Hey everyone! I've been following this forum and pebbers videos for awhile but been very busy and haven't had time to practice much until recently. Im getting back into playing and would like to know if anything that I should work on. Thanks for any advice. Here's a video of me improving in e minor

m.youtube.com/watch?v=XRn1toU66Yo

Welcome, Chris.

Pretty well done. You've got good movement across the fingerboard, so you seem to know the neck pretty well, at least in Em. :P

Tell us about yourself. You could turn this into an introduction post if you want.

Thanks Farelli. I have been playing guitar for a while now and found pebbers videos a few years back when I started practicing consistently. I worked on scapel picking mostly along with learning songs. For the past two or three years I have slowly got out of my practice habits because of work and others things. I'm really passionate now about getting back into learning more and getting better so I thought I would check back with pebbers stuff since his lessons helped me so much when I was starting out. I know e minor/gmajor pretty well but I am struggling to get the other keys locked down. I'd assume that's what I need to work the most(memorizing all keys and their positions). Does anything stand put about my technique? I know I need to work on keeping my thumb behind the neck more often. My picking technique usually ends up being a wrist tapping and scapel combination. Should I practice and further develop that or move to a sarod with scapel? I kind of do a mix of both

Okay, I've slowed it down so I can have a closer look.

LEFT HAND:
It looks like you're playing Em pentatonic for the first 33 seconds or so, and you have your thumb over the neck to facilitate bending. Nothing wrong with that, everybody would suggest that thumb position when playing the pentatonic. Makes it easier.

Right about 0:34 you change to E natural minor at the 12th position, and you're bringing your thumb down. But rather than bringing it straight down behind your 2nd or 3rd finger, it looks like you're pivoting it left, which will give you decreased strength and reach. I say that because I see your thumb rotate counter-clockwise, and at 0:42 I see it rotate clockwise back into the thumb-over-neck position.

RIGHT HAND:
Your thumb is locked straight. I can see you doing scalpel at about 0:20, but that would be more fluid if your thumb were bent more. That brings the pick closer to the base of your thumb and gives you much greater control and range of motion on your picking, particularly with scalpel. I sitll need to work on it more but in the last year my playing has become much easier just from practicing it occasionally.

You've got your fingers extended. They're relaxed, but they are extended out. This creates two difficulties:

1) It makes it harder to accelerate your hand (think of a figure skater when they want to control the speed of a spin). Pebber's got some great explanations of this in his right hand videos.

2) It requires you to change your hand position when going to hybrid picking, which will make it feel very awkward and slow you down.

I've worked the last six months or so at having my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers pulled in while picking. It allows me to switch instantly between pick only and hybrid picking, makes it easier to slide the pick into a cradle in my middle finger to allow various other techniques, and aids with muting the higher strings. My sound has gotten much cleaner from working on the position of those fingers.

SUGGESTED EXERCISES
Left Hand: Chromatic Form on All Strings, Ladders, Trills, Spiders, X-Patterns. All will force you to get that thumb behind the 2nd-3rd finger because they're a bear if you don't have it there. :)

Right Hand: Scalpel Picking (for the thumb bending), PIMA Exercises (to pull in those fingers).

Fretboard Knowledge: Notes on All Strings, other similar exercises.

Also, if you're not a paying subscriber to Pebber's lessons (I'm not sure from your posts), look into becoming one. He gives you a structure and regimen that's very helpful, especially considering all his free videos. The ones he sends on subscription are longer and in a particular order.