1, 2, 3, 4. I declare a shredding war!

Well it seemed my arm got a bit better now, so I've been playing for the past hour. A little breakdown of what I've down so far: alternate picking in 16th note triplets (from 80bpm to 110bpm), in 16th notes (from 150bpm to 180bpm), playing the guitar solos from Ozzy Osbournes (or should I say Randy Rhoad's') Mr Crowley, and now about embark on some sweep picking.

Edited by HughesJB4 - February 29 2008 at 22:28

Damn it, my right arm is seriously too sore to play at all for now. Perhaps I wait either a few more hours, or perhaps until tommorow.

HughesJB4 wrote: Just wondering, what picks will people you guys be using? Last Sunday I got a 12 pack of Dunlop Tortex 1.14mm, hardly any flex and pretty good grip and so far, the best picks I've ever used. Prior to that I was using Fender Heavys, which were a little more flexible, so I guess they were about 0.95mm or something. The Fender Heavys were $4.95 Aus for 12, while the Dunlop Tortex 1.14mm cost $7.95 Aus, but IMHO, it was well worth the extra cost.

I'm afraid I've lost all my VoodooLab plectrums, which were the ones I ordered from abroad and constantly used. However, I found a replacement which is almost as good, and yellow. That is Ernie Ball (heavy). Strong but slim, just the way I like it.

Also, the start will be painful. I cut my finger while chopping onions yesterday Well, I'll just take the pain or use a plaster, which makes playing a lot harder. I was thinking I'd learn some of these songs that i've forgotten, like Moonlight Shadow of Mike Oldfield, Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas, YYZ by Rush, nothing too difficult for starters Kind of like, 2 hours in the morning, then 4 hours studying, then 2 hours playing and then fingerpractise before bedtime!

Well this weekend, I was going to put some more work than I usually do, on 5 and 6 string sweep picking patterns. At current I'm working on Lucretia-Megadeth, specifically the Marty Friedman solo, mostly because it has great feeling, and gets you to work more on bending and vibrato (I'm one of those guys that loves his wide vibrato and Friedman is a master at it IMO), plus his licks in that solo just seem to go all over the fretboard (it's a really cool solo to watch it be done properly), so bending, vibrato, phrasing and there is a sweep picked lick in there as well.

HughesJB4 wrote: But hey Brandon even if you can't fit much into the weekdays, would you be up for joining me on the 8 hour Saturdays and Sundays to make up for what we missed during the weekdays?

Yay, it starts tommorow! I've been told my school term actually ends about a week before the end of March Which means for that week of school holidays, I can make up for the lost hours from doing homework, by playing 7 hours a day on all weekdays. Hopefully by the end of this, my sweep picking will be a quarter as good as Jason Becker's, instead of it's current 1/20th as good

But hey Brandon even if you can't fit much into the weekdays, would you be up for joining me on the 8 hour Saturdays and Sundays to make up for what we missed during the weekdays?

Damn it, I'm going to be getting more homework than I realised. I might call it a 34 hour week now (only 3 hours a day from Monday through to Thursday).

Also here are some more specifics:

Well now that I think of it, I'm not totally sure about this one. I'm in my final year of high school (in fact, I'm repeating after failing my final year last year), so I'm not so sure i've got 6 hours in a day to practice. I'd like to be in this, but March is actually around the time prior to our 2 week school holidays we have a few assessment tasks that count towards our final end of year score for school. At best, I may be able to do 4 hours a day from Monday to Thursday, 6 hours on Friday, and 8 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday, although that still only comes to 38 hours a week, 4 hours shy of the 6 hour a day regime. If I'm able to be exempted from the 42 hour practice week and use my 38 hour week, I'm willing to give up a significant chuck of social life  on weekends in March and i will give the challenge a definite yes.