When GP's chief editor, Michael Molenda, asked me if I was interested in hosting a webcast guitar lesson with Larry Carlton, I immediately knew I wanted to be a part of this project. For starters, working with Larry—who I've interviewed twice before for GP, once for a master class ("Money Notes," Feb 2003) and then for a series of lesson columns that ran in 2005 and 2006—is inspiring and musically challenging. As a guitar player myself, I wasn't going to miss this chance to hang around a master musician for a few hours.

Also, I have to admit, I'm drawn to the Internet. Webcasting is still in its infancy, and as a freelance guitar journalist, I want to plant my little flag in this emerging arena. It's like playing onstage—a live performance with no second takes or do-overs. If you want an adrenaline rush, it's waiting there in front of the camera, I assure you.

So I signed up for the gig, and soon received a script from Larry's peeps, which broke down the hour program into a series of timed segments. For example, my intro was slated for two minutes, and then Larry would give an overview of his take on playing blues for three minutes, and then he'd spend ten minutes talking about bending and vibrato. All told, there were 11 segments, lasting from one to 15 minutes, including several Q&A sections.

My role would be to keep Larry moving from one segment to the next, so we could deliver all the planned content in an hour. I was also expected to sift through viewers' questions—which they'd submit in real-time via text messaging—and feed Larry those that fit the "blues" theme of this master class.

The first decision I faced was this: Would I rehearse my intro and then extemporaneously deliver it looking straight into the camera? Or would I craft an intro and then read it, doing my best to make eye contact with viewers every few lines? I saw pros and cons to each approach. The first would let me appear more relaxed and engaging, while the second would assure I didn't forget to mention key items I was supposed to include in my intro, such as the URLs to Larry's websites, larrycarlton.com and mr335.tv.

At the risk of looking dorky, I decided to read the script. I wanted to be complete—I’d been hired to communicate specific bits of information—and I also wanted to be sure not to run over two minutes. Viewers had paid their webcast fee to see Larry, not me, and the sooner he was on camera, the happier everyone would be.

After drafting my intro, I fired up my secret weapon, a piece of software called Videocue Pro, a slick teleprompter that runs on Mac OS X. Using my iMac's built-in iSight camera, I was able to watch myself read the script as it scrolled on the computer screen. Like repeatedly practicing a song, I ran the script over and over, editing as I went, until the words were easy to read aloud and, most importantly, they fit my two-minute time slot. Once I was satisfied, I decided to bring both a printout and the script loaded in Videocue on my trusty old iBook, figuring I'd decide which I'd use for the webcast once I got to the studio and saw the setup.

Though I didn't know it at the time, bringing my laptop was crucial to the event, for reasons I'll explain in a second.

Both Larry and I live in Nashville, so it made sense to do the webcast there. I was told the show would be broadcast from Starstruck Studios, on Nashville's fabled Music Row. I'd never been inside Starstruck, but when I arrived four hours early, as instructed, it completely blew my mind. Built and owned by country singer Reba McEntire, the huge, beautifully appointed and lit structure houses two high-end Pro Tools studios and a video broadcast studio on the ground floor, plus a slew of publishing and management offices on several other floors. Check it out online, it's amazing.

When I arrived, I met the local team—a director, a cameraman, an audio engineer, and a studio assistant. The first item the director and I discussed was whether I'd join Larry on the soundstage, or simply deliver my intro and feed him viewers' questions as a disembodied voice from the control room. Larry answered that question for us when he arrived, asking me to join him on the set, so we could have an ongoing dialog and make the event more of a conversation than a lecture.

So, replicating the classic Inside the Actors Studio interview format, I was given a table and chair next to Larry, though I had no intention of asking him the questions James Lipton poses to his guests, such as, "What's your favorite curse word?" (Visit Inside the Actors Studio to read Lipton's ten "Pivot" questions.)

While the lights and camera were being positioned and tested, I decided that reading my intro from the printout would feel a tad more natural than if I used my iBook teleprompter. (Either way, I was resigned to looking dorky.)

But, man, was I glad I brought the laptop. No one told me this ahead of time, but the plan was to have all the viewers' questions displayed on my computer, via a web app. Had I not brought my iBook, someone would have had to continually print out the incoming questions (which numbered in the many dozens) and run them over to me during the show—an inelegant alternative. Fortunately I had a wireless card in my iBook, so I could simply join the studio's network to get online and receive these questions, which were an integral part of the show.

