Hey everyone! New guy says hi

Introduce Yourself
#1

Hello there, CtC community. My name is Anthony, and I live in Baltimore with my wife and dog. I’ve been playing for nearly 35 years now, yet never spent much time thinking about mechanics.

Troy I saw your videos on YouTube a few years ago, and they were (and are) fantastic. It’s especially funny to me because we’re similar age, I believe, and you had some moments in those videos that were spot-on from my youth.

Those vids started me messing around with DWPS, but never seriously. I decided it was time to jump off that cliff, and see where I land.

While I never thought much about mechanics, I can say that my body certainly did. I unconsciously figured out ways to play things smoother and faster. I always thought I was “cheating”. My first guitar teacher had us running the pentatonic scale in 4 note and 3 note patterns, and my hand naturally went to sweeping certain string changes. He noticed it, and stopped me from doing it (sadly). For years I struggled with strict alternate picking, and finally I just kind of gave up and went with my own bastardized version that included little sweeps and other tricks to play faster. Never was much of a speed demon though.

I’ve also felt my hand unconsciously try to do two-way pick slanting when learning certain phrases. It’s like way down in my brain, some circuit of neurons knew what I was trying to do, and I’d feel my hand naturally shift to these different positions. Of course, because I thought that was “wrong” I shut that down on the spot, and went back to practicing the “right way”.

Oh well. Better late than never, right? Because I’ve been playing for so long, and have this built-in string hopping motion, it’s going to take some time to get comfortable with the pick slanting. One day DWPS feels right, and the next UWPS feels right. I wish my right hand would make up its mind. :slight_smile:

Looking forward to diving into more of the videos here on the site, and hopefully chatting with folks here on the forum as well.

/Anthony

3 Likes
#2

Hey Anthony,

Welcome to the forum! I’m from Maryland too - from Potomac. Ive been playing about the same length of time you have as well! I got my first electric guitar for my 16th birthday.

It sound like you had a good idea originally to use economy (sweep) picking. Since you have a natural tendency to want to do that, and now that you now your teacher shouldn’t have stopped you from doing that, I think you should start that again! It’s a nice technique to have in your arsenal.

What are some of your favorite bands? I like Judas Priest, Dio, Queensryche, Yngwie Malmsteen, Savatage, Fates Warning (with John Arch), Pantera, Crimson Glory, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Guns 'n Roses, Pink Floyd, and Lynyrd Skynyrd!

#3

We’re all much better at this than we think. It’s just that the naturals not only figured out not to fight the urge, but actually to capitalize on it.

Thanks for signing up!

#4

Hey there, Acecrusher – thanks for the welcome. Nice to (virtually) meet another Marylander. What do you do for a living down there? Are you playing with anyone?

Yeah, it sounds like we have a lot in common! I spent the first few years playing my dad’s acoustic (still have it) and then he bought me my first electric for my high school graduation, so I was 17.

Favorite bands? That’s kinda hard to answer, and we do have overlap there. For a good chunk of my life, the easy answer would have been Van Halen. And they’re still up there, though I don’t find myself listening to them as often as I used to if only because there’s so much great stuff I still haven’t discovered. I think Alex is a way underrated drummer, some of the stuff he does on those first 5-6 records is just ridiculously good.

Other bands I dig that are classic rock-ish: The Police, Zeppelin, Beatles, Cream, Allmans, GNR, Floyd, Steely Dan. Frampton. Got alotta Frampton in my playing, next to Clapton. Lots of Clapton. I’ve spent 20 years trying to nail the live Crossroads solo, and on good days I’m 90% there. :smile: Another 20 years, and I’ll finally catch him.

Some of the 1990’s stuff still resonates strongly with me: Pearl Jam’s first three albums are amazing. Soundgarden, especially Superunknown – which for me is the best album of that decade. Nirvana, of course.

Really I’m all over the map: Journey, Daft Punk, Rolling Stones, Rush, STP, 80’s pop, Yacht Rock, U2. Yes! How could I forget Yes? Darn near anything Motown, especially if it has James Jamerson on it.

I’ve been on a big power pop kick recently, and that’s spilled over in to Glam and Brit Pop. I have a playlist full of The Replacements, Stone Roses, Paul Westerberg’s solo stuff, Sweet, Supergrass, Matthew Sweet. Bowie. Ronson was such a bad ass guitarist.

Man, I am babbling here, sorry!

Not much of that listed above lends itself to a lot of guitar shredding. While I love Paul Gilbert, I don’t want to be Paul Gilbert, but I sure would love to have even a fraction of the freedom and fluidity of guys like him. I think this focus on my right hand mechanics (and syncing with the left hand) is really going to help me put more fire into my playing.

How long have you been doing the CtC thing?

/Anthony

#5

You bet! I think there’s a lot here for me to learn. You’ve really built something interesting and valuable here.

/Anthony