Synyster Gates School Report Project (Jak's June Contest)

[RoaringRowanThunderBender]

Hi, guys. I know Jak said she would create a thread for the submissions. However, I just couldn’t wait to share this with you…So I have decided to break the ice and go first. Here is my submission for Jak. Thank you for those of you that take the time to read this in its entirety.
Good morning/afternoon/evening to all my friends/peers/teachers of the Synyster Gates School,
I would like to just take a moment to thank Jak for the opportunity to write this report and everyone who has tried to help me and support me with my dreams. By the way, I am not used to writing a report so personally or relaxed, so without further ado, I will begin and try my best.
My favorite and most helpful lesson was probably Lesson 18 under the Beginner’s section because palm muting is one of my biggest opportunities for improvement. (Even though all of them are pretty helpful when you are trying to teach yourself.) When I first joined the school and posted my very first video in the riff section before the site got messed up around June 17, 2018, I caught the attention of Jak and Papa Gates. Jak commented, “YES!!! Great work! All you gotta do is just add that palm muting now. You’re well on your way!” and Papa Gates commented, “Nice feel & look at those crazy long fingers! You’re a natural!!! Work on the palm muting as Jak suggested. You’re on your way!” I remember it because I screenshotted it and my heart could never forget those words. They perforated me to my core. I took it to heart and practiced my palm muting to the best of my ability. In my riff section, you can actually view one of the comparison videos that Jak made of me since I first started trying Hail to the King and how far I have improved on it. That lesson means so much to me because I feel it was my real beginning as growing as a guitarist and finally having people believe in me, other than my parents and me telling myself “this is what I want to do, this is what I’m made for.” I already took everything seriously, but this was the point where I took MYSELF seriously. It fed the fire that I already had consuming me to get out.
My greatest improvements and achievements in relations to the school are most definitely my guitar skills and gaining recognition for my hard work. I put literal blood, sweat, and tears into doing my best, not to impress anybody, but for myself. This is what I have always wanted for myself. I never thought that by doing this, I would even gain the recognition of Syn, Papa Gates, or even someone like Jak or anyone reading this…but honestly, those things like comments and likes make me feel like I am the best. It is so rewarding for me to read comments, view likes, and receive feedback. I never purposefully go out of my way to get them, but they are always appreciated and make me ecstatic. My improvements definitely have to be in my palm muting, working with metronomes, and my confidence. I was extremely nervous to take that first jump due to a nobody on YouTube crushing my confidence, and with this school, I have gained it back completely and then some. I had never worked with a metronome before I joined this school (even though I am constantly told one of my strengths is rhythm). I still need to work on my palm muting more, but there’s always room for improvement on everything. No one is ever perfect, but it is perfectly okay to appreciate how far you have already come. Including my improvements and achievements together, the friendships I have gained through this school are all my highest achievements.
My passion is creating my own music and learning covers. I like to learn covers to gauge my progress and because it is fun. For example, I could never do the first duel to Chapter Four months ago and now it is much easier. I create music because it helps me cope with myself and this world that seems so fucked up and unfair at times. It comes naturally to me. I am always writing lyrics, no matter where I am. I remember sitting in a car and scribbling on a napkin against my steering wheel in a parking lot. I have been that way since I was little. I play and sing to express myself. I also really do not want to get “socially famous” for performing Syn’s solos or another artist’s work. I want to stand in my own spotlight. So, honestly…I try to avoid recording myself trying to play solos or anything like that. I have a collaboration song coming out soon where I will be featured as a screamer for the chorus, so please keep an eye out. It has saved me from myself countless times. It is an indescribable drive and I am not really aware of where it truly comes from, to be honest. It’s in my blood. I did not choose my passion, it chose me.
My future goals and ambitions…I want to be one of the best female guitarists/singers and web designers in the world. I want to make myself and my family proud. I want to gain the attention of people like Syn and Papa Gates and Jak and even you and be invited to play together without having to spend money on some guitar to be apart of a family or fake relationship… I want to earn things like that with my talent and purely with what comes from my heart. I want to do this ONLY for myself because I’ve always wanted to sing and be a guitarist up on a stage that inspires people. I want to be able to shred and sing on any mic and guitar. Most of all, on top of being successful, I want to be truly happy. I want everyone to know just because you are not rich, does not mean you cannot be anything you want. If you work hard and believe in yourself, even when no one else does, you WILL make it. “The most important thing you could ever do is follow your dreams. You don’t have to be the best at what you do cause people have already changed the world without being the best.”
The school has taught me the true meaning of that quote the best. Overall, this school has become my second home and family. It is where I bury my heart and show my true self. It is where I go to talk to my friends because I only have very few. Everyone is truly kind and tries to be helpful, not rude or mean to each other. It has helped me get through strenuous situations such as a break-up with my ex and my past band last year…It has helped me not give up on myself or the dreams I am fighting for…Or take my own life after being trapped within my mind’s own confines, truthfully. It has given me a place I belong to. It is a place where everyone looks past my piercings or tattoos and truly appreciates me. I look forward to continuing to learn and grow for the rest of my life as a guitarist with the rest of you. I really would like to win this competition, but more than anything I hope this report lets you get to know me and reinforces the statement I am finishing this report with. This school is one of the few things that still and will always mean everything to me.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Love this girl!!

