Recording: Final Fantasy VII - Birth of a God

Great job! I know how hard this one is (which is why I haven't recorded it HA!)

What I would like to see more from you is a little more control. Your fingers will eventually get all the notes, that's just a matter of repetition but what I want you to look at when watching this video is, try and see how frantic the playing is. It looks almost like the guitar is ready to fly out of your hands at any moment and you're hanging on for dear life. I tensed up watching it and I wasn't even the one playing! Hehe, so there are a few things I'd like you to try. These are mostly technical aspects of your playing that should, once you get used to them, let you focus on the music itself, more so then battling the guitar to get it to do what you want.

One, it looks like you have the guitar sitting on your right knee. I want you to try setting it in your lap. You may need to bring your right foot under your left foot to raise your left knee up a little, or if you can find something like a box to set your left foot on like a stand, all the better. There are a couple reasons for this. It brings the guitar more in front of you rather than having your right arm kind of pushed out to your right side. This relieves a lot of tension in your shoulder. Also, it will keep the guitar more stable. The less the neck moves around, the better. And finally, it will bring the guitar neck up closer to your head. This causes less stress on the left hand and will allow it to put only the pressure needed to press the strings.

This leads me to my next point, be aware of where your left thumb is at all times, try and keep it under the neck, more in the middle of the back of the neck. You see in the video, it poking out here and there and this is not something you want with a classical guitar. The neck is too wide, you need to have those fingers arched up using the thumb as a support. I noticed there is a lot of string bending when you are playing and this is partly to blame for that. Because your thumb isn't there to support your hand, your are clamping down with your fingers and your palm, causing the strings to push sideways. So get those fingers arched up higher so you come more straight down on your fingertips. I think once you get the position of the guitar and your thumb straight, it should help the bending because you won't have to use as much force to push the strings in and it will at least come in mostly straight down rather than sideways.

Lastly, and this is more a personal preference, if you don't want to grow your nails out a little, consider moving your right hand a little closer to the sound hole. Without nails the sound will sound more tinny and weak and the further you move from the sound hole the more pronounced this gets. It does look like you are good enough and play with enough power to think about higher tension strings. It will probably brighten up your sound but just by watching your strings it looks like you are playing with enough force to warrant considering them. The guitar sounds like it has fairly low action and you combine that with forceful playing, medium tension strings, and no nails and you are heading towards a more "slap bass" sound.

Anyway, definitely a solid effort and I'm looking forward to hearing more from you in the future. :)

Please don't take this comment anything other than it is intended as: constructive criticism... I know hearing this kind of stuff can be a bit disheartening, but if you take it in you can develop yourself into a much better guitarist in the long run :)

You really seem to be sacrificing accuracy for speed in this, and it really shows unfortunately. I'm going to be completely honest with you here and say that I'd rather see a more relaxed, more accentuated, more accurate, but slower tempo version than a fast version that does not meet the previous criteria. Ironically, this is the best way to get to playing faster. If you start off slow, you keep it slow and perfect until it is ingrained into your muscle memory 100%. THEN you take it to the next level and increase speed.

It can be frustrating, I know... I've learned things at 25% tempo increasing at 5% steps.. which takes quite a long time if you can imagine XD. However, if starting at 25% is necessary to learn something properly, then that is what is necessary. In this case, sticking to the tempo you have currently will probably do you more harm than good and may potentially burn in some poor/improper technique. I'd try taking down the tempo a notch to maybe 75% and playing at that until you have it down perfect, and then bumping the tempo up 5-10%. Rinse and repeat.

Also, Kabuki's advice on technique is pretty capital, so make sure to take that to heart and don't forget it XD.