the same old thing we've always done, you know? But...

Jesse Paliotto (24:52)
Yeah.

Yeah. It reminds me, there's an old line about, you know, you go to work, even if you're doing something like art, guitar, something like this, and you just show up every day and work like a plumber. Do the work. And I feel like there's some of that what you're saying. Like I just, put it on the calendar. If there's these three songs I got to learn, I just go learn those three songs. It's not any more complicated.

Tim Lerch (25:13)
Yeah, I wish I got paid.

Yeah. Right. I mean, I wish I got paid like a plumber, but that's another joke, right? The lady calls the guy up and says, well, we'd like you to come and play at our wedding reception and we want you to get it there at three in the afternoon and then play from seven to nine and then then, blah, blah, blah, blah. And how much will it cost? the man, you know, the booker says.

Jesse Paliotto (25:23)
All right.

Tim Lerch (25:44)
Well, that'll be, you know, let's say he says something like, that'll be $4,000. And she says, what? $4,000? All we want you to do is play music for a couple of hours. Right. And he says, OK, call five plumbers and ask them to come over to your house for a couple of hours and then and then ask them how much it would cost for that. And then we'll play for half.

Jesse Paliotto (26:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. like that half is the kicker on that, that you're like, is just the difference in expectation people unfortunately have.

Tim Lerch (26:20)
Yeah, but even half would be, you know, probably $5,000. So anyway, you know, it's just, you don't need to spend any more time on that subject. Luckily, these days, I'm, know, financially, the endeavor is paying and all of the things, you know, that's another thing about being diverse is that if one, like when Pearl Django went away, if I had been depending on

that chunk of dough like the other guys in the band. I mean, I wouldn't have had anything. So during the pandemic, guys who were gigsters, you know, were calling me saying, hey, hey, Tim, how do I get into this YouTube thing or whatever? People would call me and I'd try and help them, you know, because, you know, if you didn't do it. So I've always done diverse. I always liked teaching, so I was taught. And I always liked playing, so I always played.

Jesse Paliotto (26:50)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (27:15)
And then YouTube came along and I started doing that kind of just for fun and then it turned into some people calling me wanting lessons online and etc. etc. So, you know, I always call it mailbox money, you know, so these books that I've written, the True Fire courses, all the YouTube stuff, all the stuff from my sales from my website, that's all just a little trickle but it all adds up to, you know, enough to take care of business, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (27:28)
Mm-hmm.

Well, that's a great transition to what I wanted to. I thought I was gonna have to make a very hard left turn, but you took the turn, which is towards the Tim's Guitar Workshop, which I believe you just launched a month or so ago.

Tim Lerch (27:52)
Yes.

Yeah, we launched it a couple of, like a week and a half into September, I guess, no. Yeah, yeah. September and October were almost two full months and yeah, now we just started this one. November.

Jesse Paliotto (28:07)
right. Could you talk a little bit about that? Like, I think what's what might be an interesting angle is like, who would be the right person? Who is it really made for? Like, what would be the person that would show up and they'd be like, this is exactly what I was looking for and would just thrive.

Tim Lerch (28:10)
Yes.

Yeah. Okay. First of all, it's Tim's Guitar Workshop dot com. It's a it's my website. It's a subscription website. So people pay a monthly fee or a yearly fee, which is a reduced amount, and they have access to everything in the place. Right now we have a thing where you can go and for three days you can get in and look around and then

Jesse Paliotto (28:46)
Okay, like a free trial type of a thing.

Tim Lerch (28:48)
three-day free trial and you know, we take the card and then you gotta unsubscribe, but like you do for Apple Music or Apple TV or whatever it is. We're constantly doing that, you know, off our TV fix. Anyway, so timtheguitarworkshop.com. It really is an attempt to bring all of my teaching into...

Jesse Paliotto (28:58)
Yeah, it's everything.

Tim Lerch (29:17)
under one roof because I had, I have another subscription website with Truefire where for a monthly fee it's called Solo Guitar Sensei and it's all just solo guitar stuff or mostly solo guitar oriented and there's nothing written down except with the little Ted Green style grid boxes that I use. And that was fine except that

I wanted something that would include larger, longer videos, which I couldn't do on that site. you something stumping over there. Is your house blowing going to blow over? boy. And, you know, there was a limited capacity. I think it's an older format. so the videos had to be shorter and they couldn't be high def and all this stuff. So my publisher...

Jesse Paliotto (29:57)
Yeah, sorry, got something in the background going on.

Tim Lerch (30:16)
helped me with this. Guitar Vivo is my publisher for the books that I've written recently, which do also quite well. And a lot of it is based on my YouTube following and my True Fire following and all that, which is all, I think it's all kind of blended together because I have a great YouTube channel and people watch the videos and subscribe and all that. And so the target audience is

is really anybody who digs what I do. And I'm not trying to teach beginners. I'm not trying to tell everybody that it's the best thing out there. I'm not trying to tell people that they're going to learn fast. I totally refute that business of five tips that will help you learn bebop in three weeks or what, you know, that sort of nonsense.

Jesse Paliotto (31:11)
Right. Yeah.

Tim Lerch (31:15)
I kind of feel like that's a little bit like saying, you know, learn how to make love to your wife in five minutes.

Jesse Paliotto (31:23)
Right. Is that the point? Is that what we're trying to do here?

Tim Lerch (31:25)
Yeah, right. We know it's not. my tactic is love the music, find joy in the process of learning the music, invest your time and energy into something you love and bring joy to your life from it. And as a result of that, you will be on the path of learning and enjoying and sharing the joy of music with others. And all of those things will unfold naturally out of your own experience.

Jesse Paliotto (31:42)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (31:55)
rather than, okay, here's the treadmill, get on it. By the end of the treadmill, in three weeks or three months or three years after you pay a lot of money, then you're going to get something. You will be something then that you're not now. And I just don't buy that. So I have an approach that's different. I'm willing to. Thank you.

Jesse Paliotto (32:14)
which I completely agree with. Just a quick story, maybe it's really quick. One of the most fun pieces that I play is actually one of your arrangements. It is on Green Dolphin Street. And I just did it the... Yeah?

Tim Lerch (32:26)
nice. There's not an arrangement by the way. I completely improvised that. But yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (32:37)
But it works. did it the old school way. I just took your YouTube. I sat there and I did what everybody's done with records and everything for 100 years. Slow it down, play it 1,000 times, and force yourself to learn it note by note and look at the fingers. Wait, how is he doing that? And what's interesting with the slow learning process is it is enjoyable. It's also more deeply ingrained. I feel like if you sat me down in front of group of strangers and said, play something cool, I would play that because I learned it so deeply.