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Guess I’ll continue this trend. I wrote this last night.
I’ve always played guitar. Never took it serious. Played off and on for years and years. There was even a point where I didn’t play guitar for 3 years or so. The WoW years. Sometimes I consider that a mistake, but other times I look at it as a learning curve in developing other skills I used on a daily basis. But It never helped me playing at all. So when I moved back to Ontario 5 years ago I made it a point to play more often. More regularly. Try to make it a routine. Rather then just a fun game, make it a chore. Chores can be fun right?
That sounds like a giant joke when you’re a child. I definitely felt that way at first. “Oh, I dont need to go to school for music. Or need the tabs for that matter. My early days were not pretty. My own friends laughed at me a lot and I was oblivious about it all. Looking back I see the mistakes I made, but when I watch my early videos I always see the spark I still see today that makes me realize I was much better then I thought I was. I knew I wasn’t amazing, but that was never why I posted those videos. I wanted the heat. Take the pressure off me please. This should take stage fright away, right? That day hasn’t come yet so I can’t really answer that. But I used to be shy to play. I still sort of am. I guess you have to be in the zone to really wanna jam. Cant just turn that on in a heartbeat. The inspiration has to be there. You know?
I did jam with one guy that seemed to really dig my playing, and when he was sober he was fun to play with. THeres stories that go along with him but I wont share them here. But he gave me enough courage to want to bring out my written songs from years before and bring them to life a way I never did before. I was going to actually learn my guitar pro songs. I still have those versions on my myspace page from years ago, I’ll share them later so you can compare them to the real versions today. I sat down and practiced for days, and eventually I had most of the parts down, cept solos. Then I finally got it down. All the recordings were done. Full demos. Then the news came. Syngates.com. I figured I’d check it out. I always played without my pinky. If I EVER was going to change that up, this would be the way. To learn from the master himself. He spent the money to go to school for it, he should know something. Why not give it a shot?
I knew how to play. I knew how to strum. I knew basic chords. I probably played one scale my entire 10 years playing though. And I couldn’t even tell you if it was real or not. So I decided to start from the start. One thing I’ll admit, I can not hold the pick the way Syn and papa gates do. But I’ve been finding it more and more difficult to play the way I do now. My brains trying to tell me something there but I’m not ready to commit fully yet. That’s a big change that I’m not ready for just yet.
So I skipped that lesson for the most part. I honestly skimmed every lesson to start, and wrote down the things that interested me most about the lessons. This booklet I have now is almost full, so I’ll need to buy a new one soon, but its full of different songs I’ve written along the way. Going into the site I only had about 11 songs written, but that soon changed when I started pushing the lessons harder and practiced them out. The melodies and riffs came so fast. I hope they do for everyone else as well. If you just sit down and jam it out I’m sure you’ll get the same feels.
The actual FIRST time this happened, was during the caged system. I didn’t know ANYTHING about the fretboard when I watched this lesson. And this lesson absolutely blew me away. Everything papa gates said made sense. All the connections were made. And while I couldn’t play a single chord and still honestly can’t without those “clunkers” you can still see where the notes lead to, and just not small the fret board REALLY is over those 130 or so notes on your guitar. I wrote an entire song using the caged system, and posted it. I got a like from papa gates which I felt pretty honoured about, even if he didn’t comment on it. That has to be a good thing right? Nothing bad to say? Nothing good too though right? The fact he took the time to watch it was enough to impress me to keep going. I had another 4 or 5 songs in a week. Good stuff there. The jamming was getting easier. I dont think I was improving at this point too. There’s a whole another story to that one. There are other lessons that did this same feeling for me, blowing me away, but this one was definitely a huge boost for my theory. And one I suggest every single musician here to focus on. I’m still finding out tricks with it. And I use it to today to find new notes and arpeggios for the chords I play. Always a lesson you can go back and get a refresher on as well. Nothing but good things to say there.
