Happy to be here. Will probably need help!

Hi! My name is Ross. I grew up in Scotland in the 70s/80s and now live in Australia. I will be 49 next week!

Where are you in your guitar journey?

  • How many years have you been playing?
    I started playing on the 11th of June, 1988 so 32 yrs ago today!( I just realised as I was typing. And yes, I remember the exact date because it was 7 days from my birthday and I’d just got my first guitar and shitty amp!)

  • What musical genres are you interested in?

Mostly instrumental: Satch, Vai, Eric Johnson but also love blues and orchestral stuff. So a few more would be SRV, Floyd, Led Zep, Iron Maiden, Hans Zimmer…

  • Particular things you’re excited to learn / talk about here?

Well, that’s a big question. Mostly, improving my picking technique, which I had already realised was very sloppy and undisciplined and I struggle with speed. I can play with great feeling and vibrato, but I struggle past a certain speed, hard to describe but I’m hoping I can crack it (pun intended) by being here!

How have you gone about learning guitar so far?

  • Self-taught? Regular lessons with a teacher? Both?

Self-taught all by ear. back in the day I’d wear cassette tapes out by rewinding over and over just to get a lick. At one point I played 12 hours a day learning most of the Flying in a Blue dream and Extremist album (badly). I have delved into theory a bit and grasp beyond the basics but I’m not AMAZING. I took a break from playing for many years, and became very rusty. Now I feel like I’m learning all over again. I can play better now, just not fast at all.

  • Have you spent much time on technique before finding our stuff?

Yes, but not enough!

  • What Cracking the Code material have you watched?

I watched all available videos on youtube. I binged the lot of them! Which led me to sign up here. So far on the site I’ve watched the introductory videos and the first couple of malmsteen primers.

  • Can you comfortably play a scale? At roughly what speed?
    Comfortably…not really and not very fast. I’d have to check tempo, but I do have a good vibrato but past maybe 120bpm I struggle immensely and also suffer from pain in my joints (old age lol)
  • Any particular things you find yourself stuck on?

Yes, unlearning all my bad habits!

I always played by feel and learned great technique through doing this, but I realise now I have much to learn and I could never do ANY form of sweeping at all. I really need a lot of practice and help. I hope to video soon so I can get some pointers. I feel like it’s my left/right hand synchronization that’s off, but after watching CTC vids, I think it’s a lot more my right hand that’s doing it all wrong!

Cheers!

3 Likes

Hi Ross, Mike Rampling here, just read your post, I joined today and your intro suggested you have similar problems. I’m 54 next month, playerd loads when I was a teenager and got reaonably good, went to uni and played in bands there, then did a year at the guitar institute in London, 96-97 where I got to the point of almost being able to do Satch / Vai stuff, or at least realising it was possible, another year at 8 hrs a day and I would have nailed it totally. Then… 20 years of career and family have totalled things ! S

1 Like

So back in the swing and like yourself struggling beyond 120bpm, hence why I’m here. Have to say that I am encouraged from watcing the videos to know that once you can see what you’re doing wrong, should be relatively simple to sort it out, albeit it’ll take time. For me it’s this annoying flexion extension motion that kicks in about 95 bpm but gets unmanageable above 120-130, but anyway, I am confident the solution is round tthe corner, keep picking !

1 Like