Hi everyone,
My name is Tony and I'm new to banjobenclark.com and the forum. I've been playing bluegrass music on guitar for 30+ yrs. Consider myself to be an intermediate to advanced player. I play by ear and can't read a lick of that there musical notation stuff. Thank goodness for Tab and Tef music! I'm married with kids so my playing days are few and far between with all the responsibilities of being a husband, father, job, etc. I found myself in a playing rut for the past couple of years not getting to play with other people much any more. Enter the day I found this website. I really like Ben's sense of humor and the way he lays out his videos and tabs. I suppose that's why I purchased a membership to the site. So I'm looking forward to getting into the material here and steal some of Ben's licks to put into my playing :wink: One change I've already made is in my right hand technique. I've always been open or relaxed with my right hand and playing up around 220bpm was a struggle for me at times. So I watched Ben's video on closing up the right hand to gain speed. It works. Although it's not easy to make such a big change like that overnight. I've been using it while learning Ben's version of Black Mountain Rag in the key of C and I can tell I'll be faster than I was before. I'll have to relearn all my old stuff which is a good thing, as it'll keep things interesting for a while. That video I spoke of can be found here: http://www.banjobenclark.com/videos/guitar-speed-lesson-1/guitar-speed-lesson-1-223/