I’ve been here a year and a half now. From the start Jan of last year. I am not 100% certain on the anniversary date. Someone should fill me in on that. But over this year, one thing I could never do before that I can do now, is not just play something over top a rhythm track. But be able to play is AGAIN a second time. I’ve always nailed it, but I could never do it twice. And sometimes, I couldn’t even remember what I played. And I would have issues deciphering what was in the songs I played. Those days are far gone now. While I may have issues playing some stuff a second time now, I atleast remember what I am trying to do. The push I’ve made in my theory has helped so much in every aspect of my lead playing in ways I never couldn’t do for ten years. All those wasted years I couldn’t have spent on just a bit of theory even on google would have been something to consider. But I am glad I took the path I have.
Improving was something I also couldn’t do when I began here. It usually took me a few listens to get an idea in my head of what I wanted to do in a song. There are still some songs that are blank like this. But they are getting filled in faster and faster by the day. To the point where I’m running out of ideas and I need to expand some more. The count is almost at 30 now to be honest. And when I’m good and ready you’ll hear every single song here first. I think it was Jak and Ids the started the improv challenge. And I decided to take part. I remember Ids’ comment.
“You have an interested approach to improving.”
It’s true, because I’ve never done it before. I just played some simple notes and shredded a little. It was melodic for being simple though. The next week I posted my video on facebook, and I had a friend, or so I thought he was, laugh at me and called me terrible. It’s sad when people dont see the concept. I knew I couldn’t have shredded something but that wasn’t the point. I was training my pinky finger in the video. And my cat was jumping in the background… hard not to share that right? The next week I did just that and posted a shredding improv, my only goal was to end on G everytime I paused for a vibrato. I’ve definitely come a long way in this area because the videos started out at like 45 seconds, and now are pushing 20 minutes everytime I do them. I actually have to stop myself from continuing some of them. It’s hard to stop when you’re having so much fun.
Like I mentioned earlier, I have about 30 songs now, or ideas for songs I should say. I definitely have 23 fully written and ready to go. I’m in the process of making better demo recordings until I can get in a studio. And I’m also working on making drum samples for those recordings until I can get a real drummer. This is the route Im taking due to my sudden moving situation. My plans were different before. But that’ll wait for now. I’ll make my own drums up for now to save time. The guitar pro versions had drums anyways for the first 11, so those are easy to remake. The rest I’ll probably hold off until the first 11 are out there. See where it takes me. I’d love to create a realistic band. Been trying to find people to play with. I’ve stalled due to needing to move but once I’m settled I’m looking again. The people will come I’m sure of it. If not, I’ll just have to take my amp to a bar, and just improv the night away. I think that’d get me some interest.
I love my melodies. While my newer music has less melodies as most are raw jams and not mapped out songs, my favourite part of the song is when the duets come in. When its a melody, its even better. An entire song could be written off a simple melody. Could be a simple 3 note melody that turns into a chord progression, which turns into sweeping arpeggios that blaze into a shredding solo over those same 3 notes. And you’re playing the same 3 notes over those 3 notes. It all comes into place. The duets just seem to bring them out more. A lot of my earlier songs have these melodic duets in them. Simple but melodic. I’ve been trying to remember them in my newer stuff but they just dont seem to fit in the songs, so I didn’t want to try to add them. My ideal band would definitely have both guitarist able to play lead. They would have to play those duets with me. Wouldn’t mind trading solos either. Couldn’t be a lot of fun!
The best part about all of this is there is so much I haven’t touched yet, and still more to be added. This place grows more and more every day. The community we have is strong. And we have a lot of good heads in the group. Lots of good tips. I am honestly shocked we haven’t had any sort of record labels walk through the forums and try to pick anyone up. We have talent and I cant wait for everyone to see it. I’m eagerly awaiting to see what everyone has up their sleeves. And I cant wait to show you all what I have in store. Some material may surprise you, but I think in the end you’ll all understand.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

