Just for fun, let’s maybe list people that we’d like to see on CtC that would realistically come on. I would definitely love to see Jimmy Herring, Dweezil Zappa and Isaiah Sharkey.
Paul Gilbert
Jason Richardson
Emil Werstler
The Great Kat (she’s in Long Island, she’s a handful though)
Frank Gambale
Marshall Harrison (updated magnet footage of his extremely fast economy and swi-brid picking)
Steve Terreberry (Stevie T/ YouTube)
Chris Gordon (Philly Area)
Valentino Francavilla
Joe Stump
My buddy Rick Renstrom would be interesting.
Hi Costanza.
I think the CtC team has already interviewed most of the players I would personally be interested in, though some of those interviews have not been released. For example, I believe that Frank Gambale and Scotty Anderson have both been interviewed, but the footage hasn’t been released in full.
I’d be very interested to see Scotty’s double-stop alternate picking analysed. His Hot Licks video really doesn’t capture the technique well, and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen here before.
I’d be somewhat interested in the Gambale interview too, but there is already so much footage of his picking technique in his instructional videos that we can easily analyse for ourselves that the release might be redundant. I do think the interviews with players who are acutely aware of their mechanics are most interesting though, and Frank certainly falls into that category.
I suspect that a “Crosspicking Primer” is in the works. I think another interview with Steve Morse, now that Troy and the team have a deeper understanding of crosspicking movements would also be interesting.
Once crosspicking instructional material is available, I’d like to see focus widen further. The puzzle of picking technique has mostly been solved, with the exception of a few outlying techniques, like Scotty’s double and triple stop picking.
I think that just interviewing our favourite players to analyse their individual approaches is unnecessary if their approaches already fit into the established paradigms of DWPS, UWPS, 2WPS and crosspicking. Unless the focus is on interviewing players who do something unusual or novel to achieve these established methods, or do something unusual or novel outside those established methods, I think the interviews will lead to dead ends, and this focus would ultimately lead to stagnation.
Angel Vivaldi is a monster player, and one of the most genuinely likable guys in the shred world I’ve ever met (I’ve had the good fortune to know him for a number of years now). I’d think an interview with him would be informative, but also just a lot of FUN.
EDIT - though Tom makes a great point, of course.
Fast guitar playing is a constant physical struggle for me and I kind of feel like as far as technique goes, there’s already enough material on CTC to keep me busy for a lifetime. Hopefully that ends up not being the case, but I’m finding myself more drawn to discussions on learning, memorization and improvising ideas than the purely technical discussion as of late. With that in mind, here are some great guitarists who I feel like I could take away some closer examinations from. Some of these guys are just from obscure bands I like and might not fit in with what other folks are looking for, but here we go anyways:
Rik Emmett (Triumph from Canada, one of my all time favourites)
Mark “The Shark” Shelton (Manilla Road from Wichita, KS)
Andy LaRocque (King Diamond, Sweden)
Russ Tippins and/or Steve Ramsey (Satan, UK. Great band from the early British metal movement and a huge influence on the USA thrash metal bands that followed. James Hetfield sports their patch on his vest. Russ in particular has a unique melodic style and the more recent Satan albums are a wonderful extension of that)
and of course there is the more modern wave of virtuoso players to pull from such is Rick Graham, Angel Vivaldi, Guthrie Govan etc etc.
I mentioned this in a previous thread but I think an examination of a high-octane Sarod player might open up a fresh perspective on DWPS. The picking functions work like gypsy players but I think western players could learn much about improv, melody and looking at the fretboard in a different way from a player like this.
Trey and Troy
Troy and Trey
Trey and Troy cumulation of joy
Robert Vigna
1;07 to 1;30 great picking ,with one hand he plays
and the other casts a spell
Rune Eriksen
(because in the world there is something more than blues, jazz and rock)
Jimmy Herring
Andy James
Pat Metheny - this would be a long shot though.
Would like to see the Joe Stump footage and the Frank Gambale footage that was shot years ago.
I’ll second Dweezil and a follow up Morse interview! But I’d like to see some of the older interviews edited together as well. Tommy Emmanuel, Rusty (though maybe just putting the Code archive stuff on the platform) Gameble, Stump and Scotty Anderson would all be very interesting to see!
Andy James is a textbook upward pickslanter. I’ve gone through some of his stuff and he does exclusively UWPS, as far as I know. An interview might not reveal anything that interesting, but I’d really love a livestream with Troy and Andy or something like that.
Andy sometimes talks about how certain things make some lines much easier for him and it’s clear that he doesn’t know why that is. I really hope he will get to learn about pickslanting, because his technique could easily get even more ridiculous and I’m sure he would like to know about this.
Allen Hinds
Chris Crocco
Chema Vilchez
Clint Strong
Dave Eichenberger
Dave Martone
Eduardo Vera
John Mclauhghlin
Johnny Hiland
Marco Sfogli
Nguyen Le
Pedro Andrea
Pat Martino
Paul Jackson Jr.
Robert Cray
Ron Jarzombek
Scott Mishoe
Ralf Kilauea
Tom Kilauea
Devin Townsend
I don’t know…Christian Muenzner ?
Masahiro Andoh
Kazumi Watanabe…
The Black Mages
I think @Brendan mentioned somewhere that they plan to get the old interviews up at some point. Not sure when though…if ever.
Yep we definitely have other old interviews we want to revisit
Quick explanation for those who haven’t been following Cracking the Code since way back — Troy first started interviewing a bunch of awesome players around a decade ago. This was before we had our whole web platform, or even a YouTube channel or any products, so a lot of what was filmed in those interviews is pretty different from how we do things currently. Lots of awesome playing of course, but some had issues with video/audio quality, or reflect gaps in our knowledge that have since become more apparent.
While we have our hands pretty full with new stuff, we have been going through and editing these older interviews as time allows, and have released many of them. Some we’re able to edit and put together a nice package without too much trouble; others may (for example) feel incomplete, or have major audio problems… In some cases there are players we want to arrange a follow up interview to feel like we’re doing them justice. We’ll continue to revisit these and do what we can to get them released.
I remember Troy on his old KardKlub Youtube channel, those were the days.
Ah I hadn’t realise that. I guess it’s all a learning curve isn’t it. Admittedly, the audio in the Marshall Harrison interview isn’t the greatest, but it’s still one of my favourites you’ve done. Some mental stuff in there.
On that note a follow up with him (or even better, a live broadcast) could be fun. He’s somehow got even better since you last saw him. His recent album where he plays Chopin etudes on the guitar is very impressive. Piano music makes for horrible shapes on guitar so would be interesting to see how he’s doing some of that. Plus I’m a Chopin nut, so I’m a little biased! Obviously it may not line up with future plans and flying him over from Texas probably wouldn’t be a cheap for anyone!
Jan Terri. (obligatory characters)
andreas oberg would be interesting, and rick graham. Julian Lage for sure but he might not be into it
FINALLY a decent suggestion! GET DOWN GOBLIN!!!
I definitely think Dweezil would be up for a CtC interview, he seems to be big on technique and he’s a gear head to boot.
Yeah I think he would be cool because he was a strict alternate guy for years before switching to economy to be able to play a lot of franks music thst was not necessarily written for the guitar. He mentions this in an interview.
I’d love to see a Bireli Lagrene interview - amazing player, Joscho mentions him several times. I also second an Oberg and Lage interview…