One of the best tidbits of advice I’ve caught from the forum here is when Tommo shared that he noticed while tabbing a Vinnie Moore solo that he will sometimes repeat a note to maintain 3nps scales that may lack a third note somewhere.
I thought that was a nice bit of information, and immediately put it into practice. After a certain speed, you really don’t notice the repeat.
what else you got from the forums?
‘You must unlearn what you have learned’ - Troy Kanobe
Their approach is good. By “their” I mean Troy and his company. They’re trying to figure out exactly how the great players do what they do. Nobody has ever done that before. I don’t know why but nobody has. So they’re actually pioneers in their field. If they have any competitors I’m not aware of them.
They’re pioneering the field of explaining exactly how the great players are able to pick as fast and as clean as they do and until now, nobody ever gave a good answer to that question. If you ask a great player how he does what he does typically you’ll get one of two answers: It’ll either be “I don’t know; I just do it” or they’ll try to explain it and explain it incorrectly.
So it used to be that if you wanted to develop a very high level picking technique, you had to figure it our for yourself. There’s a lot to be said for figuring it out for yourself rather than somebody showing you a slow motion video made from a camera attached to the neck of a guitar so that you can see exactly what it is you should be trying to do. I had to figure it out for myself and there’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction to be gained from figuring it out for yourself without help from somebody else. It also takes a lot of time or at least it did for me. So if you want to learn faster and save literally years of work involved in figuring it out for yourself, then what CTC is offering you is invaluable. Like I said, as far as I know, there is nowhere else to go to get this type of detailed information on efficient picking technique.
So far my favorite MIM interviews were the ones they did with Michael Angelo Batio. He never quite reached what I’d consider true “rock star status” (except maybe briefly when he was in Nitro) and actually he does more clinics than concerts but he is a phenomenal technician. He does some amazing things on the guitar and it’s been very interesting to find out how he does what he does.
I’m hoping that as the company grows they’ll eventually get some interviews with some of the absolute biggest rock guitar gods in the business - guys like Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, etc. I’m sure getting them for MIM interviews would be expensive, but I’d enjoy hearing the wisdom guys like them have to impart - things they did which helped them rise to the very top of the music business. If they can even get interviews with rock guitarists who have achieved the level of success such as Paul Gilbert, Tony Macalpine or Vinnie Moore have reached that would also be extremely interesting to find out what can be learned from them in a Masters In Mechanics style interview.
Is the question; what have you gotten out of the forum or CTC in general?
If the latter I’m gonna go out on a limb and say swiping. I know this has more and more gotten the reputation as the “cheaters” or “lazy mans” way of playing, but for me this was totally an eye opener and game changer in understanding how to be able to play certain stuff. At first I didn’t want to accept that it as an actual playing technique, but the more I tried it I understod that it really works and that the little noise you get from it often is minimal in comparison to all the other noise and bad habits in my playing.
This reminds me of something a guitar teacher told me many years ago. He told me that Al Dimeola said that guys like Allan Holdsworth are “cheating” because they don’t pick every note. This made me want to learn to play by picking every note and when I heard Gary Moore’s solo in “Shapes Of Things” the muted fast picking on the low strings had an attack like a machine gun! I was so impressed with how aggressive I could get my playing to sound by picking every note that I decided to specialize in that rather than specializing in a legato technique and I’m glad I did because it helped me form my signature sound.
When it became publicized that Eddie Van Halen was getting the incredible speed he displayed in places such as the last section of “Eruption” by using finger tapping, I’m sure there were plenty of guys who wrote that off as “cheating.”
The point I’d like to make is that the rock 'n roll attitude is all about things like breaking the rules. So even if swiping has a reputation as a “cheaters” way of playing, so what? It’s still an honest way of doing things because you’re getting the sound you’re getting with you’re own two hands; there isn’t any electronic trickery involved. If somebody does use electronic trickery, whether it’s autotune for vocals, or speeding up the tape to make your guitar solos sound faster than you actually played them, that’s the type of cheating that I have no tolerance for. Otherwise, I say: “Go for it”!
Not really the question being asked, but honestly I think I’ve gotten more out of the forum than the actual materials, and that’s definitely NOT a dig on the (excellent) videos Troy and his team have produced. I think there’s a lot of good content in the videos and lessons, but I think I understand it a LOT better for having spent time discussing it here, and I’ve learned a lot from you all.
For me it was definitely this thread:
Looking at tommo’s setup i realized what he was doing worked exactly the same way for me. Besides the original pickslanting epiphany this helped me the most! Still hoping for that breakthrough on crosspicking now…
In all seriousness… it was the videos and analysis of other players that had a huge impact on me. After watching the video on Martin Miller… it completely changed how I viewed picking.
I can say with 100% certainty, had I not watched that video… my picking would still suck.
After understanding what swiping is, it does indeed appear to be a viable technique that can be developed for certain patterns.