During the clinic, Steve played some of his familiar music and gave in to moments of pure improvisation as well. Being a man of deep self reflection, he was able to illustrate for the audience how he transforms what is coming from deep within him and how he then translates to the guitar in a musical expression.

When asked how he comes up with melodic ideas Steve does not respond with cliché answers. No - Steve looks deep inside himself, analyzing his inner world to create his masterpieces. Sometimes, he finds an image or situation and tries to “sound” like it. Other times it is the people around him and his relationships that can give birth to his music. Yet at other times he simply plays exercises and chord progressions, with the hope that something new and exciting will come about. To this end he sometimes sings along to a chord progression and records himself, to then analyze the recording later and see if there is a worthy idea buried there.

Steve feels his most beautiful music is created when he is listening with his “inner ear”. Since we all are occupied with our problems and everyday routine we simply do not have enough time to learn every facet of music and guitar. So instead of arbitrarily learning various aspects of the guitar Steve recommends using the “inner ear” to determine what is truly important to us. But we must learn how to use this “inner ear” and feel what is going on in our inner world so that we can express that world in the form of sounds and music, without being limited to scales, arpeggios, etc for expression. The deeper the exploration, the more unexplored lands we see and hence our inspiration for musical creativity becomes endless.

Through our inner exploration we understand what music means to us. This is what I AM, and this is MY music. It doesn't always matter how good or bad our music is. It doesn't matter if anybody else needs our music. What matters is that we need it ourselves.