Antagonism toward Cracking the Code

General Music Discussion
#1

So, the launch of this forum made me reflect on the Cracking The Code subreddit which never took off. Not only that, but it seems like when CTC is mentioned on other forums, there are a lot of people who are dismissive of it (“you just mean economy picking”) or downright hostile.

What do folks think is driving that? What is it about CTC that seems to make some people so defensive? Is there anything we can do to overcome those biases? Should we even try?

On the one hand, I want word about CTC to spread, because I think it could spare thousands of guitar players, especially those just starting out, from the frustration many of us who learned guitar in the stone age can relate to. On the other hand, when people are aggressively closed-minded, my instinct is to let them just lie in the bed they’ve made for themselves.

Do other CTC enthusiasts share this perception? Any suggestions about what we can do to foster positive discussion of CTC insights outside these walls?

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#2

Hi there,
I have never encountered this, but then again. I do not use forums that much anymore. I stopped trying to convince people in forums or in life in general.

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#3

Troy’s studies are as important to guitar as Moeller’s were to the drums.

Until Troy found this stuff out, basically no one had a systematic understanding of guitar picking technique.

Because a lot of people reached a very high level of proficiency without this understanding, a lot of people think it is unnecessary*.

Further, because a lot of people brute-forced their way to a proficient technique without any understanding of what it was they were actually doing, they tend to think this is the only way it should be done, and can become angry at people seeking “shortcuts” to what they worked out for themselves*.

You don’t get this with drumming - you decide you want to play the drums and the first thing you find is traditional, French, American or German grip, Moeller style, Gladstone style or push-pull. No one says “oh don’t worry about technique, you’ve got to work it out for yourself”. You still have to put the practise hours in, knowing the actual way to do something isn’t a ‘short cut’.

It was my frustration with the complete lack of comparable information for guitar that led me to watch Cracking the Code in the first place.

*I take it it goes without saying that this is a silly thought, but none the less people do think it.

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#4

I think a good example of what happens when the “just do what feels right” perspective meets the CTC perspective occurs in Troy’s interview of crosspicker David Grier. I’m not sure how many have seen the interview, but if you have, maybe you’re like me and you got a little uncomfortable after about 10 minutes when Grier curtly rejects the entire premise of CTC. I thought it was going to be a rough final 50 minutes to watch. However, Troy responded not defensively, but rather with a great deal of respect and curiosity for Grier’s point of view, and by the end of the interview, the two seemed to have something of a communion around guitar picking problem solving. Maybe others have a different take on that interview - I’d be curious what people thought.

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

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#5

I think I agree, but David never seemed hostile, just a little bemused by the whole thing.

Of course it’s clear from the interview that he spent his formative years surrounded by musicians of the absolute top level so it isn’t as if he did it in a vacuum.

#6

I’ve seen a little bit of criticism for CTC here and there but it’s pretty rare. Every so often I’ll meet someone in person or see some YouTube doofus like Claus Levin do some sorta climate-change denial rant about pickslanting. Most of the forumites I see discussing CTC (Sevenstring.org mainly) are actually quite fond of the series and the work.

I would say that the most common point of criticism I see would be for the wordiness and presentation of the material. I feel like most people get the concept but some don’t have the attention span to go through all the videos and maybe don’t care for the animations and dad jokes. And that’s fine I guess. Leave the nerdy stuff to the actual nerds like me.

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#7

All in, I would have to say I’ve been thrilled with the reception we get, particularly from people who benefit by being informed. Teachers are a good example. Massive respect to everyone out there pounding the pavement looking for students and helping them play better. If you turn around and spend some of that money on our stuff, and you see tangible improvement as a result, we take that seriously. We’re always trying to repay that support with better material.

