I love it when I read anything about technique, or listen to someone giving instructions on specific things to do/watch for, and find I'm already doing some of them. Makes me feel like I'm on the right track!
One of the things I noticed (among a couple) from that article, that I was already doing, was from time to time taking a step backwards and truly assessing how I'm playing- the mechanics, how the pick reacts..., really
anything that makes me ponder if my technique is following the things I've learned, or if I'm unaware that I'm temporarily reverting back to bad habits, usually because I'm more focused on something else.
As I make progress, and can see real improvements, I always take some time to go "back", either by slowing something down, or focusing strictly on only 1 or 2 aspects of my execution, and then move forward again. It helps to reinforce things, so that as I
do get better/faster/cleaner/more accurate, I can shift my concentration
away from the former parts of the process and onto the more difficult things, since they then become more and more automatic.
This entire journey is the most enjoyable part for me, at this time in my guitar-playing life. Especially when, like tonight, I go back to something I haven't played in a while, and find that it's getting easier, as well as better.
Tonight it was the string-skipping, arpeggio end solo from Dream Theater's
Innocence Faded. That whole section is one of the
coolest-sounding solos I've
ever heard! But it's really hard. I mean, just the memorization part is a real challenge.
And I am
terrible at learning this stuff by ear (and do not care to get better at
that part, haha), so I am SO glad we have great tabs available to us these days! There was only 1 single note on songsterr.com that was wrong in that ending solo. Which I was able to find, by ear, by playing along with the song.
www.youtube.com