Tim Lerch (32:45)
Slow it down, yeah.

You

absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, right. think that spoon feeding and or the quick churn. The quick churn, think, is maybe sets you up for being able to do some parts of the music business, like, OK, learn these 10 songs before the gig tonight or sight read this, you know, or whatever. But a lot of it is, you know, about.

Jesse Paliotto (33:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (33:27)
taking a test or passing on course or whatever, and not necessarily about digesting deeply. And being able to have something that's really part of what you have to say instead of, you know. And some people who are musically talented are gonna overcome that. And many people who aren't so musically, and you know, they love it, but maybe they don't have a real knack for it or whatever.

they might go through the program and even get a good grade at the end and a degree and it still isn't quite there. So not that those things are bad. Everybody gets to do what everybody gets to do. That's no problem. And I have a feeling that the people who do well in those institutions and, know, or that kind of, you know, learn it, learn it, churn it, churn it, learn it, churn it. Those kind of people are, they work in that kind of environment. It works for them. And some of them become teachers in the very same institutions that they graduated from. And then...

perpetuated. I mean, I study with Ted Green, I feel like, and Joe D'Orio, and you know, and I went to GIT, but I did not want to go to hardly any classes. I just avoided it. I just hung out in Joe D'Orio's room, know, in Ron Estes' room. So that's my style. I soak it in, I soak in it, I swim in it, I dig it, and then I just sort of like play a lot and work and work and work on refining it. So I'm a late bloomer and I don't, you know, so I kind of heat

teach that way. A lot of my students, a lot of the people who joined the website so far and have joined my previous endeavors as well, you know, cats who don't play full-time or aren't professionals. Maybe there some teachers who want to get high-end stuff, you know, like, you know, ongoing education. But a lot of them are just guys that used to play when they were younger, then they retired and now they play again and they...

You know, we deal with cranky fingers and, you know, all these kinds of things. And it's sweet and very enthusiastic because they're not doing it to get anything, you know, no accolades. One of the things I always try to do, and we're doing it well at timsguitarworkshop.com, is the forum. It's encouraging people to help each other and encourage each other and, you know.

Whatever you just learned, teach it to somebody else. That's how you can, you know. So I feel like there's high-end stuff to learn on my website, on this new website. You know, and it's also dealing with single note soloing, improvisational concepts, different things, the whole nine yards. And I've got a guy writing it out, so it's notation and tab and the video and it's, you know, sound slice. You know what that is? It runs underneath the video.

Jesse Paliotto (36:06)
yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Tim Lerch (36:18)
And I'm warm answering questions every couple of days and and we're cranking out new material all the time. We're taking old material and transcribing it. So a lot of my YouTube stuff that's very popular is getting transcribed. I'm hoping. Yeah, right, right. Eventually. But so I'm hoping eventually over the next couple of years, probably because it's a big project, that all of my solo guitar performances from YouTube, which there's probably about 150 of them that have

Jesse Paliotto (36:30)
I should have just waited. I could have gotten greened off the street.

Tim Lerch (36:47)
good enough video quality to withstand future viewing, we're gonna get them all transcribed. because I think that's, it's really a big body of work, first of all. mean, people say, know, was this great legendary guitar player, but he, you know, there's nine songs or something like that that he recorded at high quality and that's it. And not that I'm equating myself to what he's doing, but I am doing a similar thing in that,

Jesse Paliotto (37:11)
Yeah.

Tim Lerch (37:17)
I'm playing solo guitar influenced by him and people seem to like it and I want to try and preserve this accidental body of work, you know, that came just as a result of hanging out and wanting to share what I love. So that's getting transcribed slowly. We have a fundamental section that is the basics, if you will. We've got a jazz section, we've got a blues section.

Jesse Paliotto (37:36)
Excellent.

Tim Lerch (37:45)
We've got two live streams every month and a song of the month. So we're doing a deep dive on Skylark at the moment.

Jesse Paliotto (37:54)
So cool. Actually, I think I saw this on Instagram or maybe it was YouTube channel. think you've been posting some updates. Yep.

Tim Lerch (37:58)
Yeah, yeah, we're trying to get people to know what we're doing. So I would say that the demographic of, you know, the target audience is anybody who loves this kind of music and wants to play it well and learn about it and hang out with and and be encouraged by other people who do the same. You know, I don't think I'm really hitting the hipsters, the younger folks, because, you know, there's a couple of things and they want everything for free.

which is sort of a phenomenon of the online generation, is that there's so much stuff for free, nobody would want to, who would spend money? could just, you that's, yeah, and then that's cool. That's cool. YouTube has been great for me. I don't mind giving away stuff for free on YouTube because every once in a while, maybe one in a thousand or whatever, say, I want more of that. I'll spend money on that. know, like I didn't have any

Jesse Paliotto (38:38)
Yeah, YouTube's really fed into that. It should be up for grabs.

Yeah. Yep.

Tim Lerch (38:57)
recordings of the solo guitar stuff. But then someone said, Tim, is there a way for me to get your music from your solo guitar performances? Because I want to listen to it at home and in the car and I want to do would you put it on Spotify? And I don't want do that. I don't want to give away give it away further. Right. So I just took

Jesse Paliotto (39:17)
curious about that, which I don't mean to take you off your line, but maybe we can come back to that because that's very unique. Like trying to listen to you actually, I went I'm like, and I did the same thing. I can't find him on Spotify. And that is an interesting way you distribute music.

Tim Lerch (39:20)
Yeah, yeah, I have some...

Yeah, right.

Right, so I just basically turned 17 solo guitar performances of which the audio is very high quality. The video wasn't that great at the beginning and got better, but the audio has always been very good. So I took the audio of these videos and put them as a digital download up on my website. First volume one, then volume two, then volume three, then volume four. So there's four volumes. There's maybe, let's say an average of

I think 17 songs times four, whatever that is, 60 tunes or something. And it's kind of a catalog of, you know, the earlier days and then the later days. And, you know, and I have a whole bunch of other things in the works, know, other records and things. But people asked for that. And I just said, OK, sure. I didn't realize it. But then I did. And then people bought it. People buy them, you know, and they figure out what they do.

