Media added by Matt Wildcat

A gaming track many may never have even heard before! Cover of Gretchen Fetchem's Shop Theme from the DS game Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise. Tab will be linked later as I plan to upload to a Google Doc for all to enjoy. Worked out by ear, not perfect in execution but it will do for the time being. All comments and advice welcome <3 Enjoy!

So, a very quick vid. After seeing vids from last night's DBC party, I realised I really wanted to learn something that, should I ever be in the situation to do so, I can jam to! And yes, I'm still learning Lost and everything else, but this riff got me here in the first place, so why not? Key things I picked up on - Palm muting, picking pattern, hand positioning... and just good ol muscle memory! Enjoy!

So I was gonna upload Pt 2 of the Turtle Crusher song from my last vid but then Leeds Utd got a great result in their game last night and stayed up in the Premier League, so I had to record this on the new axe. No shame - It took 30+ attempts to get this video down LOL. And yes, it needs more work. Lemme know what you think! MOT!

This song has nothing to do with crushing turtles, I promise. Probably more related to the 8-bit "Crush" instrument used. Anyway... Hello again! Here's a bit of practice, and a few notes to go along with it: 1. Track is slowed down to 0.75, and I've kinda split it up into 4 or 5 parts. 2. There's a very good chance, as described, that I'm playing this in the wrong octave to start with. But, I started here, and I'm too stubborn to change atm. Oopsies. 3. Pls critique my finger positioning and anything else as needed. I worked this out by ear and there's probably some more efficient ways to play some of it (this will become apparent especially in future videos) Enjoy!

The journey begins! It's been a while, so with the new year, I wanted to set myself a clear goal and do my best to achieve it, starting with Lost and the intro. It's... well, it's a mess, but it's day one. Also, my fingers are very sore and very cold, so that probably didn't help? If you have any tips regarding pick-holding, finger positions, or not having tense arms and wrists (seriously, how do you all do that? I don't understand what that's supposed to feel like), please let me hear em! Cheers!

Just a quick progress check, nothing overly special. I've spent the last 3 days working on learning the different positions of the C Major Scale, as well as working more on my connected Am pentatonic, and finally learning "Graze the Roof" from the Plants vs Zombies soundtrack ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9xSFk1ZDgw - Track if anyone wants a reference). Things are messy, I'm working on tidying things up once I've got all positions down. After this though, not too sure what to move onto, as there's a lot of options. Caged? Other scales? Techniques? Fretboard learning? Not sure which would be most beneficial for me right now + what will keep me most motivated, so I'd love to hear your thoughts. Cheers all!

Applications for someone to pester me about sticking to my practice are now open LOL. I really wanna stick with learning this time. I'm starting back at the beginning again, because I have a horrible tendency to start, get distracted, jump way ahead, and then get very stuck. Today, I'm focusing on my favourite warmup, the Spider exercise (until around 3min mark), and talking about my technique and what I try to work on as I warmup. Tomorrow, I'm starting back on the lessons with some scales, working up to the Caged stuff again. I'm also gonna pick a new song to learn on the side so I can use the skills I pick up for something fun and practical, so that should keep me engaged! I'd love to hear any feedback anyone has! Cheers guys!

Yep, once again I need help XD Apologies in advance as my commentary is a bit all over the place lol. So this time I'm working on a bit of Flight of Icarus with my guitar teacher, specifically focusing on a lick that uses a lot of hammer-ons, pull-offs and pinky finger work. Now, I've been working to try keep my pinky from flying off or tucking behind, but I feel like I've gone back to square one, and I'm also having issues with not being able to rid tension from my hand. I really don't quite know what to do - Whether it's actually or problem or not, and if it is, how I go about fixing it. I fear it's become such an ingrained bad habit that I won't be able to fix it and it'll affect my playing, which I really want to improve as I'm about to finish college and have a lot of spare time! Any help that anyone can offer is greatly appreciated, I realise I make these posts a lot but I really wanna make sure I'm doing things right! Cheers!

Yesterday, @[5:@Jak Angelescu] mentioned that I should look to improve how I use my pinky finger, and so that's what I focused on today! A few notes: 1. The tucking-behind problem seems to be sorted, I think? 2. It still tends to stray from the fretboard a lot, it's hard to keep it close. 3. I think I'm tucking in my elbow too much? Gets really uncomfortable as it progresses 4. I'm feeling some tense-ness/strain in my arm, and I'm not sure how to fix it 5. Is it normal for my pinky finger to try and twist slightly? I tend to catch the string to the side of the tip of my finger (My left) 6. I stayed seated for this because I figured I should get it right first before throwing that into the mix, there's already a lot going on with the thumb, the fingertips and the elbow thing. So after an hour+ of trying, I'm gonna give it a rest and try continue tomorrow after my exams! Any and all tips are welcomed! Cheers!

