Hello Everyone. My name is Kyle. I’m an IT Systems Admin and an avid guitar player. Born and raised in Washington State but live in Portland, OR now. I’m 35 years old and started playing guitar when I was in 5th grade. I think the first song we learned in class was a strumming pattern to go along with “Achy Breaky Heart”. It was awful but still fun! From that point forward I knew I loved playing music. I played cello in my Elementary school’s orchestra for 1 year. Once I reached middle school, I played Alto saxophone in concert band for 3 years. I also played guitar in the jazz band which I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing. Once I got to high school, I quit playing saxophone and playing in band (which I regret to this day). I did however do guitar lab my Freshman year in high school. I’ve taken lessons over the years but am mainly self taught. I’m a pretty good rhythm player but my lead technique is horrible and am super uncomfortable playing any scale runs or anything on the higher fretted areas of the guitar. I continued playing guitar in college but most of it consisted of lazingly learning portions of songs from tabs online. I’d get to a more difficult part and give up. I even had a stint in college where I played live gigs with a scream-o band. The music we played wasn’t really my cup of tea but it was fun while it lasted. I knew the music I really wanted to play was rock and metal. Although I do love strumming and playing some laid back acoustic songs.
Once I graduated college I kind of gave up on playing but had moments where I wanted to improve but would eventually lose my attention. Plus living in the small town after college, I never really got much attention or traffic for local musicians.
Now that I live in Portland, I have alot of access to like-minded musicians but I’ve found that I’m not good enough to play with some of the bands that I’ve jammed with and tried out for. Playing guitar is really important and I want to get more enjoyment out of the instrument and play stuff rather than just strumming power chords and playing sloppy scales.
I started taking lessons from an instructor and we’ve been trying to practice playing 3-4 string appeggios, bending to tunes and wokring on skills that are neccessary to be a good lead player. Been also working on theory and musicianship. However, I feel being a rhythm player most of my life, I’m doomed to never be a good lead player. All of these techniques that I’ve tried, adjusting grip, incorporate thumb muting when sweeping. Nothing feels comfortable. She’s currently trying to get me to practice thumb muting and using the straight edge pick technique but after 5 months of practicing, I feel like I’m going no where. I am intrigued with the pick slant and am curious to see if this is the approach I should be taking. After watching some of the cracking the code youtube vidoes, I was inspired to join this community and reach out. I’m currently taking Skype lessons with my same teacher and I want to get as much out of the lessons as possible because my teacher is really awesome.
My Goals:
Get rid of my bad habits.
Improve alternate picking technique.
Improve string skipping.
Improve hand synchronization.
playing clean and clear sweeped arpeggios.