Jesse Paliotto (40:26)
So if I followed you correctly, the way that you put together your albums is you took your YouTube where you had recorded in a high quality audio with varying levels of video and then went back and said I have always high quality audios. I'm just going to grab stuff that I've recorded over the last whatever five, seven, ten years and compile it into some album collections. And then that was your album, right?

Tim Lerch (40:43)
Yeah. Yep. I sell them on my website for $12. And then there are downloads, you know, and sometimes it's confusing. Like someone will buy it say, I thought this was a book of PDFs. And I said, no, no, this is we used to call these records. we then we call them CDs. know, so people can now download my performances and put it on their computer. They can put it on whatever their phone or whatever they want to do. But they pay me for it. Right. And then I pay the

Jesse Paliotto (40:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Tim Lerch (41:13)
the royalties on the songs, if I reach the threshold of, you don't have to pay anything if you're still just po-dunking along. But then there's thresholds where if you sell this many copies of it, you have to pay Harry Fox Agency or whatever. I do that. And so they can pay me, right? And they get it, they can keep it, they can share it with their friends if they really want to, but I hope they don't. I hope they tell their friends, buy it from Tim.

Jesse Paliotto (41:27)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (41:43)
Because if you have a record deal, you don't get any money. If you give your music to Spotify or Pandora or whatever, you never get any money. And if there is a little bit of money, everybody gets a piece of it and you still don't get any money, you know? So it is. I don't want to, I don't want to, so it's a...

Jesse Paliotto (41:58)
Yeah, in the Spotify payout raise, people have done so many kind of analysis and it's so bad. Yeah.

Tim Lerch (42:04)
Most people will say, why isn't your music on Spotify? You're wonderful. You play great. You're one of the greatest guys. Wow, that's wonderful. Why isn't your music on any of the streaming services? because I actually want to make a living, you know? And it's unfortunate. know, Pearl Django's music is on the streaming services. And because Pearl Django owns its own record company, we actually get a check every once in a while from the streams, you know?

Jesse Paliotto (42:15)
Yeah, right.

Amazing as that is, yes.

Tim Lerch (42:34)
But so it is a little bit of a stubborn, you know, I realize I'm not gonna compete with very well with, you know, singing and strumming and singing songs about your life and or rocking out or playing, you know, dance music. I'm just not gonna compete with that on those platforms anyway. So take a few more steps. It's just one other little click on the.

Jesse Paliotto (43:02)
Yeah.

Tim Lerch (43:02)
You know, the URL and you find us the shop, you can use PayPal, you can buy it and you can put it, you know, and if you can't figure out how to put it on your phone, then ask your 14 year old granddaughter, you know, whatever. You know, I mean, it's like that. I feel like that there's a history of that, know, owning your own music and keeping ownership of your music. Because I was in L.A. during the heyday of, you know, big, big signings and all this stuff. And a lot of those bands that were getting

money thrown at them were broken in bankruptcy after just a few years. And I saw that happening. I got close enough to that to realize I wanted to keep my own business, you know? And I'm not a great businessman, but I mean, I'm kind of an accidental businessman, I guess.

Jesse Paliotto (43:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, to me that connects back to what you're saying around like when you're you. And there's maybe a little bit of the difference between like just doing the work of playing music versus actually being more of an artist where there is a me that when I show up, people are willing to take the extra couple steps because they're engaged with that, that artistry rather than just I'm buying. Cause I mean, that's, that's an interesting dynamic of Spotify is the commoditization of music where I'm just listening to a dance playlist. I'm not listening to this artist. Yeah.

Tim Lerch (44:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, they don't even know who they are. mean, and to the extent that Spotify is now actually letting AI create music that has no human behind it at all. And people are liking it just as well because the music has gotten more and more robotic by the nature of, you know, all of the, even when humans were making it, they wanted, there was this, there is this trend to make it sound more and more robotic and perfect and auto-tuned and all that. So yeah, I mean, I just don't, I want people to feel something when they...

when they hear me play, you know? And I think I have a unique ability to play in a way that's personal and unique to me. So I'm not trying to hide from the public. But I also realize that what I do is probably not, you know, what everybody wants, you know? I'm just, there's just, so YouTube helped me sort of reach beyond and I was really surprised when that happened, you know? So it's like, you the old thing of a

big fish in a small pond. Well, the pond just got bigger for me when I started, you know, getting some notoriety on that platform.

Jesse Paliotto (45:25)
Yeah, that's very much the YouTube dynamic. It's a massive pond. And if you can even as a small fish reach a small slice of people that love what you do, that is really like where it works.

Tim Lerch (45:30)
Just a little slice of it.

Oddly, now it's getting a little harder and harder because they keep... I'm not an algorithm chaser and I don't use clickbait and I don't want to do all the things that YouTube wants you to do to get that initial large number of views that then propels. So I'm just, I'm just resigning myself to doing what I want. and, and if anybody wants it, it's there.

Jesse Paliotto (45:43)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (46:06)
If find out, you know, three people who watch your podcast find out about me and then go there, that's great, you know, or 300 or whatever it is. I don't know. You're entering into this world if you want to do a podcast that goes up on YouTube is, you you got to have, I don't know how many subscribers before you, before anything happens, you know. But it's cool because it's there, you know, and I mean, if there was a YouTube when I was a teenager and,

Jesse Paliotto (46:14)
Yeah, whatever it is.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (46:35)
and Barney Kessel had a YouTube channel or Jim Hall had a YouTube, I mean, I would have been completely over the moon.

Jesse Paliotto (46:43)
Yeah, it is cool. Like I'm very much digging into Joe Pass stuff right now and the amount of material that's up on YouTube of Joe Pass performances, clinics, a lot of stuff people just recorded on the fly. And it's amazing. It is so amazing. So the real question is, are you going to release vinyl? Are you going to do records?

Tim Lerch (46:48)
je-

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Jesse Paliotto (47:05)
I think you've thought about it, huh? That pondering is like, I've debated that.

Tim Lerch (47:08)
Yeah, I mean I was, I have a place in my heart for vinyl. I mean had a big record collection. I worked in record stores to put myself through school, know, and I loved staring at the records and reading the liner notes and over and over and over again and trying to find one more thing in the photos in the middle of the record, you know, and listening to the music. But...

I don't know, I don't think so. You know what I might do? I might take all the solo guitar things that I've done, like those 60 plus songs, and I might do a greatest hits. Because a vinyl can only have about eight or nine songs on it. And I might take the very best of that, or maybe two new things and then some very best of the old things.

