Zager Story

Denny Zager is part of the legendary recording duo "Zager & Evans" who wrote "In The Year 2525," the #1 song of 1969 and the biggest one-hit wonder of any artist at any time in recording history selling over 20 million records world wide.

You may have seen Denny featured in Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, and The New Yorker. Denny has been asked to make numerous television appearances including The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dick Cavett Show, Top Of The Pops, The Music Scene with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and he was also one of the few musicians asked to play at Woodstock in 1969 with Jimmy Hendrix, Santana, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, among many other well known artists.

The Zager Learning System

Denny began playing guitar in 1949 at the age of 6 years old. He taught himself how to play the hard way...listening to songs on the radio and practicing hours and hours every day. 9 years later he began writing his own material getting local air play and at the age of 15 had the #1 song in the 4 state area. Over the next few years he put together several well known local bands..."The Devilles" and "The Eccentrics." When looking for a guitar player for the Eccentrics Denny discovered Rick Evans and soon after they formed their own duo "Zager & Evans" who produced "In The Year 2525."

After touring around the world Denny came back to his roots in Nebraska and focused on his one true passion...the guitar. If you've studied the music industry you've probably realized that some people are in the business for fame and fortune while others are there for the love of the music. Denny simply loved playing guitar and performing was an avenue that allowed him to do it. Unfortunately Denny was never comfortable in the spotlight which is why he retired from performing and began doing what he loved most ...creating music and showing others how to do it. In 1973 Denny began teaching guitar to his son and a few locals in the area and decided that there had to be a better way to learn guitar then using the old boring notes and scales routines. Denny was never able to grasp these methods because he suffered from dyslexia. (A condition in which the brain reads things out of order) He wanted to create a system that was exciting and focused on playing by ear…the same way pro musicians play.

Denny began creating a system that was unlike anything ever seen before. Instead of tedious hours of reciting notes and scales Denny’s system focused on getting a guitar in the students hands and showing them how to play a song right away…a song they could play for friends or play just for themselves.

Denny remembered one of his most exciting moments growing up was the day he could play a really popular song that was on the radio. He would play this song for friends and relatives and it blew them away. This excitement and sense of accomplishment is what fueled Denny’s passion for the guitar even further.

Denny’s system focused on learning by ear but he took it a step further and simplified it similar to the paint by number coloring books you used as a child. As you remember the spaces labeled 1 you painted yellow, the spaces labeled 2 you painted blue, and so on, and when you finished you didn’t know exactly how you did it but you had a beautiful picture that was well beyond your natural abilities.

Denny's Guitar system was extremely easy to use and showed anyone how to play guitar and sound far beyond their natural abilities in a very short period of time. Students would say "The music's flowing naturally from my fingers but I don’t know how I'm doing it!" Denny's guitar system tapped into that subconscious part of our brain that scientist’s say we gain all our power from but rarely use.

From 1971 to 1999 (almost 3 decades) Denny taught thousands of students how to play using his revolutionary guitar method constantly tweaking his system making it easier to use. If you were a resident of Nebraska or the tri state area and played guitar during that time there was a very high likelihood that you learned to play from Denny, or you were using the Zager Guitar method.

Going Online

In the late 1990's with the advent of the Internet Denny's son (Dennis Jr.) came up with the idea of putting together a guitar web site where players of all levels could learn from his fathers 60 years of experience via a library of videotaped guitar lessons. It would also give players the opportunity to try Denny's custom guitars.

The web site was an immediate success. Players from all over the world began learning from Denny "online" and ordering his guitars. Denny attributes the success of his web site to the 30 years of fine tuning he did on his inventions teaching thousands of students locally. "My guitars and learning system had already been used successfully by thousands of players for over 3 decades...The Internet was simply an avenue for more players to find me."