Hi all,
I’ve been playing guitar for more than 20 years and was self-taught until I started playing with School of Rock in 2021. I took lessons there and played in an adult student band until a few months ago. Now I play rhythm guitar in a Ghost tribute band and do alright for the most part. The only problems I’m having with that are playing alternate picked palm muted 16th notes evenly at 120bpm and 8th note triplets palm muted at 128bpm.
The self-taught period consisted of playing the same Metallica songs a million times. I could play Master of Puppets with all downstrokes without an issue. There was a long lazy period where I never played with other people, which caused me to forget a lot of things.
For lessons, none of my instructors pointed out that my picking sucked. I mostly played with an open hand like James and Kirk, but was told to stop that. I had never spent any real time on picking technique. I had never even thought of pointing a camera at my hand and recording what was happening.
I was just never able to play fast things, which weren’t even that fast. Anything requiring 16th notes over 120bpm was just not happening. I thought I was just not practicing enough or that other people were just more talented than me. I’d even regressed to where downpicking 16th notes above 100bpm is not easy. I just tense up and get fatigued quickly.
I have now watched all of the Pickslanting Primer, except for the last three sections on downward/upward pickslanting and the technical reference.
I have tried all of the techniques presented, and so far, nothing has just felt super natural and comfortable. I’m still within a week of starting this journey and do not expect progress to come quickly or easily. I will put in whatever work it takes to fix 20+ years of doing it wrong.
I am absolutely amazed by what Troy can play in the videos I have seen. I am unable to play most of the examples at even half speed.
For reference, this was the starting point for me a few days ago, and the first time I recorded myself. I think that was just 100bpm. String hopping, garage spiking, double trapped, uneven.
This was today, after many takes of trying the DSX technique at 120bpm. It’s a little better, but I’m finding it hard to do zero pick slant while keeping the underside of my wrist off the guitar. I really want the thumb side of my palm to stay pressed against the strings or body.
I know nothing is going to just solve my issues overnight, and I’m looking forward to putting in the time it takes to get this right.