New member - Should I tackle Malmsteen?

Introduce Yourself
#1

Hi guys,

I’m from Brazil, 36 years old and been on and off playing guitar for about 20. Besides that, I’ve also studied a lot of classical piano. The thing that frustrates me a lot to this day is I haven’t been able to reach good technique on the guitar despite my efforts. At the piano things flowed with more ease.

I wanted to play Malmsteen stuff and have already tried but everything seems sloppy. I have videos of my playing on YouTube.

I am coming back to the guitar right now and I’m not sure if I should attempt some Malmsteen tube right off the bat or if I should grow on something easier before. My main desire is to stop being a bits player. I want to master a song and be able to play it without stumbling on my own feet!

These are some videos of myself:



Thanks for the feedback in advance!

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#2

without a doubt you should work on Malmsteen, and this is the place to do it. It seems like Troy’s insights into picking grew out of what was first his self-taught PHD in Malmsteenology.

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#3

Welcome to the forum! Not sure what of our material you’ve checked out so far, but definitely recommend going through this section of the site first:

https://troygrady.com/start/

Then either the Pickslanting Primer, or the Volcano seminar, to dive further into Yngwie stuff specifically. Let us know if you have further questions after taking a look through some of this stuff!

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#4

Hi Brendan, thanks! I had bought the Pickslanting Primer a long time ago but never dedicated a good amount of time on it. This time I am experimenting with the DWPS part of it in the following manner:

  • testing my fastest single note picking speed
  • working from a comfortable speed to the highest possible speed on single note picking.
  • working on the single string 6 note patterns.

Should I stick to these until I can play sextuplets at 130bpm?

Is there any “roadmap” to how to go throught the course material?

#5

Sounds good :slight_smile: So far our best roadmap is the Getting Started guide linked above; I’d suggest at least reading through all those pages, and watching the Intro to Picking Motion workshop we did (access to this is included w/ Pickslanting Primer purchase): Introduction to Picking Motion – Cracking the Code

We’re also in the process of putting together some material on the site addressing the question of “how to practice” in a lot more detail. One thing to keep in mind (very briefly!) is that the motions used for your fastest speed will often feel very different from those used at a slower comfortable speed…so “start slow and gradually speed up” may not be the best approach; instead you’ll probably want to practice the motions at high speed (even if a bit sloppy) to try to get a realistic sense of what it should feel like.

Stay tuned for more on that! In the meantime this video has some useful points too:

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#6

Huge thanks, Brendan!