[this post is an excerpt from the Fundamentals of Picking course] “Chicken Picking” is a phrase that gets thrown around with abandon, with no real consensus as to what the hell it really is. Even Johnny Hiland—who is unquestionably a master of the technique—can’t seem to define it. Here’s him rambling for several minutes about […]
The Nitty Gritty Guide To Practicing Technique
[this lesson is an excerpt from the Fundamentals of Picking course] We talked already about the high-level ideals of Badass Deliberate Practice: pick discrete tasks that you can get to 95% mastered in just a few sessions avoid the pile-up of half-assed skills. But I want to drill down a little further and have a […]
Badass Deliberate Practice
[this post is a lesson in the new Fundamentals of Picking course] If you’ve been awake for the last decade, you’ve probably heard someone say the phrase “ten thousand hours.” It’s the half-understood pop takeaway from a growing body of research on deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is the act of practicing the hard shit right […]
Principles of Picking: How To Do It Right
Don’t be like me. My hope for you is that you will zoom along in the fast lane of guitar-learning for as long and as far as you want to take this road. But me? While I’ve seen the taillights of some fast-laners recede into the distance, I’ve been limping along the shoulder on […]
How To Play Like Benson & Santana: The Counterintuitive Picking Technique That Transformed My Guitar Playing
This article is about some slightly heretical notions: Is the default picking method most of us use hindering our ability to play well? Are the people who attain badassery while picking this way badasses in spite of- and not because of- this technique? Is there a better method? If so, can people who’ve spent years […]