How old are you?
51
Where are you in your guitar journey?
Professional - Guitar Educator and Clinician.
- How many years have you been playing?
35 Years consistently started at 16
- What musical genres are you interested in?
Metal, Hard Rock, Blues, Fusion, Jazz, Classical, Flamenco, World Music, Country (Not the Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers type)
- Particular things you’re excited to learn / talk about here?
USX, DSX, DBX and Trapped Pick Slanting - Genius because it only became obvious after Troy explains it!
How have you gone about learning guitar so far?
99% Self Taught, some beginner lessons at the start that gave me bad technical habits.
I highly recommend getting a teacher but find someone who can really shred and is musical.
- Have you spent much time on technique before finding our stuff?
I use to practice 10-15 hours a day for 5 years when I was younger working on Paul Gilbert and Vinnie Moore exercise along with all the other Instructional Videos of the day.
- What Cracking the Code material have you watched?
All of it!
- Can you comfortably play a scale? At roughly what speed?
Yes at 200 bmp or more if my chops are good that day.
- Any particular things you find yourself stuck on?
Took a long time to come up with an efficient way to teach notes on the fretboard to beginners, I have a very effective method using Jazz Charts now.
Do you have any guitar secrets?
I have many…
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Practice the string skipping and 3 string exercises I have posted, using USX and DSX
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Buy a fixed bridge Ibanez guitar or equivalent brand and put 13-56 strings on it, use this as your practice guitar and keep the action at a high factory level. All your other guitars can be 9-42, especially anything with a Floyd and low action.
Use the 9-42 low action guitars live and you will shred like a demon.
*Don’t injure yourself and take breaks if you experience any pain, anything significant stop playing for the day.
Do you still have long hair?
Yes
Where does most of your money come from?
Tech job, definitely NOT music.
Can you work a job and still be a great player?
Definitely, but you have to work twice as hard.
Do you drink, smoke or take drugs?
No, straight edged is the way to go.