Unbelievable Anton Oparin!

Playing Technique
#167

Interesting to see how polarising Anton is. I have purchased, and watched all of his videos.

His ability is undeniable, and I personally cannot think of anyone with a better right hand. Don’t confuse your stylistic and musical preferences with reality.

People are making references to gypsy technique, or yngwie (rotational, circular etc) which are incredibly redundant. The purpose behind Anton’s approach is to be clean, synchronised, and without limitation.

In terms of his course, I found it lacking especially with respect to student feedback and engagement. The main ‘principles’ behind his right hand technique could be explained in a 10 minute lesson/email if you are an experienced CTC viewer.

I feel Anton would be able to add more value by offering one on one lessons which would facilitate real time feedback and corrections.

If you watch this latest video and skip to 1:54:55 you will see the one and only difference between Anton and what Troy has covered.

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#168

Does he offer any songs with solos in his course? How many?

#169

No, not for international students anyway (possibly he has a different course/system for Russian speaking students)

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#170

Hard pass, way to much money for nothing of any value in my opinion for my way of approaching music. If I at least cannot come away with 5-10 songs with solos that is an unreal amount of money. I know of plenty of other resources amongst the gypsy jazz community that offers way more for way less with very great quality lessons as well as learning a repetoire worth playing in a live setting.

#171

I think you’ve made your stance crystal clear, and I’m glad you’ve found an affordable ‘resource path’ that serves your goals…That’s what it’s all about :slight_smile:

My goal here is to offer some value to others genuinely interested in learning more about Anton. As stated, skip to 1:54:55 if you want more insight to his approach.

This is the CTC forum after all, there are probably better outlets for confirmation bias :wink:

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#175

The constant repetition of “with no limitations” feels a little bit culty, not going to lie.

#176

Ok so how does alternate picking have no limitations? I’d say it does if you are trying to play flowing arpeggios like a sweep picker is able to do. It’s physically impossible to alternate pick sweep picking arpeggios like that so therefore it’s pretty limited.

It’s pretty frustrating reading this thread with 0 evidence from the Oparin students when there are lots of videos and sharing from cracking the code users.

#177

You don’t understand.
His way of picking technique has no limitations compared to other ways.
Just watch the vid and you will see and hear.

Of course alternate in itself has limitations, as economy picking has as fingerpicking has etc…

#178

Please explain then? No limitations mean there is no limit when clearly there is a limit, there’s a limit to everything in guitar playing and life in general.

#179

Just watch the vid.

No limitations regarding to for instance the swiping, which is obvious in MAB and Steve Morse picking technique (Troy also pointed this out).
Stamina problems when switching to a different technique (from the ellbow instead of wrist) when playing very fast, like Martin Miller does (also noted by Troy when sitting down with him) etc……

With Anton’s technique there’s seems to be none of these problems/limitations.

#180

Which video? As I’ve seen the original one at the beginning of the thread.

I think what people want to see is Anton’s students playing to see some evidence, I definitely do.

#181

It’s another 2 hours long vid in the thread.

Here it is:

#182

I want to clarify a few things since there seems to be some misunderstanding in this thread.

What I posted about Anton is purely refering to his incredible picking technique.
It has nothing to do with musicality. There are players with far less picking technique then others which I like more because of what they play.
I myself for instance are a great fan of Allan Holdsworth because of his sound his music and what he plays; and it’s a lot of legato.

My point is that Anton proofs, by showing us, that he can play all the stuff off other well respected players because of their picking abilities, but using different techniques, with only one technique, and in most cases he plays it even cleaner.

If you don’t ike how he talks about it or his playing does not speak to you is a different story.
But, it’s a the fact that his picking technique is the best out there.

If this one technique will work for everyone? I can’t be sure.
But, his talking about the swimmers in the beginning of the vid, where he shows that they all have different physics but all use the same technique to get the best results, is an eye opener to me.

I also don’t think it is about the technique as in: you should hold the pick like this and move like this etc…, but it is more about understanding. Understanding of all the different muscles involved, how they work together etc… And how to study/practice all the things in order to reach such incredible level.
I think/hope that is what his academy is about, and then this could well work for everyone.