I absolutely love how people are just posting them anyway lol! I told Andrew to wait until the submission date but everyone’s reports are so incredible that they all should be released whenever they feel like it! Girl you definitely started the trend of this lol!

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Only thing I need to say about all reports.. dont worry about length. I didnt wrote 3 pages to win and i dont want others to feel they have to do that.
I wrote 3 pages cause I use a lot of words to get my points across.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

I’ve found multiple typos that spellcheck missed in my report lol always proof read your work people!

 

[RoaringRowanThunderBender]

I love you too, Jak!
Calvin, I took the time to read your report. Thank you for being the first hopping on with me. I was just so excited and couldn’t hold my report in anymore. There were typos, as you acknowledged, but it was still readable and possible to understand. I feel like your report helped me get to know you more as a person.
Speaking of grammar and typos, I’d also like to let people know if they don’t have the best skills at writing, they can still hop in and participate. It’s open to everyone on the site. We never discriminate or judge, really. I feel like this is an awesome way to get to know who people really are and how they feel about music.
Sorry, Jak. I just couldn’t hold it anymore. It was killing me. LOL. I hope more people will join and post.

 

[Andrew Fernandes]

My favourite and the most helpful lesson was the Sweep Picking IV lesson. This is because it was one of the first lessons I saw. It was a very cool introduction to The Synyster Gates School. It was a lesson that was uploaded before the launch of the website. I naturally wanted to practice the slower version, the first version of the sweep picking exercise. I tried to practise it a lot and became very frustrated with the result. I went ahead and posted a video of me playing it on The Synyster Gates School Comunity Riff page. To my shock, Synyster Gates himself commented on my video of me attempting the exercise. I found this very helpful and encouraging. Not only did Synyster Gates write a message he wrote a very thorough and long message explaining how I should use Sweep Picking IV lesson for note choice as well as not to overlook style. He said that style was the true foundation for greatness and not technique. This was eye opening and made me extremely motivated to improve my guitar playing.
My greatest improvement and achievement would have to be, being able to improve my guitar playing not only technique wise but emotionally. Adding more feel to my playing eg. better vibrato, better note choices and ways of approaching a note. Whether it be to sliding into a note, hammering onto a note, taping a note on the fretboard or using harmonics to achieve a different feel to my guitar playing. I have also started creating original songs. I am currently on my second song of completion. I found it beneficial in creating my own music as it gives you breathing space so to speak in developing new techniques and understanding of the fretboard. I understood more about keys, tempo and song structure. In learning this I have excelled at my guitar playing. I recently uploaded a practice of a solo I am doing for the stage acoustic cover I am doing for my YouTube channel. I received a lot of positive messages and also was pleased to learn from people that I have improved in my feel and note choices also. This was very encouraging and reassuring.
My future goals and ambition are to become more efficient in recording my guitar playing and not to rely on my producer’s ability to punch in my guitar playing and use his expertise in making me sound better. Instead, I will be able to play everything in a fuller manner with fewer takes and not piece together solos and rhythm playing. When I talk about being more efficient in my guitar playing I mean to deter my recordings from flex pitch, flex timings, punch-ins etc. I find it quite inspiring that Synyster Gates himself has used some producer help in his earlier career. I found out him saying this has put me at ease on my progress and it inspired me to improve as he has improved also. I also want to attain more confidence in my guitar playing. Not to have sweaty hands from nervousness and be more confident in my playing ability. I believe confidence plays a huge role in guitar playing abilities. As I become more confident I will also attempt more complex guitar work which will further improve my guitar playing.
My passion is to upload Avenged Sevenfold covers on my YouTube channel. In doing so I believe it is helpful for me to attain positive comments and have my own community supporting me on my guitar playing journey. It has been a very long dream of mine to share my guitar playing with the world. My goal is to share it with as many people as possible and also to promote the music I dearly love(Avenged Sevenfold). I find music is a helpful medium to help with everyday struggles it is a healing way to resolve problems. I found out that having my own community is a very exciting and supportive way by having my supporters comment on my guitar playing and offering their words of encouragement. I find that The Synyster Gates School is very important in my passion for creating covers for my YouTube community. We have many users on The Synyster Gates School in which they are very knowledgeable and helpful and ready to comment and offer their opinions so that our users can improve their abilities. If it wasn’t for The Synyster Gates School I wouldn’t have improved so immensely and been the guitarist I am today!

