# Guilty Confessions on Guitar Playing



## Thyber (Oct 5, 2012)

In the 8 years I'm playing guitar, the first 3 years were without ever meeting a drummer.

Because of that, my playing style implemented a massive amount of tight mute picking , to emulate the sound I heard on songs.

I only realized after my first band experience, that the sound I thought was brought by guitar, was mainly the sound of the double bass... 

 I felt so stupid, but it gave me a fast picking technique which is still "unprecedented" in my group of befriended guitarplayers . 

I was wondering, what were your "misconceptions" on certain techniques you have/had ... perhaps I can have some OMG  moments of my own.

an other one of my misconceptions is due to a DVD by Nick Bowcott (Grim Reaper) in which he uses his pinkie finger to do powerchords, I know it's wrong, but it's so freaking "lazy easy"


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## leftyguitarjoe (Oct 5, 2012)

I always use my pinkie for power chords. How is that wrong?


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Oct 5, 2012)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> I always use my pinkie for power chords. How is that wrong?



I also do this.


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## ASoC (Oct 5, 2012)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> I always use my pinkie for power chords. How is that wrong?



You can't spider chord if you do that 

I played by myself for many years and I never really learned how to alternate pick. I still don't really alternate pick  as a result, when I learn solos and such I end up rewriting most of them to fit my playing style. Its hard as hell to do those triplet runs at 200 when you can't alternate pick  

I keep telling myself I'm going to sit down with a met and work it out, but that never happens


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## Luke Acacia (Oct 5, 2012)

I use to think that the "chug" sound had something to do with the pick ups and the fret board hand. I remember watching shadows fall dvds and they were chugging without even touching the guitar which blew my mind.


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## poopyalligator (Oct 5, 2012)

I used to play without a metronome, and then when i first played with a drummer and other players I realized that my timing was pure shit. Then I started using one, and now when I play with other people, I realize their timing is shit lol.


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## MrPepperoniNipples (Oct 5, 2012)

Debated whether or not to put a Mean Girls reference here.

I only have 1 chop for alternate picking


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## subject aftermath (Oct 5, 2012)

Same. Never played with a metronome, when I started playing in bands it was horrendous. Three years later, I can say I was absolutely shit back then haha


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## larry (Oct 5, 2012)

ah, i have one..
when i was 18 or 19, i bought a copy of
'and justice for all'. well, the first song
starts with a fade in of some harmonized 
guitar.. i'm sure you guys know it. 

after hearing it and shitting a brick, i make
a speedy drive to the local music store and
ask the dude at the counter which pedal 
makes your guitar harmonize. he says:
"well man, hate to crush your dreams but
it's actually two guitars playing in harmony.
you can try and pull this off with a boss harmonist
pedal or an eventide if you can afford one, but
best bet is to get one of your guitar friends to
learn the other line and play it."

i had just moved to FL at that point and didn't 
know anyone. forget guitar friends, i didn't have
friends to begin with. sad panda was sad..


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## BIG ND SWEATY (Oct 5, 2012)

i dont ever use my pinky to fret


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## theo (Oct 5, 2012)

I never really learned alternate picking, instead I did a lot of economy picking. Without knowing what the two were. Still having a hard time getting alternate picking to feel comfortable and correct.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Oct 5, 2012)

Yeah, I can't alternate pick for shit, either. When doing leads, I do mostly hammer ons and let my fretting hand "pick" the notes.


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## SirMyghin (Oct 5, 2012)

I never really had these problems I am just a terribly mediocre guitarist.


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## vampiregenocide (Oct 5, 2012)

I only started learning to alt pick a couple years ago, and I still suck.


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## imlikemike (Oct 5, 2012)

I pretty much always use my pinky and ring finger in power chords. For me, I've always had kind of a weird picking style. I tend to anchor my pinky most of the time, but occasionally I catch myself with my ring finger wrapped under the top string. However for fast trem picking stuff my hand goes into a fist... my hand just kind of changes automatically depending on what I'm playing lol.


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## Atomshipped (Oct 5, 2012)

I used to think that you had to palm mute to get distortion. LOL


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## tacotiklah (Oct 5, 2012)

I've been playing for over 10 years and I still cannot properly sweep on more than 3 strings.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Oct 5, 2012)

ghstofperdition said:


> I've been playing for over 10 years and I still cannot properly sweep on more than 3 strings.



I can't sweep at all after 6 years of playing.


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## SirMyghin (Oct 5, 2012)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> I can't sweep at all after 6 years of playing.



I think sweeping runs sound terribly lame and use this as an excuse not to learn to sweep. Worked for Steve Morse


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Oct 5, 2012)

SirMyghin said:


> I think sweeping runs sound terribly lame and use this as an excuse not to learn to sweep. Worked for Steve Morse



I just say it's not my style.


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## splinter8451 (Oct 5, 2012)

I've been playing for 8 years and I can't sweep for shit  I can sweep a few strings if I REALLY try but forget big ass Loomis style sweeps.


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## squid-boy (Oct 5, 2012)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> I always use my pinkie for power chords. How is that wrong?