3 Likes
#183

Can you tell him to update his site with the different purchasing options for separate items? Lol

#185

Again, this is a hard thing to prove, and it’s only going to be taken badly by people, even if they have an open mind to that idea.

This directly goes against the “one true technique” argument. If it’s more about an “understanding of all the different muscles involved”, CTC has literally broken that down already.

Another issue there that’s been highlighted is that no one came say what his academy is about. Tailored feedback from him about your picking? A detailed training plan based on progressively hard picking lines? Who knows.

I’ll repeat what I asked @sergeylaz9512 in the other thread that was deleted: is the quality of his students “better” or somehow different than CTC members? The videos posted of his students were riffs that have been posted here. It’s not like they’re playing these crazy string-skipping lines that Anton is (again, to reiterate, no one is taking away the fact that Anton IS a monster player).

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#187

Some / most of those posts were deleted, and / or were definitely troll posts. But even then, this site DOES have a search function they can use, or just click on member’s profiles to see if they’ve posted themselves playing.

I’ll repeat my sentiment here since that other thread was deleted: I don’t think these are the kinds of interactions that Anton would want from his students / fans.

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#189

If you mean Anton’s playing, then yes, but he used economy or at least uwps with alternate on the descending musical side. Or maybe was two way directional economy didnt really analyze to far. And then pure alternate picking to show his rick graham love. Like I stated higher up Cesario does this kind of thing as well, he isnt the only guy, as i am sure max ostro does, and a slew of other players on JTC guitar know how to utilize different techniques for different phrasing passages.

#190

Hi Andyjoy, I agree with you that Anton’s technique is amazing, and that this is a topic well worth discussing. Sorry if I misrepresented the discussion as “who is the best player”, I understand your point in opening this thread and again I agree it’s a useful discussion if we keep it on topic.

What I would please ask everyone to do (both “CTC fans” and “Anton’s fans” and anyone in between) is to please stop fueling the unproductive discussion about Anton’s school, whether it’s better / worse that CTC, the associated “come at me bro” challenges to post video evidence, discussion of possible scams etc. If that continues, we may have no choice but to lock the thread which would not be nice towards Andyjoy.

Please note that having these sorts of attacks (in both directions) on here could be harmful (both reputation and business-wise) for both Anton’s school and CTC. We don’t want to become yet another internet forum packed full of drama, and we certainly don’t want to start a “war” of sorts between different guitar schools.

PS: I hope this is obvious but I would also say that Troy and I never said that CTC should be to the exclusion of other sounrces of music education. We are very happy for people to try other music schools, guitar programs and whatnot. Take the best you can from all of them! I myself buy lessons from other sources every now and then (Rick Graham, Andy James, Gambale, etc.)

2 Likes
#191

Hi Andyjoy, I agree with you that Anton’s technique is amazing, and that this is a topic well worth discussing. Sorry if I misrepresented the discussion as “who is the best player”, I understand your point in opening this thread and again I agree it’s a useful discussion if we keep it on topic.

What I would please ask everyone to do (both “CTC fans” and “Anton’s fans” and anyone in between) is to please stop fueling the unproductive discussion about Anton’s school, whether it’s better / worse that CTC, the associated “come at me bro” challenges to post video evidence, discussion of possible scams etc. If that continues, we may have no choice but to lock the thread which would not be nice towards Andyjoy.

Please note that having these sorts of attacks (in both directions) on here could be harmful for both Anton’s school and CTC. We don’t want to become yet another internet forum packed full of drama, and we certainly don’t want to start a “war” of sorts between different guitar schools.

PS: I hope this is obvious to most, but Troy (or I) never said that CTC should be to the exclusion of any other guitar or music schools. I.e. we’re very happy for people to try many different education sources and take what’s best for them from each.

I myself occasionally buy lessons from players like Rick Graham, Frank Gambale, Andy James, etc. I will also consider buying Anton’s “changing strings” lesson if he makes a self-contained paid lesson about it.

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#192

Sounds good. I’m gonna leave it at that for this topic! :love_you_gesture:

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