 

[RoaringRowanThunderBender]

Andrew, I absolutely adored reading your report! It is so nice to meet you and you did an excellent job! I’m still having trouble liking posts on here, so I’m trying to comment back at everyone to let you guys know I’m reading them also. I definitely agree with much of your report.
I would also like to just advise you to be careful on YouTube…I used to upload a lot of vocal covers, including a screaming one, and it got really negative for me. It made me question whether I could actually really sing or scream at all when I still had a lot of growing to do and needed encouragement rather than the negativity I received. Please never let anything negative get to you because I really do not want to see this happen to you or any others. Then I finally went back to posting my screaming on Instagram and that’s actually how I collaborated as a screamer for a friend’s song after he reached out and was like, “Hey! You’re awesome, I love this!” So, in other words, never let anyone hold you back if they’re stewing in their own miserable negativity and have to force it on you.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

I hate this I am not gonna be able to pick a winner! I have had so many submissions and literally every single one of them leaves me teary eyed and full of smiles! Andrew your report was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed reading every bit of it
I

 

[Jak Angelescu]

I think I also love the fact that everyone was too excited about their report to wait. These are all such amazing submissions and the fact that people wanted to hurry up and write them because they felt so passionate just makes it that much more heartfelt.

 

[Andrew Fernandes]

Thanks, Rowan means a lot. Thank you, Jak also I really enjoy this competition. I find it creative!

 

[RoaringRowanThunderBender]

You’re very welcome. I’m just so happy others are jumping in!

 

[Rute Rodrigues]

