New member, anyone here improve significantly using Troy's insights?

Playing Technique
#1

Hi guys, just joined up although I watched the free YouTube stuff a year ago and have practiced the pick slanting a bit.

Just wondering, have any of you significantly improved using the pick slanting insights? Ive got 30 years of muscle memory working against me and am finding it very difficult and frustrating to try to modify my playing. I’m pretty fast at certain motions but have a couple massive hiccups that have always held me back… Most noticable changing to a thinner string using an outside picking… So down stroke to upstroke (think paul Gilbert’s triplets on 4 notes. I can do it super fast using inside picking but not even close on outside. I cannot even begin to tell you how many hours I have tried to fix this over the years!

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#2

Oh without a doubt, me today vs me this time last year is a completely different player.

18 years of mediocrity before CTC.

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#3

Yes CTC has made a big impact on my playing, in tangible bpm type of terms. Essentially, I feel that I now have a toolkit I can use to address almost any technical problem that come up so I can execute a line at the tenmpo I want.

I would say I’ve gotten very good at DWPS, pretty good at UWPS, I can control and arrange sweep passages much cleaner and faster. I can handle some 2WPS stuff that may have been impossible before, and it’s helped me with hybrid picking as well.

‘Crosspicking’ is the next hurdle for my right hand…still kind of suck at that, but it’s something a lot of people here are working on, I gather.

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#4

Yeah Troy’s teachings have given me greater insight into my own playing and helped me with to speed up, even with 20 years of muscle memory to break.

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#5

CTC made me realize there is always a way to solve a seemingly impossible picking situation.

Also, my picking has improved a lot in general; speed, accuracy and comfort of playing.

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#6

I can’t even describe how much my technique improved during a few weeks after finding CtC. Before that, I had been playing for abour 5 years, spending a lot of time practicing technique, which stayed about the same for at least two years. That was very frustrating and then I stumbled upon Troy’s channel and in two weeks I was already seeing results.

It took a few months to really get comfortable with these techniques (and I still can’t do crosspicking), so it will probably take some time for you as well. But my guitar playing is now divided into the pre-Troy era and the post-Troy era. :slight_smile:

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#7

same here :slight_smile:

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#8

I echo a lot of the comments here as well in terms of my playing pre- and post-CTC. I’d just add that there is a very humane and positive attitude the whole CTC team conveys about problem solving. In CTC-land, problems are opportunities for growth, not ordeals to be vanquished by. I used to get absolutely stumped and frustrated by many licks and solos, and would give up too easily. I still do some of that, but the CTC vocabulary and approach to “diagnosing the problem” has helped instill an attitude that I think can sustain my growth on the instrument.

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#9

In a decade of playing guitar, there have been a few things which completely changed everything I knew about playing. Every one of these moments had a before and after which were entirely different worlds.

E.g. one might have been learning the major scale modes across the neck and then suddenly I can find every note in a scale everywhere on the neck. Another would be the ability to harmonize lines in block chords using diminished passing chords. Another was the ability to left hand mute any string, so I could strum 6 strings and only play one or two (or three, or four etc). These are concepts that have made huge changes to my playing ever since learning them.

I can already tell you that the next big thing in my playing is pickslanting. Why? I’ve always had certain problems with picking that I never really knew how to solve. I now know how to solve these exact problems. I can do the movements, I know they work, I just need to get them ingrained into muscle memory.

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#10

Great to hear about all the success! This definitely gives me motivation to log in some hours with my pick slanting. Interestingly enough, it was something someone mentioned about gilbert’s thumb extension version of pick slanting that seems to be making a positive difference over the last 24 hours. Its a slightly different motion and feels funky at high speed but the hiccup is noticeably smoother so might be a part of the bigger puzzle for me.

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#11

I rejoined about a month ago after a couple of years hiatus. I’ve been playing for 40 years, so I completely understand what you are talking about. I basically went back to the drawing board with my lead playing by relearning basic techniques through CTC. The pickslanting approach has completely revolutionized my playing. As far as the muscle memory goes, it was easy to make subtle changes that made not only my picking more accurate and faster, it helped to sync my fretting with my picking. I would start off slow, using fluid, precise movement and I also used visualization along the way. Speed will come naturally. It’s not about forcing the issue. It is teaching your subconscious mind, and your physiology to play with correct technique. Where once the UWPS/DWPS felt awkward, it now has become more natural. Speed is coming the more I practice. I don’t have to think as much about the slanting aspect.

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