Jesse Paliotto (47:49)
yeah.

Yeah, the physical space on it, yeah.

Tim Lerch (48:04)
and do a limited run or something just because I love the idea of having a vinyl record, you know, because I, I saw it, I saw it after that so much when I was a kid and everything. it's, it's, it's, yeah. Yeah, I know, I know. You know, it was so funny. I listened to Ted Green's solo guitar record, probably worn out three or four copies of it. And then I got the CD and I was really disappointed because it was a CD and it was also,

Jesse Paliotto (48:16)
Yeah, and it fits your music and that kind of the sense of warmth and.

Tim Lerch (48:34)
remastered and it just didn't have the same vibe. It was all there and I still love hearing it but it didn't have the same vibe, you know. But know, but vinyl's so impractical, you know. mean, I guess the only, I don't know how I would sell it because you really, you know, if you ship it in the mail and it gets hot and it gets melted or warps, you're on the gig, most people don't have a record player anymore. So.

I don't know, I don't want to have 10 boxes of stuff in the basement. A million cellar, meaning you have a million of them in the cellar.

Jesse Paliotto (49:15)
That is not the million seller anybody wants.

Tim Lerch (49:17)
I mean, I have a couple of CDs. I have a trio CD and an upcoming, which I may make a CD out of. Because if you have CDs, you can sell them on a gig. And Pearl Django still makes CDs and our demographic, probably the only generation that still has a CD player. I I have a computer. I bought it just a little while ago, brand new, and it doesn't even have a drive on it. Like, what are you supposed to do? Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (49:41)
Yeah, you have to go buy the attachment if you want to try and figure out way to connect it. Can the I almost feel like I may know the answer to this, but I wanted to ask it because this came up with somebody I was talking to the other day about the being a musician today. You kind of almost feel like you can't just be a good musician. You also have to be a quote unquote content creator. I have to be somebody who's doing all this digital marketing. I'm creating all this material that is not strictly just music may incorporate music.

Tim Lerch (49:47)
Anyway, yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (50:12)
And you do so much stuff. And the question I wanted to ask you is like, how do you balance that? But as I hear you talk, it almost, feels like you're very natural and you just do it all and it doesn't stress you. But I don't know, do you have any thoughts on that or just like that responsibility that people kind of deal with today?

Tim Lerch (50:25)
Yeah.

The people I know who have been successful in content creation are the ones who sort of did it naturally for the love of it and then people started noticing. And the people who are, you I know there's some guys out there who clearly, you know, graduated from a music school X, realized there weren't any jobs to be had or they didn't like, you know, the jobs that were.

available and they wanted to teach about jazz or whatever and they said, well I've heard that you can make a YouTube channel and they watched YouTube videos about how to make a YouTube channel and did all the right things and crank it out and they have the splashy clickbait things that are guaranteeing you five tips for the best this's and that's and they follow all these guidelines and they can you know get stuck because

You gotta, if you follow all those things, you gotta make content every week and you gotta be very consistent and you gotta have new ideas all the time and blah, blah. I don't have that because I don't do that. I just make YouTube videos and post them whenever I feel like it. And whenever I have something, know, a student asked me about something, I said, and I taught about it. And I said, no, that could be, I could put that on my channel, you know, or whatever it is, you know. I'm compelled to, as part of my,

my sort of ethos is to share this music. Like for instance, one of the things that motivated me early on, if you watch my solo guitar videos, you'll notice that a lot of them are just about a three minute video of me playing the song.

Right, I'm not blowing over the top, I'm not doing any of that. Because I felt like guys who were trying to learn these songs needed to hear the songs. Guitar players suck at playing melodies that are actually clear and beautiful. You know, hear somebody playing even a song like Autumn Leaves and they don't know the melody. I mean, it's like, wait a minute, learn the melody. So I kind of was on a little bit of a preach about that, like obnoxiously I hope, but just wanting to...

Jesse Paliotto (52:24)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (52:40)
to play something where it just was at least my version of the melody. Harmonized nicely, played nicely with a good tone, and so that motivated me for quite a while. It still motivates me in general in my life to play beautifully and share that.

Jesse Paliotto (52:56)
Mm-hmm.

What's funny about that is that's actually what people usually want to hear. It's always amazing to the disconnect when somebody feels like, I should shred or I feel like I should show off. And all somebody's ear wants to hear is play the melody that I want to hear, like just play the app, less ego driven, more music driven.

Tim Lerch (53:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Play beautifully, play beautifully, you know? I'm always really happy. I have this guitar in my hand, I should play it over. I'm always very happy when I hear, when somebody says, my God, it's so beautiful. And I'm playing it, you know, and it's just, you know, I'm trying to get these notes to sing, you know, and, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (53:41)
it is.

Tim Lerch (53:42)
you

you

Just something pretty, know, something beautiful. But then also behind it, if somebody's really a guitar player, they say, my God, I like that. And I try to do it and it's hard and I'm impressed or any of that kind of stuff. That's okay too. But I always say, I always tease, I want to play music that your mom would like because it's good music, not because it's her favorite songs from her teenage years or whatever, but just because...

She doesn't have to be a sophisticated music listener, or your dad, or your grandpa, or your brother, or your uncle, your son, or your daughter. I they don't have to, I don't want people to have to be sophisticated music listeners to actually realize that there's beautiful music going on.

Jesse Paliotto (54:37)
Yeah, it should transcend sort of the nerdiness.

Tim Lerch (54:39)
Yeah, right. And then, it's there for the nerdy's if they want it, you know. So this is fine line. I hear music in my head. The only reason I play music is so I can hear it. So I can hear it out loud. You know what mean? I just have this music going on in my head. So I want to play it so I can be the one to get it out, you know. And that kind of keeps me going. And that helps me manage the content creation. Now,

Jesse Paliotto (54:52)
Yeah, that's cool.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (55:08)
Content creation's been a little interesting for me now, recently, because I've got a publisher and he's a younger man and he says, hey, know, why don't you get a better camera? And then, you know, we'll figure this out and figure that out because when I watch your videos on my TV, you know, at 47 inch TV, they look a little kind of grainy and I can tell you have an older camera. You know, and then I get a 4K camera and a this and a that and I try and figure out how.

