Troy Stetina

Early years

Stetina grew up in Indiana. He was the youngest in a prominent family of Olympic cyclists, including his brothers Wayne, Dale and Joel, and won several national medals as a teenager. But racing was more of a family imperative than a personal choice and music was his real passion. His mother, an accomplished opera singer, supported his interest in music, and when he expressed an interest in guitar at age 12 she bought him a $60 beginner guitar and little practice amp.

While growing up, Stetina developed an interest in late 1970s hard rock titans such as Rush, Led Zeppelin and KISS, later taking interest in the lead guitar playing techniques of Randy Rhoads and Van Halen. Shortly after reaching the age of 18, Stetina decided to attend astrophysics classes in New Mexico, and later discovered his unique talent at teaching. In the late 1980s, Stetina released two very successful heavy metal instructional books.

The same year the first book in his heavy metal guitar instructional series was released, the young virtuoso joined the prestigious Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, in Milwaukee. Although he eventually became Director of the Rock Guitar department, he left in the early 1990s to finally pursue a career as a recording artist.

"When I was 12 or 13 I started learning Kiss songs by ear. Everything off of Alive. Then I got into Aerosmith, Zeppelin and Rush—Really all the late 1970s hard rock bands. During high school I started learning lead and got into Van Halen big time. Think I wore out the record grooves on Van Halen 1! Then in 1980 I happened to record this live Ozzy concert off the air just before Randy was killed. There was something about his tone and his note-choice that just hit me. I learned everything off it by ear. Randy was definitely one of my biggest influences and I still love his stuff. Around that time I was getting into classical stuff, too—Bach, Paganini and so forth—and even took classical guitar lessons for a while." After bumping around in a few garage bands through high school, at 18 he wound up in a gigging club band called "Titan". College was looming ahead, when much to his parents dismay, he put off a college scholarship to study Astrophysics in Socorro, New Mexico, quit bike racing and jumped into music with both feet.

"Later on, I figured out that my interest in cosmology was really more about a personal search for truth and the existence of God. So I don't think going that route would have been right. The math probably would have burned me out." Stetina started giving private guitar lessons part-time at a local music store and found he had a knack for teaching. When a chance meeting with Hal Leonard author/editor Will Schmid occurred at the store, an opportunity to write a heavy metal instructional method materialized. His first effort was never published due to copyright issues. His second attempt resulted in the highly successful Heavy Metal Rhythm Guitar Volumes 1 & 2 in 1986, and the Heavy Metal Lead Guitar method in 1987.

"I never started teaching because I thought 'hey, I'd like to teach!' It was just a way to make ends meet really. But that's where the opportunities opened up for me, so that's what I did. Still, I always felt I was a player first and a teacher second. In fact, writing instructional stuff still always feels like work to me.".

Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar

Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar (ISBN 0-7935-0962-9) is a guitar tutorial book by Stetina first published in 1990. It is designed to teach lead guitar techniques, how to practice and encourage evolving creativity. It is split into three sections Mechanics, Rhythm and Creativity. It Includes a rock version of "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, "Caprice No. 10" by Niccolò Paganini and "Prelude in D" by JS Bach.

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