Long story short: Just one-and-a-half years ago my confidence in my own guitar playing had hit an all-time low. Despite of having access to excellent CTC material such as Cascade and Volcano, I felt I wasn’t making progress and I wondered what I was doing wrong. I knew something had to change, because I had been in a similar situation before where playing the guitar felt so dreadful and frustrating to me that I stopped playing altogether for a couple of years. I decided to just keep playing, hoping that one day it would somehow click. It didn’t.
However, one fateful day while I was on the CTC forum I stumbled upon a cover of Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover (soon followed by Lonely in the Night) by some Korean guy named Peter C. After listening to his EJ covers, I was completely dumbstruck. As an Eric Johnson fan I was already familiar with several EJ Youtube covers, but they had never sounded quite like this. I thought to myself: if anyone besides EJ can help me to gain some insight in what goes into this kind of playing, it has to be Peter C.
I contacted Peter, and he thankfully accepted me as a student – which I still am for 75+ weeks straight, without missing a single lesson.
So what did Peter manage to do?
He helped me to make more progress in two years than I had in the ten previous ones combined
He helped me rediscover the joy of playing the guitar
He taught me the ins and outs of all his playing, including his EJ covers: tabs, phrasing, sounds, techniques, chords, improvisation methods, practice methods, bending, vibrato, economy picking, speed playing, right hand control and left hand control, gear etc.
He helped me get through the dreaded speed barriers where I could barely play fives at 130bpm 16ths to being able to play them at 180+ bpm.
He saved me thousands of dollars by preventing me falling victim to GAS by guiding me to buy the stuff I ACTUALLY need, instead of wasting money on the stuff I THINK I need to sound good
He vastly improved my technique, sound, gear, setup and confidence
Will it be hard work? Absolutely. Even EJ has to work at being EJ, let alone us mere mortals. Peter C however proves that it can be done and is able to explain how to get there as the excellent teacher that he is.
I cannot recommend Peter enough as a teacher.
If you feel you are currently stuck, if you feel that your fundamentals like vibrato, left hand and right hand technique/control could use a (big) upgrade, if you want to be able to understand what is really needed to play EJ’s stuff and if you want to save a couple of thousand of dollars in gear spending, my advice is: take lessons with Peter. I did and it was the best decision in terms of my guitar playing I’ve ever made.
