Hello everyone! Just wanted to write down a few things for people like me who struggle a bit with their guitar playing technique.
I recently got into the CTC terminology and way of thinking, so far I think I understand the basic concepts and the basic mechanical analysis being talked about in this forum.
My guitar instructor recently gave me a song to learn who most of us love: Bark at the Moon. It has many degrees of difficulty in different parts and it’s the most typical Jake E Lee song you can find. I found myself having trouble synchronizing my hands and getting that staccato sound in the main riffs of the song.
Here comes the chunking part. I went to my teacher after a few (2-3) weeks of practicing and he told me to break those riffs down note by note in 50% of the original speed. Playing two notes until they sounded good and steady, then adding one, then another one and so on.
Before I started this, my right hand was all over the place, not steady at all, moving awkwardly without anchoring properly and that was causing me to have a bad pick angle, picking motion and to lose sync, because of all that excessive and unnecessary movements.
I sat down two days ago for a few (1-2) hours at a time, practicing those riffs note by note, chunk by chunk. I saw tremendous improvement on my picking mechanics, hand sync and sound (sounds a lot closer to Jake E Lee now) from the first day. Now I can play those riffs on 75% of the original speed and they sound pretty convincing.
I had trouble with those kind of riffs and licks for years and it got sorted out as soon as I got introduced to chunking methods by @Troy and of course my tutor. Thank you for your work Troy, it’s really amazing.
To anyone struggling, please, do yourself a favour and make things as simple as adding an extra note at a time, in relatively slow speed. It worked wonders for me, maybe it will work for you as well. No more sticky pick between strings, unsynced feel, or discomfort. It’s only uphil from here now.