28 years playing, looking to break through a plateau - where do I start?

Hi everyone! I'm Simon, 40, from Brisbane, Australia.

I've been playing guitar since I was 12... it's been a bit of an on-again, off-again relationship over the years. I've been in close to 10 bands (a lot of them with my brothers, who play bass and drums), covering pretty much every role - lead guitar, rhythm guitar, lead vocals, and various combinations of all of that.

There were a few long phases where I put the guitar down to focus purely on singing, and then everything went on hold when I became a dad to twins. The kids are a bit older now though, and I've recently jumped back in as lead guitarist in a new band. They're pretty impressed with what I can do... but I know exactly what I need to work on.

What I'm decent at: Rhythm, improvising (to an extent), learning songs by ear, basic theory (circle of 5ths, some modal understanding), partial fretboard knowledge from years of power chords. My genres have been all over the place but mostly rock - with detours into metal, punk, blues and funk, and more recently bluegrass. I've also got a solo acoustic side gig so I know my chords and strumming fairly well.

Where I fall short: My improvising is almost entirely one shape of the minor pentatonic, with occasional blues scale additions. Speed picking, alternate picking, hybrid picking... as soon as things get fast, I struggle. I've been working on my pick grip after discovering Jazz III Max picks through a Bernth course, but old habits keep dragging me back to my old technique.

I've been meaning to get proper lessons for a while but options in my area are pretty limited, which is how I ended up here.

I'm currently on the 14-day trial and still finding my feet. The core learning system looks a bit basic for where I'm at (I'd love a version of that for intermediate players), and I'm eyeing off the custom lesson plan but hesitant to commit until I know the subscription is worth it for someone at my level.

Any advice on where to start would be really appreciated!

Simon

Hey bud,

I don't have the same experience as you, but it took me a month to learn how to pick differently. I left the Jazz III picks and went the Ernie Ball prodigy. Mainly because they were so small I would always play with my hand closed.

I like the shield picks, 1.5mm. Their much bigger and stout than the Jazz III at 1mm. The shape and tone is crisp and the attack is diffrent.

Pretty much what I did was set up the metronome slow and began just down picking for a few bars. I would stop, check to make sure my hand was still tall and my attack was good, and my hand didn't move from the bridge and continue. Then I mixed different picking styles and fragments of scales in every other bar till I got faster and cleaner. If I noticed my hand would get close to the strings or my hand would start to close again, I would reset my hand on the bridge, stand it tall and continue. After a week, I was able to increase the metronome speed 2 BPM every day. Now I gallop faster than ever and can play 16ths at 140 BPM. Im just getting faster, but I deliberately practice about 20 minutes a day just picking. I am willing to share my practice routine with you if I may. That includes light, medium, and heavy palm muting, that I had to re-learn when I changed how I pick. 

I think Jazz III picks have a place, but for me, I would get too close to the strings and not anchor my hand appropriately because they were so short. My palm mutes were inconsistent and my attack was weaker with a closed hand. And yeah, I still play with my hand closed but only when appropriate. So, now I can go back and forth between open and closed as required. 

My thing works for me, it's just boring after the first three weeks. So, I do the routine only about three days a week now. It wouldn't hurt. I can upload it for you tomorrow in a link video tomorrow after work if you're interested so I can explain everything. Also, the website allows you to upload videos for instructors to coach you as best they can. They're obliviously more qualified to diagnose your hands than I am. 

Be safe, brother. 

Welcome, Simon! :)

You have some serious experience, more than I could certainly help you with. 

I might suggest that you reach out to either Anders or Christopher here on the forum. They are instructors and are probably the best people to talk to 

Bill

IF I was you
THEN I'd avail my self of the vid feedback feature

elaborations

I ask Schlegal stuff all the time; and he's great about responding

but that's mostly theoretical stuff

it sounds like you are talking in terms of practical ability
where do I go from here

and that can only be answered by someone - more skilled than you - seeing<hearing you actually play
rather than guestimating based on some laundry list of alleged skills

"I can do [whatever]" is subjective.