Among the players we’ve interviewed, you’ve got guys like Grier and Friedman who learned by feel, and who have been vocal about that in interviews over the years. And yet they still agreed to sit down with us. Props to them for doing so. I’m always interested in learning about how they did it, because they’re the ones we’re trying to emulate. I was playing for almost a decade before I could do what Marty could do at 15. The fact that once in a while you run across a true nerd like Steve Morse who flies planes, fixes his home electrical system, and thinks about his own picking movements — that’s just icing on the cake

In short, you will occasionally encounter a small amount of skepticism about what we do but it’s so minimal, and so obviously from people who haven’t bothered to spend the five minutes to figure out what it is we do, that we don’t even think about it. We’re too busy trying to figure stuff out and do awesome things.

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#8

I think there is still a small section who view any sort of guitar playing analysis or rigour with suspicion. However we are seeing a more evidence based approach to a lot of areas nowadays e.g. bodybuilding, martial arts and other sports. It can only be a good thing and Troy has done it brilliantly for guitar.

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#9

I have 2 perceptions. The intetnet, forums, youtube… which is like you describe… mainly positive but with some people assuming defensive positions… perhaps it´s because this whole CTC wave sounds to technichal/ speed focused or perhaps because it demitifies a lot (If that word exist) a craft reaserved to a selected group. But mainly people who took their time to check the stuff agree that it is great. My other reality is actual people. I live in Argentina. It´s a small country in South America and the musicians here are not as connected to the forums as in the US… We are much less and we all have in common the big things… for example (we know fender, gibson, ibanez, but kiesel not everybody… We all know seymor ducan but not all know bare knuckles… Because of that I did not commented CTC with my fellows musicians assuming that it was going to be unknowed to them and they would not be receptive… When Satriani came to Argentina I went to the meet and greet and between the event and the show I hang out for 4 hours with other 30 guitar sick humans… and of course we talked about guitars the whole time… so I commented about CTC and to my surprise many knew aobut it… And we all agree that it was wonderful… We joked about CTC being one of those courses to magically learn something in 4 weeks but CTC that actually works!

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#10

Unfortunately this anti-analytical approach has been encouraged by certain successful musicians. While I believe that there are famous guitarists who have developed a good picking technique by pretty much intuitive means there are clearly well established musicians who will claim to have no understanding of what they’re doing despite it being completely untrue. There’s an interview around where two prominent guitarists both say that they probably couldn’t give you a major scale but then later on in the interview go on to talk about altering degrees of the scale when playing… sure. This sort of approach appears to be part of an effort to craft a public persona, to get the general listener to view their playing as something natural and uncontrived maybe even to deliberately ’mystify’ it. It sounds pretty much like the sprezzatura of courtesans:

Anyway, despite some of this negative influence, I really expect the CTC approach to become a mainstream fundamental that everyone’ll know.

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#11

Greetings, everyone!

My name is John Taylor, and I’ve been interviewed by Troy. Hopefully, I can give a unique perspective on this topic.

At first, I thought Troy was a bit ridiculous. (sorry buddy :frowning: )
I didn’t know Troy before the interview, and thought a lot of this whole pick slanting thing was pointless to know once he started talking to me about it. But, Troy has changed my views, and I’m grateful for this.

I hope I’m not giving away any big time spoilers here, but Troy did a very in depth analysis of how I pick/play. He showed me in slow-mo video, step by step, of what I do. I had NO IDEA I played the way I did. This was truly a remarkable discovery, in my opinion.

I have since made accuracy a priority in my playing, and, because I am now aware of pick slanting, I am able to make better choices in how I approach various pieces of music.

What does all this have to do with antogonism towards CTC?

Ignorance.

I was ignorant and never thought what Troy was teaching was necessary. I figured that since metronome practice allowed me to develop a certain way of playing that I was happy with then that’s all anyone needed to do.

However, I now know that metronome work can only take you so far. Understanding what your body is doing, and developing a conscious awareness is critical for progressing as far as possible in one’s craft.

So, there ya go. My ignorance led me to think what CTC was about was somewhat silly and pointless. My guess is this is the same reason CTC may receive flak from certain people.