And my workflow changes and the ease that you were talking about of just like how natural it is for me to just, that camera that sits right there, I just turn it on and it looks good. It looks the same every time and I, know, or whatever. It doesn't actually, it's always changing. But I know how to work it. But then all of a sudden I get this new gear and I don't know how to work it. And I get, and I have levels of frustration or disappointment or whatever. So it is interesting because I protect myself from trying to chase the

tech or chase this and that, you know. When I first started putting stuff up on YouTube, everybody was shooting on a flip phone and I actually shot with a camera and I used Pro Tools for the audio. And it was like, know, right. And it was, was putting videos out that, that at the time looked pretty good and sounded great. So if I did a gear demo or whatever, it was definitely the best sounding version of that piece of gear. Cause

Jesse Paliotto (56:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

that's why you got such great audio that you could turn into.

Tim Lerch (56:37)
I wasn't trying to shoot and make an amplifier demo video with a flip phone with all kinds of compression. It was horrible, right? But now I look back on those videos and I can barely watch them because they seem like they were shot in 1920 or something or whatever. So I got a new camera and then that was good for a while. Now it's starting to all sudden, my great looking videos from five years ago are not looking so great compared to these incredible like

nose hair videos, you know, it's perfectly in focus and everything is there and it like there's this glow and all this stuff and I tried it, you know, and I'm kind of playing around with, you know, making sure my lighting is good and all that stuff because lighting is probably the most important thing. Camera is not as important as the lighting actually, but here's the thing I think.

Jesse Paliotto (57:24)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Lerch (57:31)
you're gonna get burned out chasing after another man's idea that you like, right? And you won't get burned out if you're really following your heart and if you're really doing what's natural for you and you're not putting on, know, not trying to be a used car salesman, you're not just chasing money. So, you know, somebody asked me once, well, what do you do to make money? And I kind of humorously said, well, I don't make money. I make music.

and people give me money.

And I thought, hey, you know, that was kind of a smart ass thing to say, but it actually, it's something good to remember. It's like, I'm not doing this to make money, I'm doing this to make music. That's a good reminder, you know, put that on the wall at your workstation, you know, because I think that's valuable. That's really valuable, especially on this question that you asked about the longevity of a content creator.

Jesse Paliotto (58:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's something healthy about being emotionally connected to the music you're making, not being emotionally connected to the money you're trying to somehow get.

Tim Lerch (58:41)
Yeah, and I think most of the guys that I know, I mean, certainly all the guys that I know well and like and part of this sort of YouTube connection, I think they all understand that to a great extent. If there are people out there who are chasing, who are doing what they're doing because they figured it would be the best job they could do or they wanted to, you know, be like Rick Beato and, you know, or make a lot of money because I think people think he...

Jesse Paliotto (58:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (59:09)
hyper successful and makes a lot of money. Maybe it's true, I don't know. But you know, and he does a great job and he has a, you know, but I wouldn't be surprised if one day Rick says, I'm through with this. It looks like a lot of work, you know. And I really appreciate him. A lot of people do, but there's a lot of pressure. comes with a lot of pressure, you know, and there's a lot of people trying to be like him, you know. And I think that that might not be such a good way to go. I think that, you know,

Jesse Paliotto (59:12)
And.

does.

Tim Lerch (59:40)
Like I was just visiting, I went to Nashville a couple of weeks ago and I was visiting with a friend who has a modest but successful YouTube Patreon kind of deal called Ask Zach. There's a cat named Zach Child. See, he's a Nashville guy, he's a guitar player, he teched for Brad Paisley for a long time and he wrote for Vintage Guitar Magazine for a long time and then he found himself kind of not doing those things.

Jesse Paliotto (59:53)
Okay.

Tim Lerch (1:00:08)
and wanting to do something. So he started a YouTube channel called Ask Zach, where, you know, he would just sit in front of his iPhone and, you know, talk about stuff, Fender guitars and country music and his favorite players. And it's very successful. he seems happy to keep doing it because, you know, he's talking about the stuff that he'd be talking about if the camera wasn't on. I think that's the key.

Jesse Paliotto (1:00:35)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is just.

Tim Lerch (1:00:37)
I think that's the key.

Jesse Paliotto (1:00:39)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Hey, are you okay for a few more minutes, Tim? I got...

Tim Lerch (1:00:43)
Yeah, yeah, I'm cool. I don't have anything on my schedule today except for a little bit of work later on. So I'm going to be in front of the camera shooting or talking to you or whatever you want. So I'm happy to finish.

Jesse Paliotto (1:00:53)
right on. I don't want to, so I won't keep you too long, but I want to do something just called just a kind of a quick hit round. I've got some questions. You don't have to give me long answers. You can if you want to, but. But no, feel free to as well, but you're not no obligation. So these are just kind of couple random questions that are interesting to me. What is in your? I don't know if you listen to Spotify, but what's in your Spotify right now? What are you listening to? What are you inspired to inspired by right now?

Tim Lerch (1:01:01)
Okay, okay.

Okay, I'll try not to.

Okay, I'm gonna change your question, because I don't listen to Spotify. I wouldn't feel like I would want to do something that I don't want other people to do. Right? So I have a little bit of a strong feeling about streaming music, because it's a rip. It really is a rip. And there are no two ways about it, you know. Especially if you're with a big record company, then the record company still gets their big share, then, you know, Peter Frantzen gets $2,700 or something. Anyway, it's a ripoff. It's a ripoff from top to bottom.

Jesse Paliotto (1:01:48)
So, yeah.

Tim Lerch (1:01:53)
Right? Sorry, the furnace is coming on. I hope that's not too obnoxious. But I listen to we're very fortunate up here where I am in the Pacific Northwest have a very good NPR station and they have a radio station and I usually have jazz music as I'm falling asleep on my radio and

Jesse Paliotto (1:01:57)
no, all good.

Tim Lerch (1:02:22)
and it just runs until in the morning. So I listen to that, you know, and it's just a random, you know, collection of relatively mainstream jazz. I have some favorite records that I will play. I love Art Tatum and Bill Evans. I love piano players. I love Frank Sinatra and especially when he's got Nelson Riddle behind him. I love Julie London. I love George Barnes.

Jesse Paliotto (1:02:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Tim Lerch (1:02:52)
So these are all CDs that I might play from time to time, but I don't like putting music on as background. I like to listen to music like you might read a book. It's about the same level of engagement for me. I want it to be in a quiet environment where no one's talking to me or bothering me. So when I listen to music, I really try and listen deeply rather than just have it on in the background.

