Hey all, I am currently 23, and a huge guitar nerd.Been a huge fan of CtC ever since 2014 but I just got the chance to be here. Hello everyone. I hope all of you gets to the level required for you to play us what is in your mind. I was quite hesitant about making this topic and telling about myself but felt like trusting the CtC community and luckily here is a great draft with questions which I will be following to tell about myself.
My Guitar Journey:
I am near the end of my first decade of playing the guitar. Started in Summer 2010 with an electric bass, which turned into playing hard rock with the classical guitar we had in the house until Summer '11 when I got my first electric. Genrewise, it is a huge mashup. Started with the classics, ACDC, some EVH, of course Metallica, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai. At that time I was also checking out everyone I thought I should know as a guitar player, EJ, SRV, Vinnie Moore, Jason Becker, Guthrie Govan, Jeff Beck, etc. That turned into a phase of Dream Theater and Megadeth for me. That ended in around Fall ā12, I slowly started listening to John Mayer more and more. I kept listening to more of his music whether it was live or studio, transcribing, reading whatever tab I could find. It came to a point where I would consider buying a piece of gear and in a month or two John Mayer would be seen using it. During that phase I kept discovering and listening to different artists. Starting around late 14ā I started to listen to lots of percussive acoustic players such as Mike Dawes, Petteri Sariola, Jon Gomm, Antoine Dufour (And many more CandyRat records artists. ) I am skipping many periods where I heavily listened to specific genres for multiple months, such as Gypsy Jazz, Irısh Folk, discovering many drummers and listening to their material as well such as Benny Greb, Jojo Mayer, Richard Spaven etc. After all those in around Summer '15 I found myself listening to Tom Misch, Jordan Rakei, Carmody, Hiatus Kaiyote, Snarky Puppy, Funky Knuckles. Which turned into full on Erykah Badu, Dāangelo Soulquarian mode. (Aquarian here.) During that era I also kept an eye in the Djent world, not fully considering myself a metalhead but I remember walking around in winter '15 with my Periphery hoodie, must mention Animals As Leaders when I talk about such modern guitar playing. After all this, I ended up finding myself listening to bands like Little Tybee, Bent Knee, Phox, also discovering lovely musicians such as Lianne La Havas, Jill Scott, Esperanza Spalding, Jack Garratt, Julian Lage, Gilad Hekselman, Ibrahim Maalouf, New York Gypsy All Stars. In the current phase of my guitar playing, I kept changing and trying to hold things from all those phases. Right now my favorite players would include Jimmy Herring, Ian Thornley, Derek Trucks, Steve Morse, Nick Johnston, Artur Menezes, Josh Smith, Joey Landreth and countless others. Things I could hope from here would be good connections with nice people really. Since about learning CtC material is already VERY helpful.
My Level On Guitar:
I started self taught when I was playing the bass and playing rock music via the classical guitar laying around. A friend showed me how to read tablature. After that I had no lessons untill when I got my first electric. Then took lessons from my first teacher for the next two or so years. Which then ended up with me taking lessons from another teacher due to his technical efficiency. Also I studied music in University for nearly a year. (Music dropout here, hello John Mayer.) Quit near summer '17. Ever since then I have been working on my playing on my own. Untill this week, I have watched most of whatever was available on YouTube. Right now I am going through the Pickslanting Primer. Always struggled with DPS, naturally an UPS player here. I have my basic theory knowledge due to me being the nerd I am. As much as I nerded out about different musical genres, I did dive into theory as well, but I am not the best when it comes to applying different scale formulas all over the fretboard. I can comfortably play a scale, some scales. But if someone tried to find gaps in my fretboard knowledge they easily could. About my current speed, I have no idea. I am maybe slowly getting close to āfastā territory, but no shred yet. I feel stuck about being able to improvise using the techniques I have been practicing for years. I can get very hard on myself and am a very bad critic when it comes to me. So disappointment, frustration and lacking discipline has been a problem for me throughout my first almost decade. Something fun to mention was when I was about to get my first electric, I was dreaming of becoming a specific type of artist who I couldnāt. But luckily I got to see my mental plan come to life thanks to Jacob Collier. I hope to eventually become the musician I want to be. I have no idea why I wrote this much. Sorry for anyone who actually went through all of it. I usually am quite the opposite of a chatterbox but very rarely, like now I become extremely talkative. I am feeling like I might regret posting this but I hope nobody will cause that. I sincerely thank anyone who seriously took their time to read this. Much love from wherever I am in the world at the time of you reading this.
), and let us know if thereās anything we can help you with as you go through the Primer!