Hi folks! Been playing since 1986; my first guitar was a birthday present for my 16th, but much to my shame and dismay, I never mastered alternate picking. It’s been a source of frustration and discouragement for so very, very long.
It’s far too late to get in on the “shred boom” as I’d hoped to do early on, but if I can just get this done, maybe I wouldn’t feel like such an idiot for not mastering these picking techniques to begin with.
Riffing faster stuff (Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera, etc.) wasn’t such a problem for the most part, but some of the more intricate faster sections eluded me because I didn’t master these techniques. I felt stupid or defective. It held me back from pursuing my dream of becoming the next Vai or Satch. The desire was there in truckloads, but despite hours of practice, I just couldn’t get my hands to “do the FAST stuff!” when it came to leads or more complex parts.
I’m from a smaller town, lower income family, so resources for lessons were limited. There was no Youtube, no web video back then. Metal Method was a tremendous help along with whatever I could decipher from guitar magazine tabs, but I truly wish a resource like CTC had been around at that time. It would’ve gotten me out of the Terminal Rhythm Guitarist slot and allowed me to do what I really wanted in music.
These days, I don’t have countless hours of free time for practice, but I hope to make room for at least 30 minutes/day to work on this very soon, once my day job allows me enough time. Not because I’m gigging, or even recording, but because I just plain want to do it. To finally GET IT DONE!