Trying to get back into things - Again! Working on the A Minor Pentatonic Scale, but all across the fretboard today, as shown to me by Bill. A few things to note that I'm trying to work on with this: 1. Keeping my thumb behind the fretboard 2. Using the tips of my fingers, not the pads 3. When going up/forward, not removing fingers from notes until the next string 4. When going down/backwards, having fingers already in place before pulling off. 5. Trying not to tense my arm (Failed, oops) It's a lot to do, and probably too much to try in one go, but given the time I've had off, I wanted to try a fresh-ish start? And I wanted to do it the right way. Not sure how I did though, so I would love to hear any advice! Cheers!

A bit of a bizarre one to come back with, but it's something I've been working on (by ear, as usual), and I thought I'd share it with you as I'm super proud of it! I need to get my pinky finger working a bit more, as there's plenty of opportunity, it's just making sure it sounds good and is comfortable to play! Also, I did record a whole cover for one of my favourite video game themes! That'll be coming once I record the video for it! And also, a very happy international Women's day!! \m/

Apologies for the length (Solo in first half), and please ignore me saying influences instead of aspirations, I got mixed up. lol. ANYWAY, here it is!! I'm so so SO excited to share this solo because it's the first time I've written my own piece that I'm SO proud of and love the sound of! Compared to my previous solos and improvs, I feel like I've come so far in implementing different techniques (Trills, alternate picking, bends, vibrato, attempted arpeggios!, etc) and being brave enough to slowly venture outside of the scale and add in extra notes! See if you can spot the fun lil Mario passages I borrowed and expanded from, as well as my favourite little Pentatonic picking pattern, and let me know what your favourite part was! Cheers guys, and good luck all! (Also, is it just me or is the vid low quality? I might need to reupload? Please let me know!)

Didn't originally plan on uploading this as I started recording stuff this morning just to document my own progress. However, I figured it'd probably help my motivation to put it out there and want to improve on it later! Apologies in advance for my background, rambling, etc. So here we go, me learning the absolute basics, which @[5:@Jak Angelescu] encouraged me to do after one of my vids on Instagram! My next goal is to revisit my Kakariko Village cover thing on my Instagram and learn all of the notes the chords use, so I can gain a better understanding of what I'm doing! I'll also most likely be going back to the CAGED system stuff with this as well! Hopefully this will give me enough to do when I take small breaks from trying to sweep!

Using what I worked on in my last $ynner Saturday post, I decided to continue working on some more Mario stuff, the Bob-omb Battlefield/Cool Cool Mountain themes, as it utilises the strength I've been working on building up in my pinky finger and hand as a whole! It needs work with a metronome, but getting the notes down is a good start! Then, I thought I'd briefly revisit Not Ready to Die from about 9 months ago (Yikes!). Turns out my sweeps are very much still rusty and need a lot more work. I'm still struggling to make it sound more fluid, yet I can mostly manage it when I sweep in the Mario Castle theme from a few weeks ago. Might be my next focus playing-wise, while I learn theory alongside it!

After 50 recorded attempts, here's my entry for the contest! I wanted to give improv another go since I really enjoyed seeing what worked and what didn't in the video I did months ago, but this time I wanted to try something a bit different! I started off on Lesson 20's overview of the Pentatonic Scale, and figured since it's the best scale for solos, I'd see what I could do! From there, I used the backing track from Lesson 21's overview of the C chord family, and springboarded into Lesson 2's Melody and Motif tips! This is where I got my main focus from - I wanted to try experimenting with rhythm, phrasing and spacing, as Syn described! I tried to give some of the notes more room to breathe, and add in a few more exciting bits and see what it created! It's not the most complicated, but I'm proud of it! And of course, the most important tip I took from all of this was to have fun with it and see what I could do! That allowed me to just create something I enjoyed and learn from it too!

