You've Encountered (1) Warlock!

Hello, everyone! Warlock’s here.

I’m a college student (studying English, not Music) and I have been playing guitar for 7 years. I gravitate towards rock and funk music, but lately have been inspired by the likes of Paul Gilbert and Frank Zappa to improve upon my technique and improv chops.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the different picking techniques and the very physically-focused way of pick style that Troy goes over. I’m getting better at my single-string tremolo picking, but I find it difficult to transition into arpeggios or lines that use more than one string.

With this quarantining business, I’ve been meaning to get serious with building up my skills and setting a time about an hour after I wake up to shake off the sleep and practice for a good hour.

Along with doing my other practice regiment sections (warming up with some choice exercises from Troy Stetina’s Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar, sight reading from Techniques of Improv or reading up on Mick Goodrick’s The Advancing Guitarist), does anybody have any recommendations on how I should go about practicing or how much time I should start devoting to watching the videos and learning the licks?

It’s always a pleasure hearing back from you all! Based on the few forums I’ve read, this community seems pretty helpful in terms of critique and getting the most out of these lessons.

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I think Paul Gilbert has been one of the biggest influences regarding the alternate pick technique. Actually I had seen many of the instructional videos that I found on the web but I could not achieve the speed of the exercises until I knew the Troy channel. Seriously, the best content and the best community!

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Hi @Warlock thanks for signing up and welcome to the forum!

I’d suggest trying a search here on the forum for “practice routine” and any variations on that query. No one size fits all answer, but lots of good conversations here on that topic that I think may help you get started! And if you have any more specific follow up questions etc. definitely let us know :smiley:

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Hey Warlock, welcome abroad.

As Brendan just said, there are some nice conversations over here about practicing. Plus some nice lesson if you are subscribed to Master in Mechanics.

I’d recommend you the Now Kageyama lesson here in cracking the Code.

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