I sent this as an email to Kris a few days ago and he, correctly, asked me to post it in the forum. So any thoughts would be appreciated, particularly the questions at the end...
Hi
I joined your website last week - I've been playing guitar for almost
15 years (on and off). I hadn't been playing for a couple of years
then decided I would like to give it another go, so I dusted off my
Gibson Les Paul, got my pick out and tried playing some stuff!!! Doh!
I was fairly crap!
I had played 15 years almost exclusively rhythm so when I tried to
play some Iron Maiden solos I failed miserably! BUT I found your
site, WOW what can I say - I've been doing the metronome exercises
for about 4 nights (1 hour each) and I can almost play some nifty
riffs - I still can't play the Iron Maiden solo but I guess with a
couple of months on the lessons I should be able to crack it. THANKS
a lot, it's a great site. It seems I was practicing the wrong things.
Just a couple of questions...
1) My worst habit was by picking in a down stroke only - I am really
trying to pick in both directions and short term it is slowing my
progress. In your opinion is this something that will fix itself if I
continue doing the exercises? I think my brain needs retraining!
2) I have been looking at your pentatonic scale stuff - again this is
fantastic and something I never even looked at in 15 years of
practice!!! I am struggling to 'improvise' at the moment (I suppose
I've only been really at it for about 4 days). Do you recommend I
stick to the exercises until I can get some confidence on the scales
or should I try to improvise at a slow speed to get a better feel for
moving around the fret board?
3) Can I become a rock start at 32? I hate my day job and I kind of
fancy doing the Download Festival at Donnington next year!!! Maybe
headline it the year after that!
Keep up the good work - Awesome stuff.