Jesse Paliotto (1:03:01)
Mm.

Tim Lerch (1:03:22)
And I like Thelonious Monk. Let's see. Jim Hall, Ed Bickert. Those are my, know, and Ted Green, obviously. Favorite guitarists. love, lately I've been listening to a fair amount of Julian Lodge because I love his spirit and he's a friend of mine and it's always nice to listen to your friends. Adam Levy is another guy I like listening to because he's a friend and I can listen to him.

Jesse Paliotto (1:03:30)
Mm-hmm.

Good night.

Tim Lerch (1:03:52)
on YouTube or whatever doing live gigs. In fact, he's coming out here next week and we're going to sit around and talk about music together. Anyway, that's a little bit like that.

Jesse Paliotto (1:03:59)
So nice.

You spoke to my heart, Bill Evans. If I could go back to beginning and try my whole life to be something, it would be Bill Evans. Gosh.

Tim Lerch (1:04:11)
I'm trying to be Bill Evans every day on this thing, you know, and and and yet not just play his notes but really find I listen to a lot of Bill Evans solo piano and he wasn't known as a solo pianist because he didn't really play a two-fisted style but the fact that he didn't play a two-fisted style makes it actually kind of almost believably doable on guitar because he you know if you trim it down if you trim the fat even more

Jesse Paliotto (1:04:29)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (1:04:40)
Keith Jarrett's another guy. He made a record called You and the Music in the Night or something. The Night and the Music and You, I think. Anyway, it was a record that he came back out of after an illness and he played a solo piano recital and it got recorded and it was really minimalistic. It wasn't bombastic at all and it had such a beautiful tone to me. I thought, I could play like that. I really think I can hear myself playing like that. So those things are influential.

Jesse Paliotto (1:05:06)
No you don't.

So quick side trip, I'm gonna ask a totally selfish question. For somebody like me or somebody else out there who would be in my same shoes, your guitar player, you love Bill Evans, is there any place where you'd be like, if you wanna try and do that, go listen to this, go practice this, go check out my video, like where would I go next to build that? that is such a tall order, but it is such a thing like to be able to play in that style.

Tim Lerch (1:05:33)
Right. I've got a well, my the way I play and the way I've managed to do it is not verbatim. Like, for instance, Sid Jacobs has got a book out. Sid Jacobs is an L.A. guitar player. Not a friend of mine, but I know him. We've met a couple of times and we have many mutual friends and he would literally take, you know, using open strings and things. He would get Bill Evans like voicings. And that is not something I ever really tried to do. But

I listen to Bill and it goes in my head and I translate it into guitar, but he would do this kind of... This is also Lenny Browish kind of...

And he would use kind of quartal harmony, but not like McCoy Tyner, but more like, you know, in a more of a tonal way. And he would use like rootless voicing. here's my rootless voicing.

Right.

So then I play, say, in the key of F, maybe...

Oop.

And I heard Bill doing this thing where he would go, and the whole chord would be moving in that same rhythm. And at first I thought, he's playing a new chord on all those things. But he wasn't. He was just playing the same chord in the left hand repeatedly with the rhythm of the melody. Right. And so once I cracked that code and sort of reinvented it on the guitar, then I started getting some insight into that.

Jesse Paliotto (1:07:36)
yeah, yeah.

Tim Lerch (1:07:47)
And so what I decided to do is rather than try and play the same notes and the same voicings and all the spread voicings and all that stuff, that just ends up being too hard to actually be able to physically do with any reliability. At least it was for me. So I started, you know, creating hacks. There's this, I'd say. Like for instance, you can invert a very beautiful chord like that. And I just put a harmonic on the bottom. And now the one and the two are right next to each other.

the eight and the nine. Who knows, you could play something.

And it suddenly is very pianistic, right? So I would use those kinds of methodologies, realizing that I could get to that sound in a way that was maybe a little guitaristic.

Jesse Paliotto (1:08:20)
Yeah.

It's interesting. I've never seen that before where you're doing the harmonic up on the low strings, you get a high thing that actually gets like that. Close fingering a pianist can do that we can't do.

Tim Lerch (1:08:36)
Yeah, you've it's an instant in. Yeah, exactly. Instant inversion. Right. And so I've you know, I do that, you know, a lot of people associate me with, you know, this ripply thing. But so many people are doing that now. It seems almost like a party trick, you know. And so I I want to do it more subtly.

And then for me that ends up sort of taking it out of the party trick realm and actually integrating it more fully into the music and making it almost invisible unless you know what's going on. So listen to a lot of Bill Evans, listen to his solo piano, listen to how he comps behind Tony Bennett, listen to that record with Jim Hall, those two records with Jim Hall because sometimes Bill would just put his

left hand in his pocket and just play right while Jim was playing. That's a good strategy, by the way. Hello, piano players. When you're playing with a guitar player, put one of your hands in the pocket, because you don't need to be too fisted anymore. Ed Bickert, of course, and Lenny Breaux have tapped into this pianistic style. If you like Bill Evans, but you want something slightly simpler, but in the same realm, in terms of this beautiful melodies, along with harmony and swinging.

Maybe more swinging than Bill actually is Red Garland or Kelly. Those trio records are great.

Jesse Paliotto (1:10:04)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (1:10:10)
But you know, there's a Bill Evans record called Intuition and it's him and Eddie Gomez, the No Drummer, at the height of their powers actually. And it's a wonderful record. And it's just the two of them and Bill plays some smaller things because he's playing two note chords and melody. It's really informative, I think. know, just dig Bill Evans and try and...

Jesse Paliotto (1:10:37)
I love that.

Tim Lerch (1:10:39)
try and dig the essence of it rather than the detail of it and get the tone production. Tone production, mean, the thing that separates Bill from a lot of his contemporaries is that he made the piano sound so good. He was drawing a sound out of the piano, which is really difficult to do, especially if you're playing a different piano every time you go to gig.

Jesse Paliotto (1:10:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, good point. Yeah, it's probably something we take for granted as guitar players, control over our instrument or a piano player is at the mercy sometimes of the venue.

Tim Lerch (1:11:13)
Yeah. Yeah, you know, and one last thing about this whole business of, you know, the trio style guitar that's reminiscent of a pianistic approach. Listen to Ed Bickert. Are you familiar with Ed Bickert? OK. Yeah. So listen to him and you'll notice that he plays this beautiful thing. It sounds impossible to do, but you realize if you look at a transcription, a good transcription, it's not so difficult to make the fingers go there. He's not playing, you know, big stretches or whatever.

