J
Jak Angelescu
Guest
Alright guys, happy Sunday! I tried to make my “practice tips” video yesterday and somehow, it got deleted. So I’m going to try to redo it again today.
But I’d like to discuss some things I’ve noticed on the school that I’d like to address. Maybe Keymaster Syn and Keymaster PG may think I’m stepping out of line (which I hope not!) but I only mean this in the best intentions for everyone. And I mean this with all love, encouragement and support for my peers on here.
First thing: I keep getting messages of people asking me to help them with learning Avenged Sevenfold songs. And then I look on the guitar riffs page and it seems to me that roughly 90% of the content on there are people doing A7X covers. And then of those 90% of the A7X content, most students are just attempting the solos. There are SO many things I’d like to address here. As much as we all love Synyster Gates and Avenged Sevenfold, I feel that a lot of players are rushing to learn A7X songs (among other covers) and post them up instead of showing us what they’re learning on the school. The reason why I feel this is counterproductive is that the ONLY person who can give proper and legit feedback on these covers is Synyster Gates himself, and this is a community where we are trying to reach out and help EVERYONE in ways we actually can. So I personally feel that we are all posting up our covers and no one can entirely give 100% accurate feedback. Now, I WILL admit, there IS a positive to this. For example, when I post up Hail To The King, I’m trying to showcase “Hey! I think I got this economy picking part down because I’m learning economy picking. Am I doing this TECHNIQUE right?” I feel if we were to post up covers and say, “Hey, I wanted to post this up because I’m working on arpeggios that I learned in the school. How am I doing?” It would give us, as your fellow students, more room to help and offer suggestions. But posting up covers solely doesn’t really show us much other than you like the song and we honestly can’t say whether or not you’re playing it accurately because well, we didn’t write the song. Also, when you DO do a cover (which I’m not condemning in any way) I think the students should really try to showcase learning the ENTIRE song because you miss out on a lot of crucial keypoints that can show you why the solo is played the way it’s played. For example, you’ll learn the key signature of the song and get a good rhythmic feel. Learning covers and posting them up is great. It’s a good way for all of us to showcase our improvements and goals. But let’s not faulter away from the original purpose of this school – to help others learn the material that’s been given us and improve as musicians.
Thing two: I’d like to see a LOT more beginners posting up their videos. I’m seeing a limited number of the same students (with the occasional exception) posting up their videos and I ALWAYS love watching them. But out of tens of thousands of players on here, I feel there should be more. I’d like to encourage you to post up a video of yourself and show us what you’re working on so we can support you and help you out. I have noticed a lot of people on here have severe camera shy behaviors and that’s totally fine! Don’t feel nervous about messing up. We are here to help you improve, not to demean you!
Thing three: Like I say, let’s “pump up the jams” (referencing a corny 90’s song that I personally loved to dance to). I really would love to see more “progression” videos or topics started. When I keep getting messages and seeing things about “How to play Afterlife” or “please teach me God Hates Us” I keep wanting to tell everyone: The knowledge is RIGHT here. Everything you need to know to play these songs is here in the school. It’s great to learn songs, but as the saying goes; “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. Synyster Gates didn’t get as good as he is by practicing and learning a bunch of other people’s songs. I’d like to challenge people to start taking these lessons seriously (and not just the etudes) and really utilize them. Like I keep telling people, I started playing along to a solo part in This Means War without actually learning the solo because the CAGED system helped me so much, and I KNEW the melody of the solo so much, I literally was able to play along to the song without needing to stop it, slow it down, and rewind it a hundred times.
Thing four: Let’s get some more video comments going! It breaks my heart SO badly when I see someone finally stepping out of their comfort zone and posting up their FIRST video, and I see the video has 89 views and no likes, and no comments. That really can get someone’s confidence down and we’re suppose to be encouraging each other and building one another up! So if you take the time to watch someone’s video, please be kind enough to like it and give support. Even if it’s just something simple like “Wow you look like you’re having fun! Great job!” Or even, “I see you’re having struggles with the two-finger tapping part, try referring to lesson 97 and see if maybe you’re leaving out a concept!” The more we reach out and help, the more we learn ourselves because we can only teach something if we really know the subject matter.
So in conclusion, let’s “pump up the jams” and start posting our progress videos and what we’re learning! Because ultimately, you can only teach something if you really know it. So when you post up your videos on what you’re learning and what you need help with, it will enable the rest of us players/students to make sure we REALLY know what we’re talking about before we lend a helping hand. As I also said, I learned a LOT about the Hail To The King intro by teaching it. I didn’t realize how much I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t UNDERSTAND it until I had to TEACH it.
So like I said, this is only meant to encourage others to go as far as they can! I love seeing covers, but let’s step it up a notch and start challenging ourselves with actually learning the guitar, posting up our progress videos and really truly commenting on videos! Also, we’ve been given the gift of $100,000 worth of conservatory knowledge from top musicians in the world for free, let’s take advantage of it!
