Finally diving into the forum after a few years of lurking and mixed progress.
I’ve been playing for about 18 years, self taught mostly although I studied music with a guitar specialisation at University, which is a roundabout way of saying I’m not as good as I probably should be. There were a few years where I didn’t play much guitar as I was playing bass in a few bands. Since moving to Sweden from the UK 5 years ago I’ve put more focus back into technique and theory practice.
Into all sorts of music but as far as playing I mostly go for heavy riffage, progressive (of a peak Mastodon/Opeth/Protest the Hero melange kind of vibe) as well as getting into funk/jazz infused (Snarky Puppy, Di Meola, T-Square). Really excited to be part of a guitar learning community, and to hopefully get over some of my hangups about showing my technique.
I hadn’t really given much thought to technique before CTC, my outlook was always play it enough and you’ll get fast enough (didn’t work) and then stumbled across the stringhopping video on youtube, recognised myself immediately and vowed to change my ways. I’ve been working away on it ever since, having good days and bad days. Three days ago I thought I’d cracked it, I could play pretty much anything in my repertoire relatively cleanly and with no tension. Today I can barely tremolo. So the consistency is the sticking point for me right now, and finding the sweet spot between too much and too little pick contact with the string.
Looking forward to great discussions!