Same. It just feels more natural to me to use my pinky. 



poopyalligator said:


> I used to play without a metronome, and then when i first played with a drummer and other players I realized that my timing was pure shit. Then I started using one, and now when I play with other people, I realize their timing is shit lol.



Oh, god. I did the same thing, but probably a bit more embarrassing. Lets just say that I practice WITH a metronome now. 



SirMyghin said:


> I never really had these problems I am just a terribly mediocre guitarist.



I feel the same way about my playing. I tell my hands to bippity-bop, but my bippity don't bop. 

EDIT: My particularly guilty/embarrassing guitar confessional: I feel like I'm absolutely horrible at fingerstyle playing. I can pluck and pick fine with my index, middle, and even my ring finger at times, but that's if I've practice the particular pattern, riff, or lick... If it's just jamming along and fiddling about... what a train wreck. I feel as if my fingers are no longer a part of my body.


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## tacotiklah (Oct 5, 2012)

It took me 5-6 years before I even started using my pinky in my playing. Also, every dumb mistake you should never make while performing or playing in a band, I've probably done at some point.


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## toiletstand (Oct 5, 2012)

when i was 14 my girlfriends dad let me borrow his Fender sea foam strat. first electric guitar i ever held. i thought that moving the pickup selector switch would turn on the distortion.


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## AcousticMinja (Oct 5, 2012)

I use my pinky all the time in power chords...

I also still to this day don't know what a D, C, C#minor, E, etc chord is. I taught myself how to play years ago and ever since then, I just have played by ear. I know a G...but that's about it. All the other chords I play I've "made up" or just did random placement to find the sound I wanted.


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## WhiteWalls (Oct 5, 2012)

I still remember when I got my first amp as a gift, and I couldn't get the sound I heard in my punk-rock cds. It turns out the amp only had a clean channel, and I was completely sure that it was my fault and I just wasn't playing hard enough to get the distortion 

About a year later I had to google how to palm mute because I felt that my palm muting technique, which consisted of fretting a note and putting another finger right after it to mute the string, wasn't really giving me the effect I desired.

Oh, and I've been playing for almost 9 years now and I can't sweep more than 3 strings. I never cared for any kind of soloing, but that's still lame


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## Lagtastic (Oct 5, 2012)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> I always use my pinkie for power chords. How is that wrong?



Below the 5th fret or so, I do the same. 

One day I realized my pinky was my weakest finger on my fretting hand. I saw some guitarists doing it, and thought i would simply do it to build up some pinky strength. years later, I still do it on the lower frets. To be honest, it worked. Above the 5th fret I still use my 3rd finger. At times playing live I use my second finger for power chords when I know a beginner guitarist is watching me closely and I want to be an ass.


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## poopyalligator (Oct 5, 2012)

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> i dont ever use my pinky to fret




How do you play any chords?


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## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Oct 6, 2012)

I'm a great technical player, but my song structuring is kinda boring. Standard Intro-verse-pre verse-chorus stuff, with the riff repeating 2 or 4 times. I'm changing it up on one of my songs by starting with the chorus, though, and coming up with a completely different riff for the last minute or 2 XD


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## CrushingAnvil (Oct 6, 2012)

I'm an amazing guitar player, so I have nothing.


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## WhiteWalls (Oct 6, 2012)

CrushingAnvil said:


> I'm an amazing guitar player, so I have nothing.


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## BornToLooze (Oct 6, 2012)

Well for starters I've been playing for like 8 years and still can't solo to save my life, even something like the beginning of Revolver Blast by Deluhi which is just 32nd notes at like 200 or 210 bpm on one string, despite the fact I can play most Amon Amarth stuff faster than the song.

I've also finally learned how to alternate pick in the past couple months. Even though it isn't that clean yet, I can still do it farely fast on rhythm stuff.

Also since I have really bad ADD I have trouble just sitting down and learning something, which is one of the reasons I can't solo. It also led to me not actually learning some of the harder rhythm parts in songs and just playing them fast enough you couldn't tell the difference. For exampe, in Battery by Metallica I used to play it at like 220 bpm so you couldn't tell the difference in gallops and straight 16th notes.

And since I've been working on soloing my pinky looks like it's having a seizure or something. I can keep all of my other fingers close to the fretboard, but since I never really used my pinky for riffs, I never got used to keeping it as close to the strings as I can. So basically while I'm practicing my pinky looks like a cancan dancer or whatever they're called.

But my main two things are for the past 6 years, I've been using Guitar Pro as a crutch for actually learning songs. Playing along in guitar pro I can play whatever, but take that away and I'm basically like, "Uhhhhhhh...I can play you the main riff for Master of Puppets and Cocaine Blues, that's about it."

And the thing that I'm still kicking myself in the ass for is when I quit guitar lessons because I thought I'll never need to know theory or scales, I just wanna rock out. Because at the time I was into stuff like Green Day and My Chemical Romance I didn't want to learn theory or anything because I thought that was only for those stupid metalheads that sit there and solo all day (boy how I've changed huh?). I quit because he wouldn't teach me how to play American Idiot by Green Day. Boy wasn't it great to be 15 and stupid.....