Happy playing everyone and enjoy your relaxing Sunday!
But I’d like to discuss some things I’ve noticed on the school that I’d like to address. Maybe Keymaster Syn and Keymaster PG may think I’m stepping out of line (which I hope not!) but I only mean this in the best intentions for everyone. And I mean this with all love, encouragement and support for my peers on here.
First thing: I keep getting messages of people asking me to help them with learning Avenged Sevenfold songs. And then I look on the guitar riffs page and it seems to me that roughly 90% of the content on there are people doing A7X covers. And then of those 90% of the A7X content, most students are just attempting the solos. There are SO many things I’d like to address here. As much as we all love Synyster Gates and Avenged Sevenfold, I feel that a lot of players are rushing to learn A7X songs (among other covers) and post them up instead of showing us what they’re learning on the school. The reason why I feel this is counterproductive is that the ONLY person who can give proper and legit feedback on these covers is Synyster Gates himself, and this is a community where we are trying to reach out and help EVERYONE in ways we actually can. So I personally feel that we are all posting up our covers and no one can entirely give 100% accurate feedback. Now, I WILL admit, there IS a positive to this. For example, when I post up Hail To The King, I’m trying to showcase “Hey! I think I got this economy picking part down because I’m learning economy picking. Am I doing this TECHNIQUE right?” I feel if we were to post up covers and say, “Hey, I wanted to post this up because I’m working on arpeggios that I learned in the school. How am I doing?” It would give us, as your fellow students, more room to help and offer suggestions. But posting up covers solely doesn’t really show us much other than you like the song and we honestly can’t say whether or not you’re playing it accurately because well, we didn’t write the song. Also, when you DO do a cover (which I’m not condemning in any way) I think the students should really try to showcase learning the ENTIRE song because you miss out on a lot of crucial keypoints that can show you why the solo is played the way it’s played. For example, you’ll learn the key signature of the song and get a good rhythmic feel. Learning covers and posting them up is great. It’s a good way for all of us to showcase our improvements and goals. But let’s not faulter away from the original purpose of this school – to help others learn the material that’s been given us and improve as musicians.
Thing two: I’d like to see a LOT more beginners posting up their videos. I’m seeing a limited number of the same students (with the occasional exception) posting up their videos and I ALWAYS love watching them. But out of tens of thousands of players on here, I feel there should be more. I’d like to encourage you to post up a video of yourself and show us what you’re working on so we can support you and help you out. I have noticed a lot of people on here have severe camera shy behaviors and that’s totally fine! Don’t feel nervous about messing up. We are here to help you improve, not to demean you!
Thing three: Like I say, let’s “pump up the jams” (referencing a corny 90’s song that I personally loved to dance to). I really would love to see more “progression” videos or topics started. When I keep getting messages and seeing things about “How to play Afterlife” or “please teach me God Hates Us” I keep wanting to tell everyone: The knowledge is RIGHT here. Everything you need to know to play these songs is here in the school. It’s great to learn songs, but as the saying goes; “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. Synyster Gates didn’t get as good as he is by practicing and learning a bunch of other people’s songs. I’d like to challenge people to start taking these lessons seriously (and not just the etudes) and really utilize them. Like I keep telling people, I started playing along to a solo part in This Means War without actually learning the solo because the CAGED system helped me so much, and I KNEW the melody of the solo so much, I literally was able to play along to the song without needing to stop it, slow it down, and rewind it a hundred times.
Thing four: Let’s get some more video comments going! It breaks my heart SO badly when I see someone finally stepping out of their comfort zone and posting up their FIRST video, and I see the video has 89 views and no likes, and no comments. That really can get someone’s confidence down and we’re suppose to be encouraging each other and building one another up! So if you take the time to watch someone’s video, please be kind enough to like it and give support. Even if it’s just something simple like “Wow you look like you’re having fun! Great job!” Or even, “I see you’re having struggles with the two-finger tapping part, try referring to lesson 97 and see if maybe you’re leaving out a concept!” The more we reach out and help, the more we learn ourselves because we can only teach something if we really know the subject matter.
So in conclusion, let’s “pump up the jams” and start posting our progress videos and what we’re learning! Because ultimately, you can only teach something if you really know it. So when you post up your videos on what you’re learning and what you need help with, it will enable the rest of us players/students to make sure we REALLY know what we’re talking about before we lend a helping hand. As I also said, I learned a LOT about the Hail To The King intro by teaching it. I didn’t realize how much I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t UNDERSTAND it until I had to TEACH it.
So like I said, this is only meant to encourage others to go as far as they can! I love seeing covers, but let’s step it up a notch and start challenging ourselves with actually learning the guitar, posting up our progress videos and really truly commenting on videos! Also, we’ve been given the gift of $100,000 worth of conservatory knowledge from top musicians in the world for free, let’s take advantage of it!
Happy playing everyone and enjoy your relaxing Sunday!
