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If you’ve been poking around the site the last few days you may have already noted the rollout of a whole raft of new features, including, among many things, a particularly big new addition: Technique Critique on the platform.
Included with your monthly subscription, you can now upload clips of your playing directly to the platform for guaranteed feedback on your technique, with customizable privacy settings for those who may not feel quite so comfortable with posting clips on a public forum. This is something we’ve been planning for a very long time, and with the help of the amazing @joebegly setting aside his dangerously fast elbow technique for his dangerously fast web development skills, we were able to get it done.
Forum Technique Critique will of course continue to be a valuable resource, and we’ll continue to contribute there as we always have — on a best-effort basis. But the platform version comes with an additonal guarantee that we, the instructor team, will respond and in a timely fashion. This is a large commitment since it means we’re essentially on call to provide feedback to everyone who signs up.
At the same time, we’re excited about the learning opportunity for us because it means really being able to see who we’re helping and to what degree. It’s nice to make lessons that people enjoy watching, but that’s not why we got into this. We want to see actual results and we can’t do that unless we close the loop.
The instructor team currently includes myself, and the dangerously-similiarly-named @tommo and Teemu, aka @Teemu_Mantysaari.
If you’ve been on the forum for any length of time, you’re already familiar with Tommo’s ridiculous playing and impossibly constructive attitude in all situations. It is no surprise why he’s been a valued member of the team for as long as he has.
If you’ve watched Teemu’s interview then you know that apart from his face-melting skills, he has a wealth of teaching experience and a practical, evidence-based approach very similar to ours. We’re thrilled to have him as part of the team.
This is a big step forward, and we’re excited about some truly collaborative teamwork where we can identify problems that affect players at all levels, and put together some powerfully productive techniques to solve them.
We’ve enabled error messages on the site, so if you notice any bugs appearing, definitely let us know. We’ve squashed a bunch already but I’m sure there will be many more. Thank you!
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Great work! This will be a valuable learning resource 
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This is really really cool, thanks!
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Excited for this and kudos to the CTC team for continuing to build the site/product/forum.
I will be the first to hit the, “Sir, you can’t post six videos a day to the technique critique section,” level!! 
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Ha. We’re ready for you!
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That “max 5 videos at a time” code better work, our very lives depend on it 
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Thanks for the mention, Troy!
I just wanted to say publicly how awesome it was to (virtually) work with you on the new features. I’m never shy about saying how I think your findings and platform are the best thing to happen to guitar since the invention of the amplifier. So, I’m honored I got to be a part of helping you take it even further.
And also I wanted to say, publicly, that it was pretty humbling to learn that Troy is a pro-level web developer himself and, in my estimation, he didn’t even need my help on these platform updates. As if it’s not enough that he’s good at video production, product branding, running an e-commerce business, picking at an elite level in *nearly every picking motion out there (see footnote)…Troy could easily land a full time job building web sites (not that he’d want to, just sayin’…he could). I just have to wonder, what else is he really really good at??? It’s a bit demoralizing lol!!! I think he only asked me to help out because there just aren’t enough hours in the day. But, I’m glad he did because he was awesome to work with. The personality we all know and love from the instructional videos and interviews is the real deal.
I’m looking forward seeing all the people the new features will help out. And uh…I’m gonna use it myself to make sure I haven’t gone down the wrong path on my crosspicking endeavors 
Foot Notes:
*I’m still waiting to see Troy on camera doing Rusty Cooley style elbow motion and/or that thumb/index finger flexy-thingy I’ve seen in Joe Stump’s and (some of) Yngwie’s playing 
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Hey everybody!
It’s an honor to join @Troy and @tommo as part of the Cracking The Code instructor team! Thank you for having me! 
I look forward to seeing your videos and helping out solving problems!
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Same here! Thanks for being part of this, we’re going to do some great things.
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I really don’t do any kind of DSX elbow. I see great elbow players and their smoothness and speed, I definitely haven’t spent the time to make that work. I assume it’s doable, as almost everything we’ve looked at is.
Interestingly, when it comes to elbow motion, most of our teaching on the subject has simply been explaining to people who can already do the motion that it’s worth using. Learning motions is not trivial. If you have a skill, that’s money in the bank and worth doing more of.
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Quick feedback about the dashboard:
The test result site shows a 404 at the moment, at least for me:
https://troygrady.com/dashboard/tests/
I’ve done all the tap tests and in the Dashboard it shows “My Test Results” with one of the results but when I go to “More Test Results” I get the “Page unavailable” message.
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Aha. Prob just a bug on that page. I’m at a Dr appt at the moment but will have it fixed by end of the day today! Sorry and thanks for finding this one.
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maybe another bug for me. But it says I cant post any videos until i’ve reached 80% watched in both sections. I have 88% watched in Testing Your Motions and 100% watched in unlocking the tremolo but I still get the message about watching 80%
Ok the access issue on the /dashboard/tests/ should be fixed — let us know if you’re still having trouble getting in!
Just looking into this now. Have you taken the tests? If you hit that page again, you should also see a percent rating of how many table tap tests you’ve completed. If you haven’t done those yet, then this isn’t a bug. Do a few of those and you should be good to go.
As an aside, these tests are really useful for getting a read on basic joint motion capability. So that if there are any issues with motion speed or smoothness, we have a baseline to compare to. In our platform critiques so far, the test numbers helped rule out any kind of injury, so we already know the player(s) in question can move much faster than their clips are demonstrating. i.e. It’s not a joint problem or physiological issue, it’s just a technique issue.
Works now as it should, thanks!