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## Kidneythief (Oct 6, 2012)

Too many, and I've been playing for almost 9 years now on electric guitar. Last 2 years was on a 7s.

Well let's see:
-can't sweep pick
-not good at all at shredding
-from this comes naturally, that I'm having a hard time if I want to learn solos, and in the end I just give up
-music theory is shite

But what still remains positive:
-I still have a good feel for rythm
-can come up with grooves/riffs

So yeah overall I'm still a good rythm player. But since I started listening to Animals as Leaders, Fred Brum and some other songs/bands I regret not knowing as much as I should


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## sggod89 (Oct 6, 2012)

Sloppy 5-string sweeps AFTER YEARS of being able to play 3-string sweeps flawlessly


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## AChRush1349 (Oct 6, 2012)

ghstofperdition said:


> I've been playing for over 10 years and I still cannot properly sweep on more than 3 strings.


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## BornToLooze (Oct 6, 2012)

Warning: This is a long drunken rant that I probably won't remember typing in the morning

One other thing, when I first started, I had one amp and one guitar. I didn't know anything about different amps or woods or pickups or woods or scale length and 7 string guitars were for those idiots that like Korn. I liked guitars simply on the fact that they looked cool. I could just plug in, crank my amp up and have the time of my life playing. I most likely wasn't playing it right and probably sounded horrible, but damn was it fun. Now, I want this guitar because it's got this wood and these pickups, and I don't want that one because it has that wood and those pickups, and I need a guitar for E standard and one for Eb, and one for D and a 7 in B standard on one in drop G# and all my guitars need to be mahogany with a maple neck and have a Bill Lawrence 500XL in the bridge and a SD 59 in the neck. And I have to use this set of strings on this guitar since its for this tuning, and this set on this guitar, and I need these picks or I can't play right. And on my POD I have this preset for this song, and this preset for this song, and this preset for this song. And I have to learn this song perfectly so I can record it and put a video on Youtube even though nobody watches covers on Youtube anymore. And I need a Mayones, a couple Caparisons, a couple custom shop ESPs, a couple 7s, a handful of 6s, a 4 string bass, a few 5s, an acoustic or 2, a Daemoness because holy shit, look at those inlays, you know what, I really need a Blackmachine too, and while I'm at it I might as well learn how to play the banjo, and since Petri Lindroos has a Kramer Baretta I should really try one. And I'll just sit there all night trying to learn some song that I know it'll take me gods knows how long to learn that I probably won't be able to remember anyways.


Tl:dr: Back in the day I didn't know anything about guitars or pickups or anything, but I had a blast playing. Now I worry more about having a certain set of pickup and strings and picks and amp and all that than I do on having fun playing. Because while I still love guitar and love playing, it isn't as fun as it used to be when I didn't care about gear and what guitar I had, or even if my guitar was set up half way decent.



Tl:dr was too long: Now I worry more about my gear and sounding good that I do about having fun playing, and honestly, I had more fun playing when I first started playing guitar.


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## Curt (Oct 6, 2012)

Can't sweep to save my life. And though I like blues influenced soloing, I want to be a bit more technical. I often only stick to pentatonic boxes because I was a huge blues nut starting out.
Speaking of which, I need to learn to adapt the theory I do know to guitar. I can play scales on piano very well, and can make decent compositions as well. Sight-reading music was a breeze on piano but because I don't know the fretboard well, I stumble trying the same for guitar.

And if anyone can point me towards a good sweep lesson, +rep for you.


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## ihunda (Oct 6, 2012)

Ah ah, good thread. I used to drop D my floyd rose guitar without retuning the other strings. 

That was 10 years ago, now I realize it must have sounded like shit, completly out of tune as changing the floyd tension on one string impacts the others!

I was very very lame


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## tacotiklah (Oct 6, 2012)

SirMyghin said:


> I think sweeping runs sound terribly lame and use this as an excuse not to learn to sweep. Worked for Steve Morse



I don't think they're lame unless you abuse the shit out of them and make them the basis of everything you play. Like the noobs that sweep everything over Emmure style chugging and blast beats. (Rings of Saturn comes to mind on this)

But that can be true of any guitar technique or writing style. Keep things in balance, and it will stay fresh and interesting.


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## Bekanor (Oct 6, 2012)

I have the ugliest looking right hand technique ever purely because I hold my pick between the flesh of my thumb and index finger. Not sure if I described that correctly, I mean the parts where the finger/thumb prints are. 

I have pretty good right hand technique in general but god does it look awkward.


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## Azathoth43 (Oct 6, 2012)

Right before I started playing I thought if you broke a string you had to replace the guitar.

But the most embarrassing was that for the first few years of playing I had no concept of tuning the strings to a pitch. I could tune the strings to themselves I just didn't know EBGDAE existed.


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## maliciousteve (Oct 6, 2012)

After 15 years of playing I still struggle with understanding modes. It's not a big deal but it's something I've always wanted to fully understand.

Maybe I'm over complicating things.