Thank you, Troy, for helping me improve as a player!

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#12

I guess that really is the best mindset. Ricky Gervais has said something similar about his work: he’s too busy creating stuff to invest time and energy worrying about the people who don’t like it.

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#13

It always makes me smile when this idea comes up in CTC conversations, whether on youtube, or elsewhere. It really is the rare case of a “too good to be true” offering that actually lives up to the hype.

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#14

Haters gonna Hate nothing you can do to change that.

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#15

Hey John! Nice to have you in the forum! I was particularly touched by your video where you give up on your world speed record. Respect. I am looking forward to watch your interview with Troy!

About the antagonism topic:

a lot of people never even bothered to figure out what Troy is talking about. They probably didn’t bother to pick a guitar, play a three notes per string scale and see what’s going on… They just refuse to approach the guitar from such a scientific and analytical point of view.

In the end, they are the losers. Because what Troy has given us here is life changing!

Cheers \m/

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#16

That’s so true! If I was to describe pickslanting as short as possible, it would literally be “One simple trick to make guitar playing effortless”. I don’t think I would even click on a title like that, though. :smile:

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#17

a) Tan pants blooze crowd who is too lazy to practice and claims “no feel”. Don’t underestimate this movement, it’s massive. :sunglasses:
b) very small group of people who are irritated that “trick” is out there for everyone to learn

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#18

We’re all walking different paths and have different experiences coloring our views. From what I’ve seen, there are a number of categories that people fall into. Some of them would be:

  • People who had no idea about pickslanting and found it a complete revelation (“Why haven’t I been doing this?”)
  • People who naturally do it and didn’t really see the big deal (“why worry about something I already do?”)
  • Those for whom the penny hasn’t yet dropped.
  • Stubborn players and teachers who think that practice alone solves things - you can get better and being good or bad with enough practice :grin:
  • Musicians who have products out there that are somewhat irrelevant now (Wizard of Shred who is a PS denier)

I personally thought Troy took a long time to make any points, but I like much less talk and less entertainment. I thought CTC season one could be summed up as “Here’s a bunch of stuff I listened to but couldn’t play and I don’t know why”. I wasn’t invested in enough in Troy to care about why HE couldn’t play something. I just wanted to know what I could get out of this. That came later.

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#19

I did not read / hear any criticism towards Cracking the Code that made any sense. The info provided by Troy & team is evidence based (contrary to 99% of picking lessons I’ve seen or read), the cartoons are very entertaining (we want more!) and lessons about all the core concepts are available for free on YouTube. Then of course I want more so:

download

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#20

Whenever someone asks me if I’ve had lessons (usually in reference to my fast playing), I will tell them CTC was the difference that got me over the hump. Probably the biggest revelation I learned from Troy, is that if something isn’t working, brute force practice doesn’t do it, because if your technique is off or improper, you will almost never attain what you are trying to reach. This forced me to try new placements of my hand on the bridge, angles of my wrist, position of the pick. I kept what worked best, and practiced using this new (for me) technique than what I had been doing for years.

I think some of the negative reviews, which can hardly be called reviews because most people bad mouthing the material have never fully explored it. But they come from people, usually people established in their playing, and learned in a time before HD video, who think there is no ‘science’ behind technique and generally there is no right or wrong way to play. This is EXTREMELY ignorant and very elitist, even if the people doing the bad mouthing are amazing players in their own right. Regardless I don’t know if anyone, who gave CTC a hard and deep look who didn’t get at least something out of it. Even my once guitar teacher of 6 years, who I look up to immensily and is a great player, didn’t know about the concept of pick slanting as a science and technical way to play. It was always just do what feels right. He is a smart guy, so he respected CTC for what it was going for.

Lastly, Troy is a stand up and amazing guy. He has responded to my questions numerous times via youtube comments, and his staff via e-mail. He provides a great service to aspiring players, and those looking to take an in-depth look at their own technique and how that compares to established players.

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