I spent the better part of my teenage years with a metronome in my mother’s basement. Ironically, in retrospect I’m pretty sure I was two-way pickslanting back then after a certain point. But I couldn’t play Rusty Cooley licks, so I gave up.
Fast-forward to six years later. The original Cracking the Code stuff comes out – just some Yngwie and Shawn Lane tabs. Then it disappears. I actually emailed Troy asking about the Rusty interview since I figured the entire project was dead (it disappeared for a while). Nothing. But I taught myself some weird spastic elbowpicking stuff (which, from the date on the video you can see I can still kinda-sorta pull off) and gave myself really bad chronic RSI in the process (left hand – I’m a southpaw playing traitor-style).
But I could never do mid-speed (~sextuplets around 120-130) 3nps playing, even though my sweeping was “p. dece” (as the kids are saying).
Enter the Antigravity Pack. I bought it the week it was available. The huge kicker for me was swiping. I could always tell when my technique would “try” to use it and would immediately try to cure it because obviously touching the string you’re not plucking is bad, right?
Well, this is me now, after fifteen years of playing – not great, but getting there. Adopted DWPS with rotational mechanic for midspeed stuff, focusing right now on getting really basic licks clean and solid.
Thanks, Troy.