OmniShift

For as far as I can tell, my hand comes in pretty much parallel to the strings. I hold my pick deliberately at different angles for different parts. For example with tremolo's, I hold my pick at a big angle which makes it easier to keep the rhythm. Basically, the faster the same string has to be picked, the higher the angle. I always play sitting and use a Tanglewood TSB 62 strato.

I'll give the OK form a try, thanks :)

I've been playing for a while now, but I sometimes come across a problem with my picking hand. I play with a closed hand and the pick between my thumb and the joint of my index finger. When I play intensely like that, though, I strum the outer side of the joints of my index en middle finger over the strings, which after an hour or so becomes red or the skin gets loose. At this point I obviously decide I've played enough, but I would like to prevent this problem. So I would like suggestions on what I could best do about this. Should I try to change the shape of my picking hand, hold my pick differently, simply practice a lot with holding my hand further away from the strings, or something else?

I don't see why you need to disable some parts of the song? You could ALL compete on your choice of three Intermediate/hard songs - it would just be that each person would be assigned a level (beginner, Intermediate or Masterclass). The leaderboard would be only against people at your own 'level' (per song).. Sounds easier to manage :) As I said my concern is that on "score attack" after 3 parts down you're kicked out like "GAME OVER" so most of the time I can't post any score... I must admit that my idea is not realystic and managing competition is already enough complicated for Krazyone and Motive (thanks to them). I need to improve myself, that's just what I need! :D I think you'd get more people entering it - if there were three songs to choose from - rather than being tied to one song (for the level you are at). It's a competition (of sorts) so you need something to aim for. Otherwise, what's the point of entering - you could just go off and practice it yourself.. It may be too strict to look at the 3 classes as restrictions, but it may be too loose to just give 3 songs without indicating a recommended difficulty. It you remove the classes, you'll likely see 'masterclasses' playing 'beginner' songs, leading to beginners being demotivated for not reaching as high a scores as others, even though it's the simplest song of the 3. I think it's fine the way it is, because even though there are classes, there are still people who are somewhere in between 2 classes who play both to fit their level best. That sounds like a good idea. Although it may be hard to get a complete list of every beginner's 85%+ songs, it is possible to get a second opinion of the people in each class to judge whether the song is appropriate for their skill level. All that needs to be done is picking people who are well representative for each class and keeping an eye on whether they're still good judges every week. After all, a beginner will not stay a beginner forever.

People keep posting that a song needs to be challenging, but that doesn't mean it can be any difficulty you want and call the excess difficulty a 'challenge'. When people have higher accuracy for the intermediate than the beginner lead, it's just no longer a challenge. There's something called the 'zone of proximal development', which basically says that people learn best when they learn things that are only just above their level. If you go higher than that, performance (and learning) drops drastically. That's what's happening here, so nobody is actually challenging themselves to learn something new simply because they can't learn it.

Just had my first shot on beginner lead, but I have my doubts about the difficulty of the solo. I tried to do it in riff repeated but noticed that when difficulty is set low enough for me to try and learn it there are 2 pull offs that follow up on the same note, so you can't hit those unless you play a higher note in between. And when I set the difficulty high enough to see that hidden note, it's too difficult for me to play. I don't know about the rest of the beginners, but I don't think many people will be able to play that solo within a week. The rest of the song (for as far as I´ve mastered it) seems to be just right though. Hopefully I'll have my first entry in this competition in a few days :)