Troy Stetina


Troy Stetina is an American guitarist and music educator with more than forty rock and metal instructional methods to his credit, and total sales currently over 1 million units. He was the director of Rock Guitar Studies at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and writer for GuitarOne magazine, and now teaches independently.

Early years

Stetina grew up in Indiana, the youngest in a family of Olympic cyclists, including his brothers Wayne, Dale and Joel, and won several national medals as a teenager. Stetina's mother, an accomplished opera singer, supported his interest in music, and at age 12 she bought him a $60 beginner guitar and little practice amp.
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 in 1986, and Heavy Metal Lead Guitar in 1987.
The same year the first book was released, Stetina joined the 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.

''Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar''

Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar 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.

Associated bands

Troy Stetina Series guitar lessons: