I’m a working guitar player who, like most professionals, makes his living through some touring, bar and wedding gigs, studio sessions, and teaching; I play a wide variety of styles well but not frighteningly haha. I have steady jazz, rock, r&b, and country gigs, and am using all sorts of right-hand techniques to play these competently, but only now am I able to focus and develop them more thoroughly. Until I stumbled upon Cracking the Code, I had intuitions about many of the concepts Troy covers, but no way to hone in on them or develop them to a higher level.
I started as a circle picker (using thumb extension and flexion to move the pick, with little attention to wrist, forearm, or elbow movement). After getting into Django, I learned the charms of rest-stroke picking, and thus DWPS (though I didn’t call it that, I just called it Gypsy picking) – as an aside, I have to further investigate whether SRV and Hendrix were DWPSers, because when I developed my DWPS, their style of licks had new-found gravity and authority for me. My interest in bebop and players like Billly Bean and Pat Martino lead me to a type of two-way pickslanting, maybe some crosspicking, I’m still not sure what I’m doing in this gear… This two-way/crosspicking approach has been the latest stage of my development. My interest in Troy’s material is to further develop and ultimately have real command of each technique, to know what I’m doing and why. I’m starting w/ DWPS exercises, and solidifying my playing more in this regard. I learned the Cliffs of Dover intro haha and can play it at 60% on the Amazing Slow Downer, and that has me thrilled lol.
If I had one question for all of you, it would be this: for the DWPSers among you, do you find yourself using wrist deviation or forearm rotation primarily? For me it’s mostly forearm rotation, though I’m working on deviation, which already is leading me to more relaxation, though I don’t have near the velocity yet. Again, I look forward to interacting with all of you in what I see as the Enlightment Age of right-hand technique for guitar players.