Hey there,
my name is Steffen, I turned 50 this year and I have been playing the guitar for more than 30 years. That is, I’ve been trying to. My left hand is quite ok, my right hand, well, is not. About two years ago I stumbled across Troy Grady and he certainly opened my eyes about a couple of things. But still I do not know what to do in order to improve my right hand. The just-do-what’s-natural-to-you-approach does not work with me, maybe because I don’t know (anymore) what is natural to me. Also, the idea of practising fast what you want to play fast obviously fails on me. Maybe it works for others. I need some structured way, but I haven’t found any. Actually I am really beginning to despair. I am really thinking about a drastic move. Like switching to flute or something.
Here there are two vid’s showing my incompetence. One was recorded at 100 bpm, the other one at 140 or so. At 100 bmp my hand seems to be bouncing this way and that way, it is as if my hand had a mind of itself. I guess there’s some rotation in there. At 140 the motion is quite straight, but it seems that the motion comes from the arm / elbow. At that speed I can play kind of regularly (kind of!) only on the high strings, but not on the D / D / lower E.
I also seem to have an odd habit (I haven’t recorded a video on that): when I try to alternate-pick even at quite low speeds like 16ths at 70 bpm, after doing the downstroke my hand automatically seems to bounce to the outside, like when you play downstrokes only. I don’t know why I am doing it but it is very hard to get rid of that habit.
If you have any ideas, let me know. Especially, if you know of any way of tackling the problems I am talking about in a clear and structured way.
