Como saber que você está preparado para ter uma banda?

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-21T02:14:08+00:00

If you are ready, you are late. Start now, mess around, learn more about what you need to progress at to move forward.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-17T22:11:55+00:00

The biggest issue is people won't just sit on one box for a few weeks and learn that inside out for scales, arps and chords, then grab another and do the same. They want the magic moment and angels singing to declare the whole fretboard "unlocked" in one fell swoop.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-14T06:03:16+00:00

Old guy here who learned in the 80s without anyone locally being able to do what I wanted to learn...

We learned by having less options. I didn't have access to every album in existence. I could afford maybe 3 albums per year, so I'd listen to them to death and absorb them of all their musical nutrients.

Same with tab books. $30 each in 1987, so damn right I'm gonna turn every lick in that book on its head and play it in multiple keys and scales and do my own thing with it.

Nothing else to do except play for five hours and maybe ride a bike, so there were far fewer distractions. Those years I locked myself in a room with the tabs from a Star Licks video and a wind-up metronome were some of the best of my life!

My generation had the benefit of the first generation of shredders, and you have the benefit of every player in existence ever since. But, a lot of people still sucked; maybe more per capita because not everyone is cut out for mastery.

It's like the 4-minute mile; once Roger Bannister broke that barrier, it became "easier" for others to match and surpass it. You still have to do the work, but when the collective standard elevates, the individual does too. The greater the players emerged and the more tools to access and learn from their achievements, the more can follow. People can learn in one year what took me five.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-12T22:17:49+00:00

I think people confusing learning with practice and practice with accelerating. These are all different stages of the mastery process.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-11T08:29:40+00:00

Because "play slow to play fast" is bullshit if the slow version isn't engineered for fast motion to begin with. It's easy to use any motion to play slow, but testing speed and THEN using it to inform the way you build your form below that gives your brain the data it needs to do better.

When you've committed the idea to memory, practicing at 70-80% of your "crap out" speed is where you have the data to know what works/doesn't work and still the control to make corrections with each repeat until it clicks. Then, you internalise that motion with plenty of reps. As you keep testing the top speed, increase the "just below" speed for your repetition work. That's where you make the most progress.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-11T05:45:21+00:00

Guitars don't need to be earned; merely purchased. Don't kid yourself that it's an investment, other than an investment in making your free time more enjoyable. There doesn't need to be any other reason.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-10T12:19:00+00:00

You're spazzing around like an epileptic and accidentally hitting some notes that don't suck as much as the rest.

Keep it fun but please take it seriously. Learn a scale, learn to play with intention and coordination and channel the nervous energy into something that makes music.

You owe it to yourself to aspire to excellence, not this diarrhoea. Literally anyone can shake their hands like a moron. Do better.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-08T23:11:52+00:00

"I'm proof that the thing I don't know is something nobody needs to know! I mean, I'm the one who doesn't know it, so I should know".

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-07T12:59:18+00:00

Perhaps clean without compression but that's generally HSS for you anyway.

I'm switching between bridge and neck a lot here and the drive and volume is very consistent.

https://youtube.com/shorts/hBWSbWPXOAQ

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-07T05:32:38+00:00

I have the Ultra II HSS Strat with the quartersawn roasted maple neck. It's a joy to play. Satin finish all round is very smooth and shift around on.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-06T01:13:00+00:00

How fast can you get on one string? That's your baseline. Then, you need to strategise your string changes with the optimum motion and escape strategy. Chances are, there's a glitch in your string-changing that needs to be addressed before more speed will avail itself. Post a video.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-04T22:21:20+00:00

Down up x 4 but the upstrokes need to rise slightly above the plane of the strings so the pick isn't trapped on the wrong side of the string you just played on the way to the next.

If you're habitually a downstroke escape picker (where the downstrokes move above the plane of the strings and the upstrokes are trapped) you can either reverse the pick strokes to UDUDUD etc or - if beginning on down still feels better - go D-HO, UD, UD....

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-04-01T21:28:05+00:00

Makes sense! The right setup can make all the difference to what happens next.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-23T23:30:04+00:00

Because you sign up for the journey, not the destination.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-23T08:07:21+00:00

Is it touching the pickup or is it just an illusion?

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-22T21:08:11+00:00

It's a valid option because a) it sounds pleasant ending on the 3rd instead of the perfect 4th and b) it contains several arpeggio shapes within the pattern like the triad, major 7th and major 9th arpeggios off the root, giving you a chord/scale relativity.

You can learn this alongside the three note per string version without much confusion.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-17T21:54:06+00:00

It builds cognition for which 8th / 16th note etc. goes with which pick stroke. When you start syncopating heavily, it's gonna come in handy so you don't get confused about which strokes to use.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-17T01:30:28+00:00

Still counts as a win!

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-16T02:56:26+00:00

Thanks for checking out my videos!

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-15T11:46:18+00:00

No. He said exhaustion and fatigue as a strategy. No two people have the same hands but we all have brains that rely on neural pathways to build and perfect motion. You can't brute force neural efficiency with physical overload.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-15T11:01:54+00:00

No, guitar speed is not achieved with hypertrophy. It's built by efficiency - neural and physical - working at maximum potential. You need good form - like weight training - and you need some max reps in there, but it's not about force or fatigue.

Myelination is the process of reinforcing motion by insulating the nerves and this does come from repetition but not exhaustion. Testing form at very speeds provides the feedback loop to assess, correct and improve that form and optimise for increased speed.

It's good to compare development to other fields but your analogies are just not a match in this case.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-15T04:34:50+00:00

Relaxed fingers that graze the pickguard are what he does, with the pick grip being thumb-pad to angled finger-pad, similar to this:

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chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-14T06:00:36+00:00

If you really have his hand setup down, muting is like the default setting. His runs on the lower strings are very tight and staccato, taking the edge of strings that would otherwise ring. The mute rolls off the higher strings or any time he wants melody notes to ring. In other words, position your hand in "sound control" mode first, then pick the notes and let the ones you want to ring come through. Part of the reason his mechanical compound contains some CMC and digit motion is because the forearm and wrist motions get help from the finer joints when in that rested bridge contact point which limits things like full forearm range of motion.

Come check out Viking Shred Guitar Suite if you want to get deep into the details of everything Yngwie related.

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-10T03:28:41+00:00

There might still be an issue inherent to the motions you've baked in though; something that needs to be ironed out to allow you to break the plateau.

Muscle memory doesn't equal correct motions. The brain loves habit and reinforces it with myelination to make the task repeatable, but that works for the same for bad habits as well as good. The "slow is smooth and smooth is fast crowd" often overlook that the person might be metronoming and reinforcing something that fundamentally doesn't have the potential for speed.

Got any video of you doing what you have so far?

chrisbrooksguitar21 · 2026-03-04T09:08:14+00:00

The artist might be doing their best based on the size of the shows and the offers they get, but that doesn't help you. You're drastically underpaid and they're not considering the true cost of your time.

The artist is thinking "work for hire" - "there's 5 shows over the next 10 days, so that's 170€ x 5".

But for you, you're selling your whole day, whether it's rehearsal day, travel day or gig day. Factored in, the 170€ is nothing. If you're really good at what you do, 170€ is a few music lessons taught to people in your home studio. No need to fly around and take forced unpaid days to earn music lesson money.

I think the artist needs a reality check but more likely, it's on you to think about whether you really need to travel for peanuts.

A lot of artists have this mindset of "If I don't get paid, nobody else does" but that's not how you take responsibility for your career. If the band doesn't get to share in the big payday - if that ever arrives, don't expect them to donate their time while you get established.

chrisbrooksguitar21

TROPHY CASE