This is a progress video of my work on “Shepherd of Fire” by Avenged Sevenfold. I spent a good lot of my life being intimidated by learning things like this, but recently made a strong resolution to just keep working and believed that things would come together. It’s always impossible to capture the best performance (because that usually happens when the tape isn’t rolling) but this is a good run through it.
Over the past year I’ve been insanely diligent about practicing and following the advice I set forth in this blog, especially the idea of patience and having the foresight to know that a little work today builds to huge improvements down the road. The other big portion of advice that I have to thank for my progress is what I keep saying about challenging yourself and being accountable to other people. Whether it’s taking on bigger gigs, accepting higher levels of guitar students, going back to school, or finding a job with higher standards that will push you to do more, the trick is to kick fear to the curb, block out all the naysayers, and get to work shredding.