Everyone's weakest technique...

[distressed_romeo]

What areas of technique does everyone have to work hardest at? By this I mean the physical act of playing, not things like theory, sight-reading or aural skills.

For me it's pure alternate picking for lead playing (not so much of an issue for rhythm). Don't know why, but for some reason sweeping and legato came pretty naturally to me early one, whereas speed-picking didn't. It's started to come together in the past year or so, but obviously, there's always something that needs improving.
IM-style fingerpicking is still awkward for me as well, although that seems to be a common complaint.

 

[DDDorian]

Right-hand muting while playing with distortion has long been and still is my biggest problem, much to my chagrin.

 

[Popsyche]

Timing! All thee time timing!

 

[OzzyC]

playing anything with 16ths over 120

and sometimes i have a little trouble with getting the correct fingeting for chords im not to familiar with...like F7(#5)

 

[Nik]

Sweeping. My hands just refuse to do it.

And I would assume two-handed, multi-string tapping, Eklundh style, although that's so crazy I've never even attempted it

 

[Tybanez]

Jeez,where do i start. My alternate picking is a bugger. I have put in time in the past two years. I have been playing for 17 years and did not know how to practice alternate picking till I got John Petruccis DVD. Wow, Much thanx to JP for that.His DVD is worth its weight in gold to me.

 

[Cancer]

Kiss closing women in bars, seems I can get there numbers, but after that ...nada.

Oh wait, you mean guitar techniques...

For me its classical guitar fingerpicking, I could never get comfortable with that, maybe someday, but not today.

 

[HotRodded7321]

Sweeping. My hands just refuse to do it.

I can do 4 string sweeps....that's it. for now, anyways. I'm slowly getting better, but for some reason, I just can't nail em.

 

[Alpo]

I have the most trouble with complicated chord shapes. My left hand doesn't want to cooperate, and the right hand goes down with it.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

trills/hammer-ons/pull-offs that make no use of the index finger, legato, and tapping chords (with either or both hands).

 

[Durero]

For me it's pure alternate picking for lead playing (not so much of an issue for rhythm).

Funny, I'd say it's the same for me, but certainly not because sweep-picking came early or easily.

I spent many years practicing full-on Gilbert-style alternate-picking shredding, and became pretty fast at it. I thought Frank Gambale was an alien freak, and that sweep-picking was impossible for mere human beings.

Then around '93 I met a friend who sweep-picked all the time - and did it right in front of my face!
So I thought I should give it another go - and after about 2 years of practice I began to feel confident enough to prefer it over alternate-picking. Without really noticing, I preceded to abandon alternate picking for leads and sweep and/or legato everything.

I quite miss the alternate picking speed I used to have, and the aggressive pick sound it makes - but I have a hard time sustaining that much tension in my arm when I can sweep notes faster with about a quarter of the effort.

Now I try to practice the alternate picking sometimes, but I'm not sure I'll ever get my old speed & sound back.

 

[Ancestor]

String skipping, which sucks because I just wrote a song that skips a string in the main riff. And by string skipping, by no means am I talking about the insane speeds that Gilbert achieves. Just normal speed. But I'm working on it.

 

[JPMDan]

Alternate picking
Sweeping
String Skipping
Legato
Tapping


yeah.... slacker right here!

 

[nitelightboy]

Lately, I haven't been playing much. Actually, I don't think I've played since around Halloween. SO I've been working on getting my sound tightened up again for the past week or so. While I'm doing that, I'm working on my alternate picked string skips.

 

[Metal Ken]

strict alternate picking in scales above 160bpm... i can get it there, but then i have to work my ass off to keep it above that.

 

[eaeolian]

I'd say I need work in every area other than actually picking up the guitar.

My legato-style playing sucks. I could also use more triplet work in the 120-160 range - I'm fine faster than that, but very sloppy in that BPM range. Although changing my right hand technique has helped that a lot...

 

[Metal Ken]

I'd say I need work in every area other than actually picking up the guitar.

My legato-style playing sucks. I could also use more triplet work in the 120-160 range - I'm fine faster than that, but very sloppy in that BPM range. Although changing my right hand technique has helped that a lot...

The thing that made me click in getting my left hand to do things it needed it do in that BPM range was modifying my technique slightly. Kinda like the difference between walking and running, you cant exactly run by walking really really fast. Once i had that realization, i was able to progress more easily.

 

[eaeolian]

The thing that made me click in getting my left hand to do things it needed it do in that BPM range was modifying my technique slightly. Kinda like the difference between walking and running, you cant exactly run by walking really really fast. Once i had that realization, i was able to progress more easily.

That's a good analogy, and one I never though of - the "gait" is certainly different. Thanks!

When we played with Zero Hour back in November, Jasun suggested that I "tighten up" my right hand (I played with my ring and pinky finger "splayed out"), and it's definitely helped tighten that up. However, I suspect that I'll just have to spend more metronome time to really get it to when I want it...

 

[Emperoff]

Well, I think my weak points would be...

- Muting
- Left-Right hand sync on alternate picking (I pick damn faster than my left hand can handle)
- 5-string sweeps

 

[Metal Ken]

That's a good analogy, and one I never though of - the "gait" is certainly different. Thanks!

When we played with Zero Hour back in November, Jasun suggested that I "tighten up" my right hand (I played with my ring and pinky finger "splayed out"), and it's definitely helped tighten that up. However, I suspect that I'll just have to spend more metronome time to really get it to when I want it...

Yeah, i had this 'barrier' for a while at 135BPM... i couldnt get past it, and i couldnt figure out what i was doing wrong.
i could play faster when i wasnt playing with a metronome, quite easily in fact - but i wanted to get my technique better, hence the metronome practice. But for some reason when i hit that tempo, it just wouldnt go, AT ALL. It was like a roadblock. then i stepped back and took a look at it, and thats when i realized, i had gotten the 'walk' as fast as i could get it, so i modified my technique and see if i could still keep it in time, and low and behold it worked. the only thing was practicing that particular type of playing is kinda hard to do since you can't exactly practice it slow. Thats probably why it took me a while to get what was going on there.