Terry Syrek Interview

Masters in Mechanics
#1

THIS TOPIC IS LINKED TO A CRACKING THE CODE WEBSITE PAGE. View the original page here: https://troygrady.com/2017/10/13/terry-syrek-interview/

We’ve just uploaded our interview with Terry Syrek to the Cracking the Code platform.

This interview is a revealing conversation about an elite player learning to live with a condition that severely affects his playing: focal dystonia.

We’re interested in learning more about musical health and the sorts of injuries guitarists face, and we were glad to have the chance to sit down with Terry and hear what it’s been like for him adapting to life with this disorder. He’s both a great player and a humble, friendly guy, and we hope you enjoy hearing his story.

You can find the full interview here:

Terry Syrek Interview

And here’s some additional detail about Terry and the interview, if you’re the yes-please-I-want-to-read-all-the-words type! —

Terry is not only an incredible shredder, but a vocalist, producer, writer, and instructor. He’s been recording and releasing music for decades, and has performed alongside such legends as Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, and Zakk Wylde. He studied at Berklee, and has over 20 years of teaching experience.

He also has focal dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that affects the motor control of his fingers and limits what he can play. It’s not well understood, and there’s no magic bullet treatment. Terry visited a number of experts to try to figure out what was going on, and his diagnosis was just the start of learning to live with a new reality.

While it’s altered his relationship to playing the guitar, this condition hasn’t entirely quelled Terry’s virtuoisic chops, and it certainly hasn’t dampened his musical creativity! In this interview, we learn how Terry found ways to continue to write innovate, virtuoso prog guitar excursions despite his dystonia.

The conversation ranges from Terry’s time studying at Berklee, and the rigors of professionally competitive practice schedules at a top-tier music school, to his journey of self-discovery and healing after being diagnosed with this condition.

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Focal Dystonia Fretting Hand
#2

Can’t wait to watch this!

Just one quick thing - the link in the middle of the page, the one that reads “Terry Syrek Interview” just brings you back to the page you’re on i.e. https://troygrady.com/2017/10/13/terry-syrek-interview/. when you click it. I’m guessing you want it to go to https://troygrady.com/interviews/terry-syrek/ ?

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#3

Very interesting and enjoyable interview. Always inspiring to see someone take a limitation and not let it hold them back. His tapping approach to 3nps scales sounds fantastic.

#4

He is an inspiration to all players!

#5

I’m going to have nightmares about this.

#6

Yes thanks @aliendough fixed the broken link there!

#8

Hi! Thanks for all the details here. Not sure why you deleted the post, which I thought was really interesting — and I don’t find anything controversial in what you wrote. The scientific and medical establishment may or may not yet be hip to the methods you’ve outlined. But one thing I can say about science is, if a thing can be proven to work, consistently, then they’re usually very interested in figuring out how it works.

From everything we’ve read on the subject, it does seem likely that dystonia has a neurological component, since there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the muscles and joints of the players who experience it. But that still doesn’t mean the structure you outlined can’t work. Whether we consider something pyschological or neurological ultimately is less important then whether we know what’s going on, and how to fix it. If you’ve had success in doing so, that’s totally something the world should know more about.

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#10

I think it was extremely interesting and I’m glad you took the time to post it.

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#11

You´re welcome! Hope to clear things up a bit.

#13

Really great interview, incredible how he’s managed to get around the problem. Out of interest did you ever meet with the doctor that was mentioned in the interview?

#14

We reached out and had general plans to do so, but couldn’t get on the hospital’s calendar and the email tag died. We can try firing that back up if there’s interest.

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#15

I’d be interested to see it if it works out. I’ve always been kind of interested in musical injury and ways of dealing with it. Something covereing repetitive strain injury could be helpful to a lot of people as well. Depends on your future plans obviously!

#16

Years ago I took lessons from a piano teacher who believed that dystonia and similar problems were the result of misuse of the body – problems with technique. The theory involved came from Abby Whiteside and Sophia Rosoff. The basic idea was that smaller levers – the fingers – were attempting to do work that should be done by the larger levers – the upper arm.