Happy $ynner $aturday! Hope you're all practicing hard! Here's a few notes from the video: 1. In the Spider Exercise, I gotta work on descending down the strings, I keep missing notes as I do so. 2. In same exercise, constant alternate picking. 3. In my CMaj Scale, need to work on alternate picking. Also, tips of fingers. Next on my radar to work on: -Learning fretboard notes!!! -Working on the next position for CMaj Scale -Practicing more permutations! I have a small tutorial for the Spider exercise if anyone would like it! I can also tab it out for you if you wish, just hit me up! Cheers all!

Getting in nice and early for Synner Saturday!! I've chosen to go back and improve on one of my favourite pieces today, this time with a metronome (Started from 110 and got to 135bpm by time of recording) and also standing up! Lots I needed to add/improve on, so here's a summary: -Muting strings with right hand + general hand placement has improved -Using the tip of my fingers, not the padded part. Still need some work on this though as it's easy to slip up. -Playing in time with a metronome. Still needs work as I couldn't really hear, but it's getting better! -Bends are getting better, as is vibrato (still touch and go tho) -Adding a little bit of flair -Added in a whole small section I missed originally Gotta work on stretching and moving positions, knowing exactly where my fingers need to fall, and not getting patterns mixed up. As it's a 10 min vid, the performance parts are at 0:30 and also 7:05! The rest is analysis. If you want tabs, DM me and I'll write them out! Enjoy!

Learned two new things, super proud of how quick I've picked them up! Going over a blues scale and then using it for the intro (??) of Jump! Of course needs work and a metronome to help me get the timing right, but it's just so cool to have another lick to work on!

Been working away on this on and off... Made so much progress! Worked out all by ear, so it may not be perfect in positioning terms, but should be right otherwise. Also, recorded in one take! :O NOTES: -Sweeping needs more work, too picky. -More rehearsal in general needed. -Positioning many need changing, especially around that second sweep. -I really gotta figure out how to just pick a point and play from there, not having to redo a whole segment. -Bend and vibrato need work, so inconsistent (Tagging @[5:@Jak Angelescu] just for this XD ) -A lot of the general technique stuff I'm nitpicking is thanks to the lessons I had with Bill, which has made me really look at my playing. So much work to do but I'm getting there (Thanks dude!!) -I will happily tab it if anyone wants to learn??? Probably missed something, so notes may be updated lol. Enjoy!

Progress!! Played at 137 bpm, so full speed but there's definitely work to be done to make it smoother and more consistent. Few notes because I forgot to call them out in the video: 1. Need to work on holding the notes for a little longer, they're quite short and abrupt, which sounds awful. 2. The stretches are giving my hand a pretty bad strain, so I can't play it for too long consistently, so more practice needed. 3. Timing is still slightly off, and one small mess-up throws me off entirely. 4. Getting used to switching from lead to rhythm bits needs work. There's probably stuff I missed, but these are the main bits. Enjoy!

Apologies if I sound really tired at the start XD So, the audio isn't the greatest because at parts my phone is louder than my guitar, and you can't see my hand for the last part of the intro, but here's improvement! While warming up today, I got really frustrated because I started picking up on and realising all my bad habits and how bad they really sound (Letting notes ring, poor muting, picking wrong, wrong notes, poor timing etc) but getting the ending of the intro right did bring me back up a bit, so there's that. Hoping to try and get this up to speed and try to sort my timing out, it's really kicking my backside!

Wanted to do some rhythm work since I've done lots of solo stuff, and ended up here. Wanted to give myself a bit of a challenge and man did I get one! Here's my first attempt at the intro for Heretic! It's messy particularly at the end of the intro where I can't quite place the notes, but not bad for a first go, and I know I will get it with a bit more work!! Also, I really need to get better with using the metronome, I keep going too fast! It's a good song to work on though, great with the 3-7 and 1-5 stretches, as well as working on picking as it's a weird one! Any tips appreciated! Cheers Also - that last bit of constant (1-2-3-4-nope... 1-2-3-4-nope...) I apologise you had to watch the same thing like, 6 times XD

Okay, so I went rummaging though some old recordings, and found two of these song/solo ideas I'd completely forgotten about! So here I am, showing them off for the first time! They're crap attempts, I need to write them down and work on them properly, but here they are. Would love to know what you all think, and whether I should keep developing them and maybe even make something with them! Could be my little improvement project! Cheers

Wanted to cover this for a while! I use this piece as a warm-up and general practice piece anytime I play because it's great for stretching, sliding, and especially vibrato! I'll post a tab shortly once I write it all down, as I worked it out by ear originally! If there's any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer, and if you give this a go, let me know how it works for you! :) Audio - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8l5zgCc5E