Hello, new user

I've been playing about 7 years, I'd rate myself an intermediate guitarist. I play about 2 hours a day on average. I play everything from hard rock and metal to fingerstyle acoustic. I took some lessons a few years back, but I seem to have been improving faster on my own. I joined this site to help me brush up on music theory, and to provide some structure to my learning. Right now, I feel pretty good about my playing, I just have a few problem areas -

-I'm still not able, if given some random chord progression to improvise over, to spontaneously come up with a cool sounding solo, although I've learned to play many complex solos over the years

-I'm still not able to sweep pick, although I can handle most metal solos and riffs

-I'm too dependent on using an electronic tuner to tune my guitar, I'd like to be able to tune it accurately using a tuning fork, harmonics, and my ear

-and this is pretty embarassing - I can play some pretty intricate fingerpicking riffs but I'm not able to maintain a steady rhythm while strumming chords on acoustic with a pick. I guess because I haven't devoted a lot of time to it, and I get frustrated at not being able to do something I consider 'basic' so I just switch to playing something that sounds more 'advanced' - so I never get the acoustic strumming down.

Anyways that's where I'm at - happy practicing!

Hi pos69sum,

Nothin to be embarrased about, you're good at what you practice, you know?
Welcome to Guitar Tricks! lots of friendly help here and I think you'll find just what you're looking for. This weeks GT Channel episode is a summary of Ben Lindholm's string skipping lessons and Christopher Schlegel's got a whole tutorial on sweep picking you should def check out.
Have fun!

welcome!
see ya around the boards