Hey there. My name is Moritz and I am a personal trainer and biomechanics educator from Austria, formerly musician, music student before my career has shifted.
I am 29 and played the guitar from 14-21 years old then had a break of making any music at all and picked the guitar up in the recent 3-4 years again.
Music and Sports/Health are my two passions in life and I came to the conclusion that while it’s hard I can’t be fulfilled without development and self expression in both of these at the same time.
I discovered Troy 3 years ago when the term pick slanting became more and more popular and was intrigued because this guy was basically speaking „my language“ that I am so familiar with from lecturing, teaching and applying biomechanics in the field as a Trainier.
Only last month I joined the membership and it’s interesting to see the paradigm shift from pickslanting to a more sophisticated system of pick escape techniques and the slant of the pick just being another component to it.
My main influences as a player started with John Petrucci from Dream Theater and Michael Romeo from Symphony X when I was playing in my own Prog Metal Band from 14-18 . Then there was a lot of Andy James influencing me and I learned various of his songs in my last years before putting the guitar to rest.
In the recent years I am enjoying also a lot of great Rythm Players such as John Browne, Olly Steele, and I became more interested in singing and songwriting altogether, I have built a home studio and record myself and write songs, but I recently realized that even if guitar was becoming my „secundary“ instrument (is it though?) it’s still important to me to have a technique that is solid so I can express myself musically, write riffs and songs quickly, record them instantly and be in the flow not limited by some technique shortcomings.
I still love to play lead guitar and am currently working a lot on mastering DBX and DSX picking as USX ist just natural to me and I think it is the way I always played. Supinated Arm Setup, Wrist Motion, either strict deviation or slight Reverse dart form but with enough supination to clear the string on upstrokes and having a natural downward pick slant.
Upward pickslanting feels unnatural to me as I have to pronate my arm a little and I loose some bridge contact and muting capability with my pinky heel.
I am seeing lots of examples here of DSX players with no upward slant or even a slight downward slant and have lots of questions about this style of playing as that seems the most accessible to me and I think that Andy James who was very influential to my playing who is mentioned in the forums as a typical example of a DSX player does show no evidence at all of ever using a upward pickslant if not even using a leading edge slight downward slant, wondering if the garage spikes problem is even to be taken that seriously…