I also used to think that I had to turn my amps volume to 10 to be able to get distortion. Didn't figure things out until about a year or so of playing. I also used to scoop my mids to 0 with the gain on 10.


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## Hallic (Oct 6, 2012)

I though a power chord was a chord for the first few years, instead its just 2 notes..


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## BucketheadRules (Oct 6, 2012)

I try to avoid doing full 2-fret bends wherever I can get away with it. Usually I move one fret higher up and just bend by a semitone.

It actually works in a lot of cases too.

Oh, and I used to do all my bending and vibrato with my thumb BEHIND the neck. Which is probably why it sounded shit.


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## BIG ND SWEATY (Oct 6, 2012)

poopyalligator said:


> How do you play any chords?



i use it in chords but thats the only time, its like how Michael keene plays but im nowhere near that good


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## SirMyghin (Oct 6, 2012)

BornToLooze said:


> Tl:dr was too long: Now I worry more about my gear and sounding good that I do about having fun playing, and honestly, I had more fun playing when I first started playing guitar.



You can stop caring and just have fun again eh? (seriously,do it).


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## Mexi (Oct 6, 2012)

Kidneythief said:


> Too many, and I've been playing for almost 9 years now on electric guitar. Last 2 years was on a 7s.
> 
> Well let's see:
> -can't sweep pick
> ...



pretty much in the same boat


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## Thyber (Oct 6, 2012)

Another confession on my end :

I have no idea when someone wants to do a Jam in E ... or A or... It's not a drama when he starts the chords, I can manage a lead / harmony on that. But when I do the chords, I'll just end up doing random stuff around the chord of the key we're started.


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## Furtive Glance (Oct 6, 2012)

Shit at theory.

Never learned Stairway or any of those other "must know" songs.


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## morrowcosom (Oct 6, 2012)

For the first couple of years I was playing I did not know that you were supposed to tune the B-string to the 4th fret of the G-string. 

After I learned that, I thought it was stupid because I could not play power chords on the G and B string with the same finger position as I could on the other adjacent strings. 

I also believed that if you played as fast as possible the notes would sort of fall into rhythm. Then I played bass and realized I had the rhythm of a three year old having a seizure.

When I first started playing a person told me that I could imitate a wah pedal by bending two strings toward one another. I did this over and over and I could not get the wah sound, so I thought I was not doing it right.


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## The Norsemen (Oct 6, 2012)




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## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Oct 7, 2012)

A few more:

For about 2 months, I didn't even have a concept of tuning a guitar. DERP. I can only imagine how bad that must have been my mother, a former musician herself.

I'm a decent soloist, but when improvising, I basically go all Thordendal - do whatever, and it'll either sound good, or like absolute shit.

If I'm trying to learn a song, and it becomes too hard, I usually just give up. I lack the drive to learn a difficult song.

I know my scales, and a few of my modes, but only in one pattern for each. If you told me to solo in a certain key, without using those patterns, and be able to point out every note on the fretboard that fits in that scale, forget about it.

I only know two sweep shapes - the two used at the intro to My Will Be Done by Unearth. And don't even get my to try and do stuff where you need to roll one finger across the strings.

I can't write a song unless I force myself to. I know that's not how you're supposed to do it, but otherwise it never gets done. It remains in limbo otherwise. There are so many ideas floating around my head, but I've only written 2 actual full songs.

I'm sure there's others, I just can't think of any at the moment, and it's late, I'm tired, and my brain is full of Pokemon, TesseracT, Ponies, and Devin Townsend.

And fuck. My brain is full of fuck.


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## RedSkull (Oct 7, 2012)

I didnt change guitar strings for the first 2 years of my guitar learning life. I was at the point where only the top 3 low strings were still on (I was 15 for the record). After that older dude I came across dont remember where changed them for me, my little no name 10 watts amp suddenly started sounding like a mesa boogie hahaha

My brother teached me the A to G chords and their names once but I totally forgot them so the only theory I know (and need) about guitar is power chords and PALM MUTTTTTEEEEEEEEEE YEAHHHHHHHH

I never took class so I suck at leads big time, good thing I have a really good ear so Im a good lick writer in general

I've got the Dino Cazares picking hand so im a pretty cool death metal rythm player


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## CrushingAnvil (Oct 7, 2012)

Curt said:


> *Can't sweep to save my life*. And though I like blues influenced soloing, I want to be a bit more technical. I often only stick to pentatonic boxes because I was a huge blues nut starting out.
> Speaking of which, I need to learn to adapt the theory I do know to guitar. I can play scales on piano very well, and can make decent compositions as well. Sight-reading music was a breeze on piano but because I don't know the fretboard well, I stumble trying the same for guitar.
> 
> And if anyone can point me towards a good sweep lesson, +rep for you.



One time I had to sweep to save my own life and I lived


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## Cdub (Oct 7, 2012)

I'm decent at sweeping, but I hate rolling one finger across two strings at the same fret. It doesn't feel precision to me. Then I'm like, "2 strings, one fret....two girls one cup...."
I used to make a pick-hand fist when I palm mute trem picked, but I broke the habit 
For 2 years, I focused on technique and how my heroes played their songs.one day my friend was talking about some punk rocker's "guitar tone", I was like,,"you're weird. It's either distortion or clean,.maybe delay, wah, whammy..."

