We were lucky to catch up with Emerson Millsap recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emerson, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I have been playing guitar since around 2006, but it wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I realized that didn’t really know much about how my instrument worked or how to make it feel and sound better.

I started out by watching tutorials on YouTube and absolutely botching my guitar. I quickly wised up and bought a few sacrificial guitar necks and some build kits so that I could really dig into the work without the worry of irreparably damaging my own gear.

The big turning point was when I decided to start my Instragram account. I began to reach out to other people in the field and built up connections with a network of people who know a lot more that I do. More importantly, they were also willing to share that knowledge with me.

Looking back, I would have started reaching out to people sooner. Not only have I gotten some great knowledge from this community, but I’ve also made some great friends!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Emerson, and work under the name Trying to Guitar. I am a Los Angeles based guitar tech and content creator.

I perform guitar repairs and mods for clients who want their gear to work to its full potential. I also document all of my repairs and make engaging and educational videos to help the next generation of techs.

I pride myself on being open and transparent. As someone who used to have limited knowledge in guitar repair, I can see how, as a client, it may be overwhelming to be faced with a list of repairs and dollar signs.

I try to make the process as approachable and clear to my clients as possible so that they can have full confidence in myself and my work.

I also make myself as available as I can to my clients, and others alike, to ask me questions on repairs and adjustments that they may want to make on their own.

I do this because I truly love the craft, and I want to make it accessible to everyone.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I started my page on January 1, 2024 and just kept posting! I hesitated a long time before creating my page. I was worried about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to make my content absolutely perfect, and I was right.

The main thing is just making sure that you stay consistent, and put care into your posts.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that people were responding to my videos, giving advice, asking for advice, and even helping each other in the comments.

I’d say that ad long as you’re creating something that you care about, you will find your community and be able to grow.

This is true with in your craft, and in your presence.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think the transparency in my videos gives people a lot of trust in me. They see the work that I’ve done on other people’s instruments, and will also see their process videos as well.
That paired with my willingness to talk through everything that I do and give clear, consice answers to any questions they have.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/TryingToGuitar
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@tryingtoguitar?si=UVZmuht4kkNoRXcK