Hello everyone, I’ll tell you a bit about my life as a guitar player and take advantage of the competition that everyone is talking about now.
I do not intend to gain anything from this, I just think it’s a good idea to share with you my experience. Hope you read this. It will be kinda long but hope you like it. Im putting my heart writing this.
So here we go. I hope you like it and thank you for taking some of your time to read this.
So, music has always been something that has always had a great effect on me. I dont know, the energy of some songs left me completely in another state. I remember when I was very young and my parents used to be in the car or just around the house, and it was all kind of music, pop, jazz, sometimes rock, and all the energy that music had, made me crazy , I think I vibrated a lot with everything that the music brought me. I can give you a few examples, like The Script, Sum 41, Imagine Dragons, Queen, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, 30 Seconds to Mars, and all those kind of pop artists from the time I used to listen when I was younger.
Then I went to school, to the fifth grade, where I learned to play the flute. I think it was there that there was the click, in which I realized, my God this is so cool …. So I started searching for songs to learn, I started to create songs of mine, and I felt very free with everything, something here inside me was very full whenever I played. So my parents started to see my interest in everything, they decided to enroll me in a music school. That’s where everything became more serious. I chose the guitar instantly, nor thought of any other instrument. Maybe because of the guitar solos, they made me crazy … I did not even know any famous guitarists, I just listened to music on the radio.
And then it was all very natural, you know? I started playing classical music, it was not quite my style, but the songs had soul, and I loved it.
My parents, They bought me my first guitar, it was a classic guitar, it was incredible, I spent hours playing, easy songs I learned at school, but for me, playing any song was very cool. I remember that I started taking My Chemical Romance songs by ear. It was very cool. I really spent a lot of time playing guitar.
My teacher was very impressed with me, so when I only had 3 months of classes he took me to my first show, I that I played a Bach medly. This was a magical moment, I do not know what happened, but the crowd applauded me standing up, with so much noise, I just wanted to stand there and hold my hands. It was amazing. From there, my teacher started to always arrange shows for me to play, I loved it, I wanted to do it every day. Later, I started watching youtube videos of great guitar players like Slash, Brian May, Jimmy Page, you know, and I started to watch them playing guitar solos, to huge audiences, and how they made noise when they were the guitar solos, they went crazy … and I thought, I also want to do this, I want the crazy audience like this, I want to do the same as Slash. And then when I was 12 I switched to electric guitar. My teacher was very pleased, and introduced me to many guitarists and bands, like Queen, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Guns n roses … From there everything changed for the better. My teacher taught me how to play Bohemian Rapshody solo, and was very impressed because I learned it very quickly, in 3 days I was able to play it.
My teacher gave me his electric guitar. It was my first electric guitar. He just gave it to me … Can you believe it? It was a cort, black guitar, and he gave it to me. When I got home, I spent so much time playing the guitar, spent an entire weekend playing the songs I knew on the new guitar, learning rock and punk riffs, it was incredible, even my parents got so angry that I spent in the My room XD
I also started writing guitar solos on my own, they even gave shivers down here inside me. So passionate, and so much feeling … Guitar is incredible … Then Come the solos of Guns, AC DC, Led Zeppelin, and so my teacher inserted me into a band. A rock band. You have no concept, I was the only girl, I was 12 years old, they were boys, 14 and 15, and I was the lead guitarist. Everyone was amazed at my abilities and in less than 2 months we started playing live in bars here in the city, and everyone loved our concerts. That’s when I began to want to make a profession of music, to want to be a professional guitarist, even assertion. All the energy that the live performances gave me, and listen to the audience’s satisfaction at the end of the songs, and at the end of the concert there were people who came to congratulate us, and we became very close to each other.
We played essentially Kings of Leon, Sum 41, Red Hot, Guns n Roses, Bon Jovi, Metallica, The Beatles, Green Day and that kind of bands. I felt very happy when I was on stage, it is a sign of freedom and nobody will judge us. I just wanted to play like Kirk Hammet and Slash, who are my idols. Until one day, our vocalist came up with the idea of ​​playing a new band, guess what? Avenged Sevenfold. I went to meet the band. I loved the songs, and I loved the feeling all the songs gave, and Syn’s solos were incredible, I got addicted to the band, I wanted to learn how to play like him, I saw all their shows live on you tube, and what came after that, you know and here I am.
Today I am 15 years old, and my band continues, we are inseparable, we have a mini group of fans here in our locality, and we played many songs of Avenged Sevenfold. People love it. U.S. too. Syn is my idol, it inspired me a lot this whole time. That’s how I started playing more metal, and writing riffs and solos and metalcore stuff, and my band started to perform our own songs live. The music continues to have the same effect on me, all the energy, desire to jump, and all the freedom that is given, and the passion feeling of the guitar solos, and hear the audience shouting and clapping for us, is incredible, I hope one day to reach the level of Avenged Sevenfold and Metallica and play in arenas as big as them.
So, if you’re still there, thanks, this was a little big, but I really enjoyed writing this to you.
My favorite and most useful class was undoubtedly class 45, about tapping. I already knew how it worked, but there were some issues with that, because I learned tapping by myself, with The Stage intro, and no one had ever explained to me how well they did, and Papa Gates is a great teacher and I was able to explain It was all right and I understood everything very well, and I explained all my doubts. Then it was just developing these techniques with the metronome and now I can tap it with some ease, so thanks to Syn and Pope Gates for the great help.
My best improvement I think was to gain speed on the guitar, both on the fingers, as on the right arm. I started training with the metronome, starting slowly, and increasing speed to my limit. This makes me feel confident every time the metronome speed increases. It’s great to see my results go up, with scaling faster, and that. What I most wanted to be able to do was the same as all of us: Shred. Get to do improvisations like Syn, Kirk, Slash, Dimebag … That would be the fucking thing. Conceive combining speed, with energy, with feeling, and techniques with taping, sweeps and so on. I know I have to work hard to get it, but I know that if I do I can do it, and I’m willing to give myself time to improve. Since I now have school holidays, I will take advantage to train a lot and hope that by the end of the summer I can do sweep picking quickly.
What I want the most in the future is to be a great guitar player. I hope that being a girl does not stop me. I loved that my band was recognized and that our songs were heard everywhere, and appreciated, and we went on a great tour around the world, and played in great shows. He loved to write songs that reported things in the world, like the current problems. Something that people would identify with the letter, how it would come to me at this moment. Write guitar solos memorable in history as the solo of Seize The Day.
I make a big effort for music: I wake up every day at 5 in the morning, because with school I do not have much time to play when I go home, so I wake up early to play. It’s not an effort, I do it well, playing was never a must for me, and it was never difficult for me. At weekends, I play the guitar for 6, 7 or 8 hours. It’s crazy, but I like it a lot. It`s my dream, even when I´m playing live with my band, I´m living my dream.
I love all styles of music. I love metalcore and punk, but I really like classical music, which I grew up listening to, and I also love jazz because it needs a lot of theory, which is good.
As I said, I love doing covers, with my band or alone. It helps to grow musically, but what I really like is to write songs, with feeling and energy, with touching lyrics and melodic solos.
Thx guys for read this, I did with love. XX

 

[Dan Shipway]