Jesse Paliotto (1:11:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, not very, but yes.

Tim Lerch (1:11:41)
What he does is he has a tone and he has a sense of melody and a sense of balance between the chords and the melody that he's playing. And also he has restraint. He doesn't play a million notes. He doesn't play, you know, the hardest thing about Ed's style is learning how to play with such restraint. Everybody loves Ed and everybody plays way too many notes, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (1:11:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tim Lerch (1:12:08)
It's really interesting because he didn't play that much. I mean, he could if he wanted to, if the tempo was such or whatever. But I have this old story of like he was comping,

you

you

You know, like that or something, maybe more beautifully than that. The soloist is playing while he's doing that. The soloist stops at the end of the phrase and it's time for Ed Vicker to take his solo and he just says... He just keeps comping. And it's like, my God, it's so beautiful, you know? And then by the time that maybe the bridge came along, he opens up and he's...

So it would not always play a million notes, you know, and it's taking me a long time to realize that because, know, I could wiggle my fingers just as well as anybody else, you know. But yeah, so I think that's you listen to like a record where the saxophone players blowing crazy stuff, you know, and all of a the piano player comes on and piano player solo can be quite restrained, you know, they don't because they just had everybody play every single note. So let's get into some lush characters or something, you know. So that's my idea.

Jesse Paliotto (1:13:28)
Yeah, I think there's an inverse ratio between the memorability of a solo and the complexity. When it's simple but beautiful, it sticks. And that is when somebody just blows, it's impressive in the moment, but I don't know that I retain that.

Tim Lerch (1:13:37)
I think, yeah.

I find it to be probably at least if not more challenging to play something with restraint and meaning than it is to throw every arpeggio and every lick and all that. I mean, it's tempting to do that. And if in certain circumstances, it might be appropriate to do that. You know, in Pearl Django, I'm the hot soloist of the, you know, or one of, you know, three hot soloists. And I kind of have to play that role, you know?

Jesse Paliotto (1:13:51)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (1:14:10)
and we play up tempo things with a snappy feel and all that. So, you know, it's okay. I can do it and I like doing it, but I also like really trying to make a melody, really improvising with where I'm trying to find a rich, luxurious harmony and some beautiful melody, you know? And it's challenging on this instrument, so.

Jesse Paliotto (1:14:30)
love it. Okay, I got another random question for you. Just a couple last ones and we'll close up. All right, this is an odd question so you can be like, Jesse, you're weird. That's totally fine. If you could be as good as you are on guitar, but not on guitar, you could take all of your competence and transfer it to another instrument, what would you want to be playing?

Tim Lerch (1:14:33)
Great. No problem.

I might be tempted to play piano because I'm so fixated on it, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (1:14:53)
Mm-hmm.

After that Bill Evans conversation, feel like that was the inevitable go-to.

Tim Lerch (1:14:58)
Yeah, I mean, in some ways, I think it would be a lot easier, certainly, to take if I had enough skill on the piano, if I had a skill level on the piano that would allow me to play the things that I can play on the guitar, I probably wouldn't be a very good piano player. but, you know, it's because it's just the differences. So, you know, the skill level for piano, can just go so much further. Right.

Jesse Paliotto (1:15:23)
Did you ever consider playing piano? I feel like that's probably a natural question to ask, like playing this style for so long.

Tim Lerch (1:15:25)
You know, there was a piano in the house and I don't know, I just love the guitar more. I tried playing piano and ironically, every kid in my family, I'm a family of seven and I'm number five. Every kid before me got piano lessons at the Catholic school that we went to. And then I didn't. And I'm not sure if I said I didn't want to or if they ran out of money or if the lady died or who knows what. my mom played piano after dinner almost every night.

And I love that. I got a video from a niece. My mom's 95 and she was sitting playing piano. It's so cool. So cool. Yeah. I want to be like that lady.

Jesse Paliotto (1:16:06)
That's awesome.

You're freaking me out. have two kids. The idea of paying for piano lessons for a total of seven kids is a financially daunting proposition.

Tim Lerch (1:16:17)
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, was oftentimes I think it was probably one at a time because they didn't last very long. Everybody got them, but they know nobody really kept kept doing it. And maybe they thought, well, nobody really plays this piano. We don't need to waste our money on this. But anyway, I, you know, I would love to be able to play piano just so could play piano. And I wouldn't want to give up guitar, though. That would be, you know, someone said you cannot play guitar anymore, but you have to play this instrument. I'd stick with guitar.

Jesse Paliotto (1:16:21)
Hmm.

Right.

Cool.

Yeah.

Tim Lerch (1:16:47)
You know, and selfishly, think I've taken this instrument in a personal way to a place that, you know, I think I kind of stand out a little bit as a result of as a guy who's been stubborn enough to get this thing to comply with my wishes. There's plenty of really great guitar players, all stripes out there in the world. I mean, more than you can even imagine. But I feel like I've

Jesse Paliotto (1:17:00)
Yeah, for sure.

Tim Lerch (1:17:15)
this thing, you know, I look down and I just, this world is, this is my world, you know, and I've gone deep in it. I wouldn't want to try and start over again with something else.

Jesse Paliotto (1:17:26)
Yeah, there's something you said earlier about the getting what's in your head out and like you have done the work to be like, I can take what's in here and translate it through this thing in a way that I'm happy with. Like that's a massive achievement.

Tim Lerch (1:17:29)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And because of the vibration of the thing, I think that when I get this thing to sound the way I want it to sound and I'm playing the way I want my fingers to play, I think it sounds more appealing to me than a piano. I mean, I love piano and, know, a beautifully played piano is a beautiful thing. But if, you know, like, for instance, if a note's out of tune on guitar, I can quickly fix it. If the note's out of tune on piano, you start...

Jesse Paliotto (1:17:50)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Lerch (1:18:04)
You know, start driving me crazy because I'm very, very sensitive about pitch, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (1:18:09)
Yeah, the thing about piano that is, I cut you off, man, sorry.

Tim Lerch (1:18:12)
That's okay, I'm just waxing about this question, so I guess that's what you wanted.