Gear-wise, Larry kept things simple. His guitar tech, Rick Wheeler, brought a rented Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb and one of Larry's two vintage Gibson ES-335s. This particular 335, a sunburst '68 given to him by an ardent fan and recently equipped with a matched set of original 1960 Gibson humbuckers, is now Larry's main touring guitar. Rick also set up a simple pedalboard that included a Sho-Bud volume pedal (modified by amp guru Alexander Dumble) and a Korg OT-12 rackmount chromatic tuner. As Larry warmed up, his sweet, clean licks reminded me of those he played on Donald Fagen's The Nightfly. Released in 1982, the album contains some of my favorite Carlton phrases. Pure, singing, soulful tone.

As we drew closer to showtime, I was outfitted with a lavalier mic and earpiece. The director planned to use the latter to give me timing cues from the control room. He told me Garth Brooks had used this earpiece the previous night. Excellent—celebrity earwax! We booted up my laptop and logged onto the app that would display incoming questions from viewers.

About ten minutes before we were to begin, the audio engineer reported he couldn't get the Pro Tools backing tracks to open from the hard-drive Larry brought to the studio. Being a Pro Tools facility, Starstruck was staffed with Digi experts well versed in shuttling session files, and they'd tried every trick in the book. No go ... what to do?

As we began the five-minute countdown to "on air," Larry's manager made an emergency call to TrueFire, the folks who produced Larry's 335 Blues CD-ROM guitar course. At this point, Larry and I made our final pit stops and got situated on the soundstage, ready for our 8:00 pm kickoff. According to the script, we had two segments (totaling 28 minutes) that called for backing tracks, so I was quickly trying to think of ways we could get Larry to cover the planned points without the benefit of accompaniment.

Then the voice in my earpiece said, "30 seconds," and I knew we were going to have to wing it. How cool is that? Diving off the cliff with Mr. 335.

As soon as I heard "we're live" from the control room, I launched into my introduction and then Larry took over. As we worked our way through the first few segments, mixing Larry's magical playing with some back-and-forth between the two of us, the director slid a piece of paper on the floor in front of Larry with the title of three backing tracks. Truefire had come through with music, which the engineer downloaded while we were on air.

Even though we'd already skipped over the first segment that called for tracks, I knew we now had the beast under control. The next half-hour was a test of Larry's improvisational skills, because he didn't know which tracks were being served up. He had to listen to the count-off, hear the music, and then instantly dive into a demo. In an odd way, it was wonderful to encounter this technical snafu. We got to hear Larry respond spontaneously to the music and play straight from his heart.

Meanwhile, I was staying busy. I had one eye on Larry, one eye on the viewers' questions, and one eye on the show script—wait a second, that's three eyes. Well, it sure felt like that.

The questions, which came in from around the world, fell into several categories: Some viewers simply thanked Larry for doing this webcast or expressed how much they've enjoyed his playing over the years. Others were inquiring about technique and theory germane to the show's advertised blues theme. Some viewers asked Larry how he had played specific solos, particularly Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne."

Earlier, while we were wolfing down a sandwich before the show, Larry had asked that I stick to the blues-oriented questions, so I did. But after the webcast, I told him about the several "Kid Charlemagne" requests. His said something like, "I'm really proud of that solo, and I'm thrilled people enjoy what I did, but man, I played it 35 years ago. I've moved on, and I couldn't recreate it now."

Our hour flew by, with the director periodically giving me timing cues and words of encouragement via the earpiece. Other than juggling the backing-track segments, we managed to stick fairly closely to the script. For me, one of the show's highlights was hearing Larry explain how he uses the melodic minor scale to go from the I to the IV, and from the V to the I in a 12-bar blues. I know I'll work on that nugget for the rest of my life.

When the voice in my ear told me we had two minutes to go, I gave Larry the evening's final question and then asked him to play us out while I signed off. Suddenly, it was over. The stage lights switched off, and we all took a deep breath and gave Larry a round of applause.

If you attended this webcast, I hope you benefited from Larry's words and playing. For me, it was a life-altering experience to sit next to him and absorb his vibrato, bends, and bebop blues from two feet away. Watching Larry at work, I could see he sincerely wants to share the knowledge gained from a lifetime of guitar playing.

If you didn't catch the webcast, you can view clips from Larry's TrueFire course, as well as segments from other Carlton seminars, on guitarplayertv.com and mr335.tv.

And if you like the idea of GP-sponsored webcast lessons, drop a line to Michael Molenda with your suggestions. Anyone for a Johnny Hiland webcast?