Hey, first of all, i´m very stoked to be here.
I move to play music, it has been the only persistent thing in my life so far. I only wish i had done thing different, but that´s why i´m here.
Where are you in your guitar journey?
-I have been playing by ear since i was 13 years old( 34 now). I started out with playing punk music since it was mostley barred chords and eventually things progressed to a bit more challenging stuff wich was metal and hard rock for me. Nowadays i still just learn by tablature and my main goal is to cover Eddie Van Halen solos. I´ve done a couple succesful ones like Hot For Teacher, Beat it and I´m the one…but the thing is, once i learned these solos i could play them, but i cannot incorperate any elements from those into my own playing. Just the solo and that’s it.
Here´s a link to one of my solos :
How have you gone about learning guitar so far?
- up to this point i´m completely self taught, never had lessons except the famous Paul Gilbert and Marty Friedman instructional Dvd´s. Other than that, tablature and alot of patience have been my best teachers.
Have you spent much time on technique before finding our stuff?
-yes, I have, but most of the time when things started to get really difficult for me speedwise, i always thought i lacked talent. Very fast alternate picking has been the thing i always wanted to learn, but i never got it up to a point where i was satisfied with it. I even have the feeling that, tje more i focus on what i actually do, the worse it gets. Only recently i found out about pickslanting and the benefits of it.
Can you comfortably play a scale? At roughly what speed?
-Yes i can, but i´m limited to the typical major/minor and pentatonic scales. I never made work of it to really drill them to a point where i could use them effectively… when i improvise I just rely on the pentatonic scale and octaves. As you all know, it becomes very boring, very fast.
The speed on it depends on what day of the week it is 
long story short, my technique is not reliable.
- Any particular things you find yourself stuck on?
My main problem was/is getting stuck between strings combined with string hopping. At slow tempos it´s all fine and dandy, but at higher speeds i could never keep it up unless i would cheat my way through it or legato playing if i cannot pick it. Also, tensing up is an issue where i´m working on at the moment.
Thanks to Troy and his videos i was able to pinpoint my issues and learn about pickslanting. At this point it feels like i have to relearn everything i have done in the last 20 years, but it feels like a real progression again. Just like when i first picked up my guitar and learned my first chords. I have started out with the sixes, using the upward and downward pickslanting and already it feels like i can go alot faster where i would feel exhausted and tensed up from trying. For me, this is the new way forward and i cannot thank Troy and his crew enough for all the effort they put into this.
You guys Rock!