Repost from the original thread as I wasn’t too sure which to put it on
I always wanted to learn guitar but the beginning seemed so slow and frustrating
(This is a pretty waffley report of sorts which hasn’t got structure or a plan, just opening up about my guitar past, likes etc)
I started playing guitar back in 2011 and I was lucky enough to have a teacher who is a good friend to this day and still my teacher to this day.
Motivation was something that was going up for a long time, I was learning a ton of new stuff and it was really really fun. Learning to play the things you thought weren’t possible, breaking the barriers and progressing was the best feeling in the world. Up until a few years ago I was heavily influenced By zakky boy and I was largely a pentatonic player. Running the same runs i was pretty confident with some things but it left much to be desired. The runs seemed mundane and not challenging enough.
In 2015 I got into A7X and at the time i was listening to the 80s shredders like EVH, Lynch and the axe slinging hairspray abusing, spandex pants wearing, machine gun kelly “they look so much better on me” players.
That was the second stage of progress and then the wall came up. HAHA TRUMP I HAD A WALL FIRST!
I was still a pentatonic player but I started to delve into a7x and their solos and as i did that I started to listen to other bands and other players such as Vai, Petrucci and a few other lesser known players and the one thing they had in common was the fast meticulous leads that were super precise.
It was then that I joined the school. Having had guitar lessons I still relied pretty heavily on this but something called out to me about this school and I knew it would be an amazing resource. The fact that all the lessons are so thought out, so diverse yet so interlinked and backed by an ridiculously cool community made it a place that I could go to on the daily. It was also a place where I felt I could post my music without the fears of constantly being put down. The mantra of this school speaks volumes about how others should act outside of this school.
My favourite lesson was and still is the introduction to economy picking. Syn wasn’t kidding its glorious. It feels so right to not have to fight with the direction that you want to go. It is something that has completely opened up my playing and made me feel like monstrous songs were just that bit more achievable and after such a long time of trial and error and frustration that is a colossal improvement.
Whilst the lead issues were going on I decided to invest my time in rhythm and thats how I found a certain band. Not naming names for reasons that are probably obvious now.
My biggest achievement was probably getting my syn custom but music wise it is learning economy picking for the reasons discussed above.
The future seems daunting but My main dream is to be a guitar player in a worldwide band and be a role model to guitarists just like how players like syn were my heroes. Failing this I would like to work in sound and lighting and work with pyrotechnics. Lots of pyro.
Sorry for the lack of format but its 1am gmt and I don’t know if I will have the time to do this if I missed today.

 

[Anna Taylor]