Jesse Paliotto (1:18:17)
No, it's interesting to me. Now you got me thinking about it, because part of what's attractive about piano to me would be the repertoire. There is just some stuff that is very hard to play on guitar. And if you wanted to play that, would want to go to classical music, of course. There's so much stuff that just is piano. But yeah, it's a tough one.

Tim Lerch (1:18:32)
Yeah, you're right.

No, I know it's a trade. one of those, know, would you like, you know, would you like this beautiful woman or that beautiful woman, you know?

Jesse Paliotto (1:18:46)
Yeah, the okay, so this is this is definitely a question that would be up your alley based on stuff I've seen you put up on YouTube and everything if you could buy any guitar piece of gear today price is no obstacle is there anything that you're like this is actually kind of what I

Tim Lerch (1:18:59)
Yeah, you know, not usually, but lately I had this. I have some guitars, you know, I like guitars and I buy them. I don't have expensive habits. I don't have, you know, kids in school or, you know, I don't have a boat. I don't have a house on the lake. You know, you know what mean? I have a very, very conservative and simple.

you know, car that's paid for and I wear the same green sweater just about every day. But I like guitars and the guitars I like, you know, can't just go down to the Guitar Center and play one because they're, you know, you can't go to the Guitar Center and play a 1951 ES-350 from, you know, Gibson ES-350. So.

I do have guitars and I like them and I treat myself to them and I think that's important. I'm a musician. I should have fun instruments to play. But I was in Nashville the other day and I've had a hankering for a 52 gold top Les Paul just because I've heard people play them and they sound so good to me.

Jesse Paliotto (1:20:06)
Mmm. Yeah.

Which is interesting, because that feels like outside, like my experience of your music a lot on YouTube, that feels like a different slice of music.

Tim Lerch (1:20:21)
Well, maybe, maybe. But you can play any way you want to on a Les Paul. Ted had an early 50s gold top with cream P90s. He played it for me once. I didn't play it. I've played a few good Les Pauls. And, you know, this is my solid body guitar of choice. But I was in Nashville and I was visiting a friend.

a guy named Andy Reese, who's a wonderful guitar player. He's in the Timejumpers and a great, you know, session player, but he's a jazz guy. And when I was there, I called him up and went over to his house and he had a 53 or 52 Les Paul with a wraparound bridge, two P90s, and it had been, you know, messed up and put back together. And so he got it at a reasonable price.

But anyway that guitar felt so and sounded so good to me. I just couldn't believe and he told me yeah I know man. He's got all these arch tops and everything He's got a 52 telly. He's got all the guitars anybody would want he said that Les Paul is my favorite guitar of all of them and and so yeah, if I I almost feel like I have this this Nagging thing that I want to have one guitar like at some point in time. I want to just

Jesse Paliotto (1:21:31)
Really?

Tim Lerch (1:21:44)
Let them all go and stick with just one and just play it come hell or high water, know, get whatever it has to get out, get it out, get it out. Let it be that the thing. That's the thing. Don't go looking for, you know, a different set of pickups or another guitar or whatever. Just simplify, simplify. And I mean, it probably would be this or or my other my other one like this that doesn't have the second pick up that I played, you know, five nights a week for 20 years. But

Jesse Paliotto (1:21:46)
Mm.

Tim Lerch (1:22:15)
You know, and that's, I have it already, so I don't really, I don't have to feel like I've got to sell everything and buy a 52 Les Paul. But it was a spectacular guitar. know, every once in a while I get a chance to play a really spectacular guitar and it starts the wheels turning, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (1:22:25)
that's awesome.

Yeah, it is interesting. when you sit, when you play, I feel like a lot of the guitars I've played or whatever, and then there are just these ones where you're like, this is different.

Tim Lerch (1:22:41)
Yeah, I mean, they're out there. They really are. you know, I had a 54 Telecaster that I got. You know, I got into it because it was a player grade and I had the money and I bought it. I kept it for only a couple of years because I didn't like it as well as my regular, my number one Tele, you know? And so, because my number one Tele is...

It's a one in a million guitar. mean, I played so many other ones just like it that weren't as good. You know, it's just really, really good. And this is this one is also in another realm. This one does something that the other one doesn't really do either. The solo guitar pearly notes thing. This guitar, no, no guitar that I've ever played can beat it. You know, it's just I just lucked out because, you know, I.

Jesse Paliotto (1:23:14)
interesting. Yeah, it's just, it's got the magic.

wow.

Tim Lerch (1:23:35)
I got them both around the same time and they were so good. Yeah, right.

Jesse Paliotto (1:23:35)
Yeah. Somebody sprinkled fairy dust on it when it was made and it was just, you know, so good. Well, I think, I think we can wrap up. Tim, this has been so good. I took you a little bit over what we had planned to go, but I appreciate your time, I absolutely, I, what would be, I'm so glad to have you. Thank you, man. What would be a great place for people to follow you? I know you've got a lot of stuff we talked about, like different channels and things that you're producing on.

Tim Lerch (1:23:46)
All right. Thank you, Jesse. I'm happy to be here.

Jesse Paliotto (1:24:02)
Is there any place that you'd be like, no, if you're going to follow me, go here, or is there a couple of places you do point people?

Tim Lerch (1:24:06)
Well, I have a personal website called timlerch.com. T-I-M-L-E-R-C-H dot com. And it is a kind of portal to all the other things. So you can find out about my books there. You can find out about my other websites and my other, my YouTube thing is, and then the True Fire stuff and my, you know, I have a Patreon channel. I really am not digging Patreon these days, I'm sorry to say. And so I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna let my Patreon channel.

fade. But so YouTube, Tim Lurch, guitarist on YouTube, Instagram, Tim Lurch, guitarist on Instagram, timlurch.com, timsguitarworkshop.com, know, type my name into the Google machine and you'll get some or all of that.

Jesse Paliotto (1:24:37)
Okay, good to know.

Tim Lerch (1:25:00)
So that's kind of the way. mean, if you just type my name into a search engine and you'll find it, you'll find stuff.

Jesse Paliotto (1:25:08)
Yeah. Excellent. Well, thanks everybody for joining us. I'm your host, Jesse Pagliotto, and I love talking about music here on the Guitar Journal. Big thank you to Tim for being with us today. Have a great time and we'll catch you all in the next one. See you everybody. Bring it.

Tim Lerch (1:25:20)
Alright, here's your theme song.

That's a song called I Never Knew.

Jesse Paliotto (1:25:44)
love it.

Tim Lerch (1:25:46)
Alright man.