I’m grateful for all the work that Troy and the CTC team have done. I’m most grateful to the attitude that seems to prevail here…and that is a respect for learning and presenting cogent arguments rather than the straight trolling and hatred for learning that I’ve generally encountered over the years.
I’m 45 and been playing since I was 8 years old, but truthfully I fumbled in the dark all my life since. It was the first Van Halen album that made me want to play and fate placed great gear and amazing record collections with the great players of the 60s and 70s in my hands. I’ve never looked back as I’ve continued to learn and refine my understanding of the musicians I love over the decades.
With the advent of the Internet I’ve mostly encountered idiots…but there have been notable exceptions that have made a tremendous impact on my learning and understanding. Stumbling onto ‘Cracking The Code’ was obviously one such instance.
The biggest sea change in my playing came when I met a person through the MetroAmp forum who most often goes by the handle “wjamflan”…his name is Bill and I’m proud to call him a friend and mentor.
I have a love and endless fascination with learning note-for-note playing of my favorite players…probably chief among these players is Edward Van Halen-a player whose music has been transcribed and taught in various forms almost totally incorrectly for decades. Until Bill came along…
In short, Bill has studied and applied logic to learning the playing of many great guitarists note-for-note and he has been the only person that I have ever seen that really has figured out how Van Halen’s music was actually played and has concrete observations and logic to back it up. In this way, Bill is very akin to Troy and the Cracking The Code team.
I wanted to join this forum to be among intelligent players who are as interested in learning as Bill and I are and who genuinely able to learn from each other in a civil discourse that doesn’t descend into idiocy.
I hope to get Bill to join this forum and share his insights. He is a teacher by profession and has a very busy family life so it is difficult for him to have time for playing and analysis, but I hope to help in any way that I can to get his observations shared in some way. As an example of where Bill’s head is at (and to a much lesser extent, mine) type “Van Halen” into the search bar of this forum and you will see VH related posts…Bill is the guy who transcribed “Van Halen’s Major Scale Exercise” from the Steven Rosen interview and I’m the guy that wrote out TABs of Bill’s observations and I shared them. The detail of picking directions and fingerings that Bill has taught me has so revolutionized my understanding of Van Halen (and others) that I have become extremely passionate about sharing what I’ve learned from Bill with anyone who is interested. It’s not about “monetizing” or recognition…it’s simply about getting correct information out there for learning and general posterity.
I am a HUGE fan of the CTC videos and the entire series and general ethic at work here and I look forward to learning from everyone here. In just the few moments I’ve had to casually browse the forum, I know I’ve found a home to learn and share with intelligent souls who actually care about guitar playing…Thanks for having me here and here’s to many fruitful discussions!
Cheers,
Allen
