That's a sexy collection of guitars you got there, Yngtchie!

Thanks! Today I changed back to the old pickups on my Ruokangas. I just couldn't get used to the sound of those in the pic.

did you wound the classical, or did it come wounded?

That's my dad's old Yamaha, he's had it since the '70s and it's been through a lot. I got it as a gift some 10 years ago when I started playing guitar, and after cleaning it properly and putting on a fresh set of strings, it turned out to be a fine instrument. I just need to give it a new bridge, the one that's on it is too high for my liking.

any of you experts here;

can anyone help me with what chords are being used in this song? it's seems like a fairly simple chord structure but i'm an amateur and my ears aren't good enough yet.

Its mostly d minor, a major, a#major, f major then a major

thanks mate

What's everybody working on? After a period of acoustic work, I'm back behind the Ruokangas, practicing Vinnie Moore's "Daydream" solo. Sound clips to follow.

Sweep picking. What a bitch.

is everybody at that age obsessed with sweep picking for what ? I remember a couple of my friends going crazy to play it.

Nah, its just a technique my teacher decided to show me. I'm not really that determined to get it right because it's not that important a skill at all. I still want to get it, just for the sake of being a well rounded player, but I'm not at all obsessed with it. What I am obsessed with is playing classical guitar pieces.

a far better obsession to have in my opinion

Sweep picking is handy for doing certain licks, like if you ever wanna do a Malmsteen solo, which you should. What's most important is that you get the main picking and fingering motion down where you can execute the arpeggios without thinking about the mechanics. Personally, I wouldn't worry about learning the huge Jason Becker-style sweeps that you find in songs like "Altitudes" or "Go Off!", as those will mainly come in handy only if you're doing songs where those big arpeggios are important parts of the songs. Otherwise, you'll most likely sound like you're showing off unnecessarily if you just throw in those in the middle of a solo, simply because it's so hard to make them sound natural. If there's one thing I don't care for, it's when people shred and sound like they're trying to impress you. That's when shred goes from being cool to being lame, and it's a very fine line.

Oh, and sweep picking works great for jazzy arpeggios, especially those small three-string Maj7 and min7 ones. You can of course alternate pick them, hybrid pick or do them mainly using hammer-ons and pull-offs, but all of those will make the licks sound and feel different, both tonally and rhythmically. What I find most important is that players use the techniques that sound the best, i.e. most natural.

I only own an acoustic, so I've started learning some folksy fingerpicking stuff.

This is what I'm being made to do, more or less. Really the lesson had to do with soloing briefly in between chords and the example he gave me had sweep picking so that's what I ended up doing this week. Thanks a lot for the advice, that's always very welcome.