Pfff, tone. Who cares about "tone"?

Years later, I prefer to play without an amp because my amp doesn't satisfy me. The tone sucks... My guitar sounds GREAT!......unplugged.


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## Empryrean (Oct 7, 2012)

I've been playing 7 years now, and I can't sight read (while playing)


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## BornToLooze (Oct 7, 2012)

That's another thing, I can read sheet music just fine, it just take me about 5 minutes to figure out 1 bar.



EDIT: Also, and this is probably the cardinal sin as a metalhead, but I can't headbang and play guitar at the same time.


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## AmbienT (Oct 7, 2012)

I learnt how to cleanly 5 string sweep 25 notes in about 2.5 seconds before I learnt basic guitar chords 

EDIT: oh, and when I first started playing I thought a Floyd Rose was some sort of flower decal


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## Winspear (Oct 7, 2012)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> I always use my pinkie for power chords. How is that wrong?



 I actually play powerchords with index-ring-pinky and always hear that 3 fingered powerchords are retarded. Love it haha. Leaves middle clear for the tritone and pinky can move up. Works perfectly for me.



poopyalligator said:


> I used to play without a metronome, and then when i first played with a drummer and other players I realized that my timing was pure shit. Then I started using one, and now when I play with other people, I realize their timing is shit lol.



This. It wasn't until I started recording myself that I realised how much I sucked. None of my friends record themselves or practice to a click and I can't stand to listen to them play anymore , and I'm not even incredibly tight yet 



vampiregenocide said:


> I only started learning to alt pick a couple years ago, and I still suck.



I can't alt pick for shit. I think I have really good technique and it really doesn't hinder me much, but I honestly can't get past 16th notes at about 110bpm which is pathetically slow. I can play a lot faster than that with most riffs or solos that aren't straight alt picking, but give me more than a second of alt picking, or some thrash or metalcore type song and I wont be able to play it for shit. This is after a year of running alt picking exercises for at _least_ a few hours a week.


This one isn't me but needs posting: Dude I know didn't know what an octave was despite being in a signed metalcore band


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## HaMMerHeD (Oct 7, 2012)

In spite of having played bass for 19 years, I can play guitar about as well as a guitarist who has been playing about 2 weeks.


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## blister7321 (Oct 7, 2012)

i cant fingerpick to save my ass
i cant sweep 
im the least technical guitarist i know
but im the only one who can alternate pick
first 2 years of playing all i did was listen to and justice for all and master of puppets and try to play that fast and i could pick that fast i just cant solo for shit


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## Cynic (Oct 7, 2012)

BIG ND SWEATY said:


> i dont ever use my pinky to fret



welcome to ss.org, michael keene!


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## Curt (Oct 7, 2012)

CrushingAnvil said:


> One time I had to sweep to save my own life and I lived


 Is that expression not used elsewhere in the world?


Or are you fucking with me?


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## AliceLG (Oct 8, 2012)

Oh where to start? In the very beginning, when I had no guitar/bass or musician friends, I thought the first fret was the closest to the bridge  I also built myself a cardboard bass fretboard, not to scale, because I didn't have money to buy a bass yet.

Let's see, after 10 years playing bass I can't slap for shit, and my right-hand skills are sloppy at best. One drummer in one of my first bands told me that my signature move was offbeat slaps and mistakes 

Almost 3 years on the guitar, I can alternate very fast or very musically but not both, the faster I go the more chromatic the runs become. And I can't sweep for shit either. And I suck at improvising solos WITH the guitar, I have to hum them first.

I also seem to be unable to write a 4/4 riff on purpose. I always come up with something groovy that sounds simple, then writing it down I realize it's 7/4 or even 13/8. But a 4/4 or a 3/4? That shit's too complicated.

On the flip side, I have grooves for days and I can squish the shit out of one riff, actually most of my songs are just 2 or 3 riffs played in 2 or 3 different variations.


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## Cynic (Oct 8, 2012)

I've only been playing guitar seriously for maybe two years, and I couldn't tell you shit about a guitar, equipment, etc.


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## Mprinsje (Oct 8, 2012)

-play guitar for a good 12 years now, started on a spanish guitar doin' fingerpicking and reading sheet music and actually being able to read it and play it. Now, after a good 8 years of electric guitar playing and doing everything off tabs, i can't read sheet quickly anymore and my fingerpicking also sucks.

-bought a seven string, can't do anything with it except for playing textures covers.

-can't play solo outside of the pentatonic scale, still can't sweep.

-been playing in drop c for a solid 6 years, went e standard when i started my hardcore/stoner band, after 2 months we again tuned down to drop c, sounds so much nicer and i discovered i can't write anything in e standard anymore =(

-I'm in the process of wrecking every guitar i have, ripping out the neck pickup and tone knobs and replacing the bridge pickup with emg's. Now my mother asks me why all my guitars are broken =(


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## ihunda (Oct 8, 2012)

I try guitar slaping every year and always fail  Maybe this year will be the right one...