Hello guys!
I know I haven’t been interactive in the school as of yet – I guess I’m really not the best at starting conversations with people or any of that, but when I saw Jak’s new contest I just had to jump in. Writing is something I’m pretty good at, and I thought I might as well give this contest a try!
I’ve always played music, ever since I was little. A lot of the influence stems from my mother who is an awesome musician. She can play multiple instruments, including the piano and guitar. She taught me early and encouraged me to pursue it in any form I could – I suppose she saw some form of talent in me, and still to this day her eyes light up with joy when I decided to play for her. I tried a lot of different teachers in my musical path so far, but I always found myself stuck because most of the things I wanted to learn – especially how to shred – just wasn’t anything my teachers really knew a whole lot about, so when I heard that my idol, Synyster Gates and the amazing Papa Gates were launching a school, I was beyond excited, and once I finally signed up and started with the lessons, I finally found what I had always been looking for, especially with being stuck on techniques in the past.
My most helpful lesson has definitely been “Lesson 4 – How To Hold The Pick”. Now, this may sound more than ridiculous to all of you young guitar gods out there, but I found that my playing improved a whole lot just because of the way I hold my pick. My playing used to be extremely sloppy, especially when I increased the speed, and things that used to take me hours figuring out suddenly were a lot easier after watching the lesson and really practicing the things Papa Gates explains in it. Again, this was a lesson I had no idea would ever impact me the way it did, and nobody in the past had ever specifically taught me how to hold a pick correctly in my life before – hell, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even ever know that there was a right or wrong way on how to do it. So, this lesson will definitely always stick out to me, simply because it showed me that even simple things like that can impact your playing big time.
One of my greatest improvements since I joined the school roughly a year ago is definitely the way I now tend to tackle the songs I write myself. The riffs a lot of the students create as well as the amazing lessons from Papa Gates and Syn have changed the way I used to tackle songwriting majorly. While I used to go after a certain pattern in the past, where I used to build whole songs based around one riff I’d come up with, I tend to just jam over a drum track nowadays and see what sticks. I used to almost always write the lyrics before I wrote the music, and I now don’t even understand why I tortured myself by doing that. It always proved to be incredibly difficult to just compose my songs around a few lyrics I had come up with, and usually instead of the song progressing, it reached a dead end and ended up getting scratched. But thanks to a lot of the influence by other students, I decided to try a completely new approach to my music, and it definitely helped me be less close minded and now working after some sort of formula that usually never got me anywhere at all.
I have never really been active on the school – like I said before – and unlike probably almost every student, I am not self-confident enough to upload any videos of my playing. Maybe it’s just down to me being a coward, but I feel like sharing the art you create – whether it be paintings or music, or hell even a story or book one has written – leaves the artist in a place where they are extremely vulnerable, and I am simply scared of letting anyone see my art and giving them a reason to judge me or make me feel bad about what I have created; things that happened more frequently than not in the past. Although I’d love to be a person that doesn’t give a damn about what people think, I am quite the opposite when it comes to my creations, and I take the negative things to heart and they always overshadow the good things anyone has to say about my playing in general. I definitely plan to work on that side of myself, and it is a major goal of mine to be more self-confident when it comes to my playing especially. I want to be able to record my written songs and upload them somewhere, and for once not be entirely terrified of other people tearing down my spirit. Some people are destined to do great things, and although I know I am certainly not one of them, my main ambition is to go out, play some more gigs, record some of my songs and just enjoy the music I create. I don’t dare to dream big because I’m scared of the outcome of chasing a dream that may never become reality, but one of my future goals is to at least record a demo if not a record and see if I can at least make one person feel something with whatever I create. I am more than happy to see what a positive place this school is though – all I see is people helping each other out, and everyone is extremely supportive of one another. It doesn’t matter if the person is a beginner or an advanced player, everyone is always super nice and has great advice if it is needed, and I definitely want t bite the bullet sometime and upload a few of my own achievements and be more active on here in general.
As for what got me into playing, and what my passion niche in music is, it’s definitely learning how to shred, and hard rock music in general as well as learning how to play my favorite artists songs myself. I always used to look at my idols and think that I want to be able to do what they are doing, especially playing songs and covering a lot of my idols music, I soon found out that everyone has their own techniques that makes them a great player, and I love to evolve myself by trying to figure out how they play it and what exactly they do. Music is truly something that has carried me through my darkest times, especially through my school years, which I now find ironic because I got bullied a lot for the music I was drawn to and listened to. I guess you are never really a cool kid in school if you’re artsy and into dark music, but the older I got, the more the things I used to get bullied for were the things people found cool. Playing music was one of them, and although people used to make fun of me for looking “depressed” when I played, I never let that get to me when it came to enjoying my favorite bands and exploring different kinds of music. My influences in music truly branch off a lot, I listen to pretty much anything that holds any kind of meaning to me personally, and the lyrics usually are the one thing that really draws me to a certain song, as well as the playing in general, of course. It’s hard for me to explain just how much music has truly helped me in my life, but it’s safe to say that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was able to artistically express myself, I would definitely not be here anymore. Music is my outlet, my passion, and although I’m scared to share what I create, I am thankful for every artist out there that is able to help people like me that are lost with nothing to really look forward to in life besides music. It’s a special gift to be able to transform one’s pain into art, and I’m happy I at least am able to do that for myself, and hopefully, I can share my music with people in the future, but that will definitely be a tough road ahead for me.
In conclusion, I am more than grateful that Syn did something as amazing as create this school with Papa Gates, and I hope I can evolve as a player much more and just explore different kinds of music as I go along. The options are endless, and I am stoked to see where the journey goes. I also want to thank Jak for being such an inspiration when it comes to playing and just as a person in general. Jak, if you read this, you are probably one of the coolest, most kickass people I have ever seen, and I love everything you do – from your lessons to your contest. You seem fearless, kind and just incredibly talented, and I really wish I had your kind of self-esteem when it comes to just going out there and having my voice heard. I have always deemed myself not good enough to participate in the contests before this one, but when I read the idea, I was stoked to get this out there, and want to thank you for creating the opportunity to share whatever comes out of my brain.
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. It came from the heart.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Oh my God I have NO idea how I’m going to pick a winner! These are all so great! I have an update though I’m going to do to help you break your fear, Anna
Watch for the video soon! This goes to EVERYONE!!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

HERE IT IS! EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD PLEASE FOLLOW THIS AND WATCH THE VIDEO
***NEW CONTEST RULE FOR JUNE! EVERYONE PLEASE READ!!!***

 

[Anna Taylor]

@jak I love the rule, but oh boy, I’m already sweating lmao. Let’s see if my introvert self can do this.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

I agree jak. I’d even be down for a before and after thing. Could be interesting.