First off, welcome back! I hope that whatever experiences you've had to deal with recently are in the past, because losing you as an instructor would be a huge blow to GMC, and music in general.

Second, I've finally decided what kind of style I want to go into with guitar. The first lesson I learned on this site was Winding Roads, and so many parts of that just stuck out and had so much feeling in them. I've been watching and learning more things from other guitarists like Rob Marcello, Takayoshi Ohmura, and Takajii and I know for a fact that the Neoclassical style is for me.

However, I don't really know where to start. I've learned how to play (you don't have to look at these, just linking for anyone reading) Every Time and Pleasant Surprise from Takayoshi, as well as Old School by Rob Marcello, but from there on I don't really know where to go. I don't know many other artists that I can learn things from, considering they either don't have any tabs for their songs or aren't well known. I also can't really write my own music, and I don't know too many scales that would work well with Neoclassical.

So where did you start? Who did you learn from and what eventually pushed you through to play and come up with more neoclassical ideas/songs?

At the moment, all I can do is try and learn 1:15+ from this video and hope for the best . Sorry for being so wordy for such a simple question but I felt some things had to be explained.

Edit: I realize those videos may be very different, I'm just trying to explain the kind of music I'm aiming for.

This post has been edited by Ayen: Feb 10 2009, 04:30 AM

Hmm, I know this was a question for Marcus but I hope I can help with my opinion. I think that you are very closed as a musician if you only have one source to learning. Personally I try to learn in as many different ways as possible. I read tabs, I read notation (no I don't, but I try to and it's going better and better) but mostly I use my ears to guide my playing and to pick out the notes. What I'd recommend for you is to get a basic insight in music theory, it helps a lot. Especially in harmonic minor (if you're into Neoclassical).

However the last thing. Paganini, Bach, Vivaldi etc. Sure they aren't Neoclassical, they're Classical. You have tons of stuff to learn from those. Take a paganini caprice and you'll have things to do for a whole month.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amfCqFUMBkY

Here's an example.