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## Luke Acacia (Oct 8, 2012)

brutalwizard said:


> I scooped my mids to zero until 2010



I spent a few years doing the same.....


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## Pat_tct (Oct 8, 2012)

maybe most of my flaws come from beeing a shitty guitarist but anyway:

i can't sweep or fast solo in any form (i always say it's not my style and i'm more into the slow atmo solos (which isn't a lie))
i can't read/write music
i don't know theory (well i started to learn it so many times but never had the strenght to keep up the work and as a result i do only know some really basic stuff. all i play is by ear)


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## ittoa666 (Oct 8, 2012)

I've been playing for 9 years and I can still barely tell if I'm in key during a solo.


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## synrgy (Oct 8, 2012)

Took me quite a few years to truly understand that not all 1/4" cords were built for the same purposes.


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## Pooluke41 (Oct 8, 2012)

poopyalligator said:


> How do you play any chords?



He only plays dom7 barre chords, open E minor chords, an open Cmaj or an open Am chord.


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## SirMyghin (Oct 8, 2012)

Pooluke41 said:


> He only plays maj7 bar chords, open E minor, an open Cmaj or an open Am chord.



maj7 barre chords with only 3 fingers? I think you mean 7 or m7 barre chords. maj7 would need the 4th finger

Then again, unless embellished above 7, you can play every chord with 3 fingers (fuck 5ths, you don't need em).


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## Pooluke41 (Oct 8, 2012)

SirMyghin said:


> maj7 barre chords with only 3 fingers? I think you mean 7 or m7 barre chords. maj7 would need the 4th finger
> 
> Then again, unless embellished above 7, you can play every chord with 3 fingers (fuck 5ths, you don't need em).



Oh shit, I wrote maj instead of dom.


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## JoeyW (Oct 8, 2012)

I wish my comping was a little more flavourful sometimes, maybe I've just been a little uninspired lately. I feel I can get a little too 'note-ey' sometimes when I'm really in the zone.


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## kerska (Oct 8, 2012)

Back when I first started playing guitar I would learn a bunch of old System of A Down, KoRn, Deftones, etc., but I had no idea what palm muting was. I thought they were just doing like a scratch on the first fret to get that chunky sound. Obviously I was wrong. 

One day I did it on accident and realized how they were doing it. This was when the internet was still dial up only and you got those things in the mail that gave you like 500 minutes of free AOL. Kids got it easy these days with youtube and what not.


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## squid-boy (Oct 8, 2012)

JoeyW said:


> I wish my comping was a little more flavourful sometimes, maybe I've just been a little uninspired lately. I feel I can get a little too 'note-ey' sometimes when I'm really in the zone.



You're not allowed to complain about your guitar playing, you ass.


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## synrgy (Oct 8, 2012)

kerska said:


> This was when the internet was still dial up only and you got those things in the mail that gave you like 500 minutes of free AOL. Kids got it easy these days with youtube and what not.



THIS. A thousand times, this!

When I started playing, the web wasn't really available for personal computers, yet. People who had internet at home were pretty much restricted to monochromatic BBS networks. The early web may have existed on a few libraries, university campuses, and government sites at the time, but that was it. Even then, there was hardly anything ON the web, yet. I remember when one could search Webcrawler for information on a band, and find only 2 fan-made sites, both hosted on Geocities. 

Frankly, I'm jealous of young players coming up today. They have unprecedented access not only to incredible learning tools on the web, but also have access to more advanced gear at exponentially better prices than we did, back then.


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## Winspear (Oct 8, 2012)

synrgy said:


> I remember when one could search Webcrawler for information on a band, and find only 2 fan-made sites, both hosted on Geocities.



I stumble across sites like that now and then and they are just so cute, I almost feel sorry for them


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## requiemsoup (Oct 8, 2012)

I had a Line6 Spider IV 15 watt amp and thought I got a pretty decent tone out of it. HA. 

Just like a lot of people, I played without a metronome and when I played in a band for the first time, it was fucking terrible. I originally started off as a pianist haha.


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## hutchman (Oct 8, 2012)

I used to think that A The Gates were down picking a lot of their stuff. So I learned to play their songs that way. A few years ago I found out it was all alt picked.

I was dissapointed to find this out, but stoked on my mistake cause now I can pick pretty well because of this error.


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## flint757 (Oct 8, 2012)

Down picking strictly is painful for my thumb. I used to think you had to tie your guitar strings to the tuner peg. Made it a pain in the ass to change them. 

Then I found out the correct way...


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## BornToLooze (Oct 8, 2012)

brutalwizard said:


> I scooped my mids to zero until 2010



I never scooped my mids until I saw people complaining about it on the internet, so I wanted to see what the big deal was. Didn't like my tone so I unscooped them.


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## Thyber (Oct 9, 2012)

I actually read somewhere, to get a some-what OK metal sound out of the crappy amp I owned back then, that I had to do the mids to 0...

