WantzChas
Ok, so I've hit my second improvement wall since I started playing this amazing yet confusingly complex instrument. I've been playing for a bit more than 3 years, would rate myself a crappy 3 year player. I identified some of my playing pros and cons.
Pros:
*Good left hand speed;
*Pretty good at the galloping (triplets strumming) technique (think Iron Maiden type rythm);
*Does string skipping with ease;
*Can finger tap (start of One - Metallica solo and the whole of Midnight - Joe Satriani);
*Can play most chords and chord switches fluently
*Can play well with p and I fingers, fairly well with m and a fingers, knows some finger picking techniques
Cons:
*Still having problems with alternate picking (doesn't come naturally to me, have to really consentrate);
*Strumming technique sucks;
*Can get noisy with a lot of distortion, more noisy than I'd like;
*Music theory knowledge is poor, can't find an interesting way of teaching it to myself;
*Left and right hand coordination is poor;
*Mute strings when not wanting to
Can anyone give me some pointers on where to practice what, or someone who had a similar experience.
Dirk
Strumming - Use a metronome when practising strumming. That should surely improve your strumming.
Left and right hand coordination - start practising your scales at a slower tempo and move a few notches faster everytime you get comfortable with the speed.
Hope it helps ?
andrewjbryson
Learn Inside picking (John Petrucci has great instuctional video's on this)
Learn your fretboard notes, start by learning all the octaves and then 5ths, etc.
Learn Legato Technique (Left hand technique with use of hammer-on's and pull-offs)
You should be able to play licks with easy using only your left hand
(put your right hand behind your back / or grab a yo-yo and use your right hand to play with it)
to practice your right hand alternative picking, just take 1 note at a time and pick it at different tempos'
then add a few notes on different strings and at different spacings, and apply the same technique.
WantzChas
Thank you for the replies, will try all mentioned.