Pianists who tried very hard to make everything legato – making muscular, finger connections between notes – were the ones who tended to have problems. Pianists with superior technique – Art Tatum, for example – have fingers that “never move,” an illusion caused by letting the upper arm be in control of distances.

On the guitar, David Leisner is an example of someone with similar ideas, who managed to cure his own focal dystonia.

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#17

I thought it was revealing the number of times he talked about “will power” to achieve the objective. I feel he’s trying to micro-manage fast, intricate physical movements and you can’t force things to happen like that. You can’t micro-manage your legs to run faster either. Doing so on the guitar will likely throw up all kinds of physically dysfunctional movements, but they’re not the cause of the problem even though changing the movements might appear to help somewhat.

As Troy alluded, Gilbert, Malmsteen et al (the greats) might have caused the problem, but they didn’t do it that way themselves. Malmsteen said he never set out to play fast, it just came to him. I believe him, even though I wouldn’t believe everything he says.

There’s no joy, no music here IMO. Just a thought: Page has more females in his audience than Batio…

#18

I know this goes counter to everything everyone tells you but I find my greatest progress on the guitar comes when I do a bunch of practicing and get to a kind of plateau. I put the guitar down and think about the things I’ve learned and come back to it after a period of time. It might be a week or so. I might even pick it up for a few minutes or just a minute or two, then put it down. The idea is to not practice so much you’re causing inflammation in your muscles from constant overpracticing. If you’ve ever read about athletes overtraining it’s a similar principle to that - avoiding overtraining from constant repetition.

There’s a really interesting guitarist from Minnesota named Billy McLaughlin who experienced focal dystonia and he actually taught himself how to play all of his songs and everything backwards, that is, flipping his acoustic guitar around and playing left handed and formerly he’d been a “picking with the right hand, fretting with the left” player. There was a documentary on PBS about his journey. The issues started when he was having problems playing songs he’d written and played live in front of audiences for years.

I’ve also found that (and this gets into weirdo territory) that if I go onstage and puff myself up and believe I can do anything I usually can but if I worry about executing difficult passages it’s like a centipede wondering how all of its legs are moving to walk and you trip and fall.

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#19

Good point. A lot of learning happens when your brain’s rewiring itself away from the activity.

I think Billy McLaughlin was the person mentioned in the interview.

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#20

Very cool. Terry was a huge personal influence on me when I was 13 or so - bought his “Shred is not Dead” video and attended his class at National Guitar Workshop two summers in a row. Super nice guy and great teacher.

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#21

Hey guys, I’d just like to say thanks for watching the video I did with Troy. I had a great time, despite the heavy topic. I appreciate the support and kind words more than I can say! I’d also like to thank Troy, again, for having me. You guys are in good hands, here at this site; Troy is a fantastic player and educator!

-TS

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#22

Great to have you here Terry. I really enjoyed your interview, some fantastic playing. It’s incredible that you’ve overcome your problems in the way you have. Hope you’ll be featuring in future Code material at some point!

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#23

I think your comment on the last paragraph about believing you can do something is significant. Not just in guitar playing but in every facet of life really.
In my late 20’s -early30’s I found myself in a rut. I was working a mediocre job with a mediocre car and mediocre apartment. I was drinking pretty heavily and I was quite overweight.
One day, seemingly for no reason out of the blue I took a long hard look at myself and finally realized that my current path was one I wasn’t meant to go down. I BELIEVED I was meant for more.
I got some help for the drinking, i put myself through truck driving school, got myself to the gym and actually a few years later competed in a bodybuilding competition. I didn’t win the whole thing but I still came home with 2 trophies.
Today I’m married to an amazing woman, have a great job, drive a nice vehicle, own my own home and have tons on quality musical gear…all because I believed I could.
The power of the mind is undeniable.

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