Hi all!
Where are you in your guitar journey?
- How many years have you been playing?
I had an interest as a young child but never showed enough interest in the unplayable child size guitars I had to make my parents think I was serious enough to purchase me a real instrument; I was probably more interested in playing video games anyway. I got really into hardcore/metal music in high school and messed around with bass in a band with some friends. I attempted to learn guitar in early college but never put in any practice. I finally picked guitar up again late 2017 and have been moving towards practicing more and more each day - currently putting in 2 hrs a day. - What musical genres are you interested in?
I am most interested in progressive metal, “djent”, neoclassical, and jazz. Animals as Leaders is what realllly got me into guitar back when I first heard of them before going to a show they opened for Between the Buried and Me. Their self titled is still one of my favorite albums. - Particular things you’re excited to learn / talk about here?
Getting faster, analyzing technique, improving alternate picking - it’s currently what I spend the bulk of my practice time on.
How have you gone about learning guitar so far?
- Self-taught? Regular lessons with a teacher? Both?
I have been going to lessons weekly for a few years, I think these have been helpful in keeping me accountable but unfortunately I haven’t had a lot of luck with finding teachers locally that know much about the music I’m into, let alone building speed. I haven’t had a lot of luck with online lessons, either.
I feel like most of what I’ve done so far is self teaching, but my current teacher has been really helpful for learning music theory. - Have you spent much time on technique before finding our stuff?
I would say a fair amount, about 3/4 of my practice time is devoted to technique (currently working on alternate picking, legato, and sweep picking with exercises similar to Rock Discipline) - What Cracking the Code material have you watched?
I have watched a lot of the content that’s available on youtube, and a few of the interviews available in the members section when I had a trial. - Can you comfortably play a scale? At roughly what speed?
Yes, although lately I have just been practicing the 3 scale string fragments and my current speed is around 140 BPM for eighth note triplets. My single string tremelo speed is somewhere between 150-155 BPM for sixteenth notes without changing notes. - Any particular things you find yourself stuck on?
I don’t feel like I have hit a serious wall yet, I have still been able to increase my speed pretty consistently but I definitely feel like it’s starting to get more difficult - I’ve had to make a conscious effort to start reducing tension and really think about how I’m picking the string. A cue that has helped me in the last few days while practicing my tremelo speed is thinking about drawing tiny circles with my pick.
Looking forward to reading more and discussing with everyone!
