It never fails: watching famous jazz musicians dissect their techniques for you assures your axe some serious play. So when Mike Stern dropped in for an afternoon visit to the Guitar Department, he was greeted by a rapt audience of students whose fingers fidgeted in anticipation of rediscovering their instruments as soon as possible. At the same time, of course, every musician in the room hoped Stern's master class and performance would never end. How often do you get to hold court with one of the only guitarists ever to play in a Miles Davis band? Need I say more? Well, I will anyway….

One of the most fascinating things about observing visiting artists is learning what musical and philosophical dimensions each finds most important. Every featured artist brings different focuses and unique methods to their teaching styles. Mike Stern's valuing of music's purest element — its emotive potential — was an uplifting reminder that feeling need not be sacrificed for tonal complexity or instrumental indulgence (which is a PC term for playing lots of notes). His very first point was to simply listen to the sound of a piece, focusing not on tonality or theory, but on how the music carries the soul of the writer, the performers, and the listeners. "Listen to get the emotion. Don't analyze." At least, not yet.

The benefit of transcribing — and then analyzing — music was his other most treasured virtue to share. "Transcribe anything, not so much to learn licks, but to get the language. It answers so many questions." Most enlightening was his advice to transcribe one's own performances. Stern's own initial attempts were of Joe Pass's guitar solos over simple blues progressions. Eventually, as his abilities progressed, he transcribed more involved harmonies, from Wes Montgomery chord solos to passages comped by pianists like Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner. It was just a matter of time — plenty of time — before he faced the inevitable torture of transcribing Coltrane solos. As he wisely put it, "If I had started with Coltrane solos, I would've ended with Coltrane solos!" If not for the timeless reminder from one of his former guitar gurus to simply set his own pace, Stern might have thrown down his guitar in disgust and become an insurance salesman or something equally terrifying. God forbid.

It was admirable of Mike Stern to acknowledge his struggles with the dreaded inner critic that lives comfortably in all our heads, whether we admit it or not. His humble description of his development as a composer began with the process universally suffered: write a melody; play it over and over; decide it sucks; trash it. Over time, he was able to follow the advice of another former teacher: "Don't judge it, and finish what you can — you can always throw it away later." When you've written pieces like "Chromazone" (on his album Time and Place), the battle has sufficiently been won — but not necessarily the war. It was a huge comfort to know that the masters struggle with self-confidence just like the rest of us do.

The clinic was divided evenly with lecture, Q&A, and performances demonstrating various techniques Stern talked about. A particularly interesting suggestion was to rethink the fret board as more of a piano layout by soloing on only one string. It also helps to break the rut of "autopiloting," a habit all of us are capable of. Hey, even Mike Stern gets sick of his own riffs. At that point, the clinic's makeshift, totally unrehearsed band (consisting of faculty members Jeff Richman and Mike Shapiro on guitar and drums, and bassist Steve Billman) jammed through "Autumn Leaves" as tightly as if they'd been gigging together for years. And sure enough, Stern played only one string the whole time.

Among the most important criteria required of an influential artist are self-awareness, affability, and soul. Having attained this role, Mike Stern's main priority is "to share whatever experience I have, my own history. Remember, learning is an ongoing experience that is really hard at first. I got very discouraged, and had a lot of insecurity to fight. I still do. So I try to keep that in my consciousness, and also impart to others that at the end of the day, no matter how hard it can be — music is beautiful. You just try to practice as best you can and develop your own potential, and grow. And play from the heart."