My consistency situation and hi from Romania

         ----  This proly gonna be a long one, but please read and give me some advice guys, would be much appreciated

Hey guys!!! I will start with my music story and slowly build towards the reason I got here :smiley:

Story so far

      Soo, Im 22, I started guitar at 13 and the first year i basically start touching the instrument but i focused all of my energy on exams and guitar was something i really liked having fun on weekends with my friends( we were a group of 4 guys who all started ) and like 30 min a day. At 14 when i finished my exams and started Highschool, i played rhythm for a dude in a concert and like that, i met his teacher, an ex classical guitar conservatory teacher. I played around 3 years of classical guitar with him, then started my electric guitar journey, until here i almost never played more then 3h/ day  and just played for fun and to get better actively ( i mean i was not thinking and researching how to get better at it 24/7 ). 
      'Sadly" in my 4th year it was end of highschool, exams again, and this was the time i foucsed on exams and sports(always loved sports a lot) and also started learning classical 4 part harmony and writing bach style chorales and other small piano things.  My best guitar achivements at this point were: recorded On the back of angels solo at 130bpm ( 138 original) and had around 10 small concerts with classical guitar around my town, so basically i was quite decent at it, i never thought about myself as naturally good or very fast ( and still think im not and i wasnt, just, normally good id say ).  I started law school after finishing highschool, which i hated, and becouse of (well life happend a lot and depression was high, i was playing a lot of guitar while watching movies and not paying any attention to my details, i was playing well.. i liked playing and nothing more.
     Slowly i started to hit my head against the wall cuz i felt like i wasnt improving at all at guitar, but, my composting was getting very good and fast, i was writing 10+instruments short orchesrtas, finished 2 books of harmony( second one almost finisehd, stooped at some weird uni level modulations xdd) did around 300 4part harmony compotions, so i was investing more and more time in this, and guitar was less and less studied, i still played but not everyday adn without any attention to details. 
     Year 6(second year of university) when i saw how happy i was with my progress i started to thnk about becoming a professional composer, like in film or gaming industry, but around year 3 i learnt that i didnt really like the process of working 6-12 months or more for a project, especially being still ..like 20 at that time, i wanted shorter ,faster more fun on a daily kinda projects. 

-That mixed with my love for guitar playing and my sadness that i kinda stopped improving, also come in clutch the fact that, i had a very ugly injury while doing sports( i was training for my black belt in karate adn was going to open a gym with my sensei , lovely person).

      So i started guitar again, uni was kinda easy and covid started, so i was staying at home and playing 6-10h daily. My guitar sensei has a 'speed test" etude , first time i did 4notes/beat at 140bpm, and this period (2 winters ago ) i recorded it at 4n/beat at 215bpm,  i recorded a small very tensed lick at 6/160 ( cant even touch that speed today anymore tho XD ) Recorded a JTC course of Mateus asato, around 20 licks, did all of them at full speeds, so i was getting good results again.

BUT
and know starts the reason why im here
I was having a hard time being consistent with my playing, like i was studying some stuff and after recording it max speed, learnt a new thing and i was having trouble playing the last one again well.

–so i started the journey which im on right now, playing my favorite guitar players (which are all different music styles) on a quest to become more consistent and observe my technique while switching styles and techinques. (funk, blues, rock, neosoul, country, a bit of fusion)

I will be uplouding a video of me playing and asking for some advice on my technique, i found that i have quite different ways of picking for almost similar “licks” or parts and …well im having a hard time making a decision on how to do stuff :smiley:

Thank u for reading !!

Hey, and welcome!

Providing a video will probably be the quickest way to receive feedback on your playing, yeah - the site has a page with tips on filming your playing:

Also, just as a reference, we had a thread on consistency recently, you might want to check it out as well:

Cheers, and all the best in your guitar journey!

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Thank u! i will look at that thred and keep havin fun with this string woody thing :smiley: wish ya the same!

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Welcome!

It’s very normal to be more accurate somedays and a bit “off” on other days so don’t worry about it too much :slight_smile:

If you wanted something to try and work on what I like to do for consistency/stamina is take a lick I’m having trouble with and push it up to a speed where if I’m concentrating I’ll get it 8/10 times and then just live in that bpm for a while. If it’s getting to a point where I find myself not thinking about the lick and nailing it then it’s time to push it up so that I’m having to actively concentrate again

But anyway, a video is definitely the best way for us to identify what you’re doing and see if we can offer any advice :smile:

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Well i’ve been practicing like a madman a 2nps pentatonic lick, that i played before at max speed and recorded, but since then i’ve made small changes to my technique for example: less muting when i didnt want to mute and not moving the index finger and thump alone from the rest of the hand, besides when im hybrid picking i try to keep the hand a relaxed but together ( not literally glued without any sapce but together) And i’ve seen that it works quite well in all my technique BUT 2nps stuff for some reason. If in a few days i can’t get it done i will come back with a video :smiley:

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