So no shame !

Now I'm like the opposite of scooped mids


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## toiletstand (Oct 9, 2012)

BucketheadRules said:


> I try to avoid doing full 2-fret bends wherever I can get away with it. Usually I move one fret higher up and just bend by a semitone.
> 
> It actually works in a lot of cases too.
> 
> Oh, and I used to do all my bending and vibrato with my thumb BEHIND the neck. Which is probably why it sounded shit.




what!? im doing it wrong?


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## Genome (Oct 9, 2012)

When I was 14/15, I thought the Boss Metal Zone was the holy grail of tone.


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## Malkav (Oct 9, 2012)

When I started my first guitar had a floyd, I spent the first 2 months thinking the fine tuners were the things that set the intonation -_-

I used to think TAB was read reversed to the way it's supposed to be, couldn't figure out why "Come As You Are" sounded so much higher and wrong 

My first guitar was 24 fret, not because I wanted the double octave but because I was into heavy bands and HUGELY into Joe Satriani - So I figured I could learn all the metal stuff normally and then cause Satch only had 22 frets I'd just learn all of his songs with a capo on the 2nd fret cause I was tuned D-G-C-F-A-D  Now I only play in standard and prefer more strings to drop tuning


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## Curt (Oct 9, 2012)

I used to turn all my knobs on my first amp(some 30 watt rocktron combo) except volume and gain to 10 because I thought Bass controlled the Volume of the E and A strings, Mids; the D and G, and Treble; the B and e.

Couldn't understand why anyone would ever want them to be lower than 10. 

Then when I got into metal, I turned gain to 10, bass to 10, Mids halfway, and no treble. For some reason I thought it made sense.


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## avenger (Oct 10, 2012)

I've only played acoustic for the past 8-10 months... all my electrics and amps just sit there staring at me. 

XD


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## Cdub (Oct 10, 2012)

Trying to learn pinch squeals, and having never SEEN anyone do it, I interpreted what I read to mean something like this :

I would grip the pick mid-way down my thumb, so the tip of my thumb stuck way out. Super uncomfortable and unreliable.
That "technique" evolved into catching the string between my thumb-tip and the pick.
Now I use the wrinkly knuckle of my thumb. I still don't know how other people do them...


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## flint757 (Oct 10, 2012)

I hold my pick the way I normally would, but I use jazz III sized picks so I have a lot of thumb exposed. Then I rotate my thumb so that I pick and hit the meat of my thumb on the string simultaneously. It functions similar to a natural harmonic, your touching the string and picking at the same time then letting it ring out.

It is hard to illustrate with words, youtube is a good way to learn.


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## JosephAOI (Oct 10, 2012)

Right around the time I started playing, I thought playing guitar was impossible because the way I thought of it, it was just sort of like smacking your pick on the strings which shouldn't have made any kind of good sound. Then I actually started playing 

Also, to this day, playing for almost 5 years, I don't know any basic chords. If you told me to play a D or C or something I would go "huh?"


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## Robby the Robot (Oct 10, 2012)

Curt said:


> Can't sweep to save my life. And though I like blues influenced soloing, I want to be a bit more technical. I often only stick to pentatonic boxes because I was a huge blues nut starting out.
> Speaking of which, I need to learn to adapt the theory I do know to guitar. I can play scales on piano very well, and can make decent compositions as well. Sight-reading music was a breeze on piano but because I don't know the fretboard well, I stumble trying the same for guitar.
> 
> And if anyone can point me towards a good sweep lesson, +rep for you.





I'm not a sweeping master yet, but it makes sense and has helped me so far.


As for me, I had an epiphany in December. The reason I sucked for so long: I was holding my pick wrong.  I would hold my pick at an almost perpendicular angle to the strings instead of almost parallel to the strings. Probably why I went through picks within a matter of minutes.


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## Pav (Oct 10, 2012)

RTheodoppalus said:


> I'm not a sweeping master yet, but it makes sense and has helped me so far.
> 
> 
> As for me, I had an epiphany in December. The reason I sucked for so long: I was holding my pick wrong.  I would hold my pick at an almost perpendicular angle to the strings instead of almost parallel to the strings. Probably why I went through picks within a matter of minutes.




I had a similar, though more extreme epiphany about a year ago. I realized that after playing for 7 or 8 years or so, the reason I sucked so bad was because I had been practicing wrong the entire time.  I spent years trying to dive head-first into pieces way more complicated than what I was capable of rather than starting slow and speeding up gradually.


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## The Reverend (Oct 10, 2012)

I don't have a lot of bad habits or anything. I started playing guitar a month before I joined this site, so relatively late in life compared to most folks here (I'm 24). I read everything on the internet I could get my hands on, though, so I have really good technique.

I can't sweep reliably, though I can do 4- and 5- string sweeps on good days. I only know a pitiable amount of music theory. I know most of the basic chords, the major scale, and I know some interval names. That's about it. I'm a quick study, though, so I'm not worried.


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## wrongnote85 (Oct 10, 2012)

when we were kids learning metallica songs, i told my brother just to "downpick everything". soon after that we were separated for a couple years and didn't get to play together very often, if at all, in that time. 

one day we randomly are able to get together and play. i'm probably about 19 or so and he's 14 or 15 at the time. we play a bunch of old metallica songs that we had played together about 2 years before and had a lot of fun. his technique is awesome, and he can downstroke like a mother fucker. i was proud. 

then we played 'eye of the beholder'.

we got about 3 or 4 bars into that opening riff and i about shit myself watching him DOWN STROKE IN PERFECT RHYTHM that riff. i had to stop playing because i freaked out watching him do that. 

i was like "what in the fuck man?!!?? how and why are you playing it that way?!?!!?

he said, "dude you told me a long time ago to downstroke everything, so that's what i did!"


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## BornToLooze (Oct 10, 2012)

Also I never could figure out pinch harmonics, so I used to play a natural harmonic and bend it behind the nut. And I used to be a huge Zakk Wylde fanboy so I used his signature strings, OD, all that stuff, so I was doing behind the nut bends on a .60 gauge string tuned to E.


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## Danukenator (Oct 10, 2012)

I have tried to get sweeping down now for several years. I just can't do it. It's harder than hell. 

I've also noticed I have a lot of difficulty with string skipping similar to Twilight of the Thunder Gods.

Watching a Marty Friedman video where he says just go for it really did help. I stop worrying about scales and stuff and just played what sounded cool. Helped me be less, how to phrase this, classical sounding in my playing.


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## wrongnote85 (Oct 10, 2012)

Danukenator said:


> I have tried to get sweeping down now for several years. I just can't do it. It's harder than hell.
> 
> I've also noticed I have a lot of difficulty with string skipping similar to Twilight of the Thunder Gods.
> 
> Watching a Marty Friedman video where he says just go for it really did help. I stop worrying about scales and stuff and just played what sounded cool. Helped me be less, how to phrase this, classical sounding in my playing.



sometimes you just have to not think about it and "go".


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## AxeHappy (Oct 10, 2012)

I used to think your amp needed a different input for every pedal you wanted to use. That the guitar didn't plug into them, you just plugged the guitar and pedals into all the different inputs. 

Got that sorted out pretty quickly after seeing my first pedal. But it was hell looking for an amp with more than 2 inputs.


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## FireInside (Oct 11, 2012)

^ At least you realized before you bought a 24 channel mixer and power amp!


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## AxeHappy (Oct 11, 2012)

Don't think I ever got over it. Went for the Axe-FX2 just so I wouldn't have to buy any fucking Pedals!


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## FireInside (Oct 11, 2012)

Nothing wrong with that choice!


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## bob123 (Oct 11, 2012)

I find I ALWAYS have to solo, even on songs that don't have solos! Its wankery at its finest and not everyone approves... lol


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## 27duuude (Oct 15, 2012)

The one thing I'm the most ashamed of...

I rarely play songs if ever. Most of what I do is improv in C, G, F, Bb and random scales like that. I also learned to much theory and not enough about chords earlier than I should have. I over-think everything now and I can't just sit down and write anything because I need to make sure that it sounds epic or I'll think its a shitty song. Probably because I also beat my self up for having any sort of similarity to other bands or for sounding generic at all. Seeing as how I listen to Jazz and Prog, this stalls all of my creativity.

Other than that I'd have to say that I'm one of the best guitarist in my high school, even though I've only been playing for 4 years.


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## tm20 (Oct 15, 2012)

i used to think playing guitar was shit


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## sage (Oct 15, 2012)

I was a far better guitarist 15 years ago than I am now. Had more time to practice, I guess. These days, I get by on atrophied versions of the chops I used to have. I know a couple more things than I used to. I can sweep now, nothing spectacular, but better than not sweeping. I know more theory and have memorized more chord shapes. But my actual physical playing isn't nearly as good. I don't think anyone has really noticed. Maybe the decline was gradual enough and there are very few people who have tracked my playing over the decade and a half that it has declined other than myself. Also, all those really cool cover songs I used to know and wow people with around the campfire? They're all way dated. And I forgot all of more than half of them and more than half of almost the rest of them all. I could probably get through maybe 8 songs on an acoustic guitar right now where my repertoire was at 85 songs in 1999. Lame.


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## Djentliman (Oct 17, 2012)

I used to think that mid boosting was the worst thing you could do for a metal tone. Now its one of my favorite things to do. 
I also used to believe that professional bands used stuff like Line 6 spider and cheap randall amps to get their amazing tones.


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## Winspear (Oct 18, 2012)

I don't know one single song all the way through anymore apart from Icarus Lives and I forgot the solo so that doesn't count


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## m3l-mrq3z (Oct 18, 2012)

I am never sure what a chord's name is, but only if the chord has more than 4 notes.


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## cwhitey2 (Oct 18, 2012)

ghstofperdition said:


> I've been playing for over 10 years and I still cannot properly sweep on more than 3 strings.



I have been playing for around 7 years. I have one 5 string sweep that I have been working on....for 3 years and still cant do it


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