Synchronicity

Master hand synchronization with Synchronicity, a groundbreaking seminar incorporating decades of Cracking the Code’s testing and teaching on this critical subject

Do you have trouble synchronizing your hands? Is your picking slower than your fretting? Is your fretting slower than your picking? At Cracking The Code we hear these complaints daily. And our response is the same each time: How do you know? Without a rigorous plan for testing and streamlining both hands, it’s impossible to know why your playing sounds uncoordinated, or how to fix it.

Enter Synchronicity. If you’ve never deliberately worked on synchronization the modern way, it will be eye-opening when you realize just how structured everything is. A synchronized player executing a stream of fast pickstrokes on a single fretted note is NOT just hammering away on a tremolo with no knowledge of where they are in time. Far from it.

Even free-time, accelerando, and rallentando playing is structured. These are just several cases where traditional metronome practice techniques are difficult to employ, and why you won’t actually need a click source for most of the challenges in Synchronicity. Simply put, sychronization is not about matching your motions to an external pulse. It’s about matching them to an internal pulse, tying the hands to each other. This permits locked motions even when the tempo is changing – something that human conductors and live musicians do all the time.

Players like Yngwie Malmsteen and Eric Johnson famously float over the beat while maintaining perfect hand sync through precisely regulated fretting and picking groupings. In Synchronicity we’ll show you exactly how this is achieved.

Synchronicity contains hours of structured study: 40 sequenced and super-watchable lessons; three realistic etudes in Latin, Jazz, and Rock styles; and 32 painstakingly curated rudiments for easy generation of novel practice ideas.

Is Synchronicity right for you? Watch the introductory section below and find out!

NOTE: Synchronicity is brand new! Many groups are already up: Introduction, Core Concepts, Chunking the Picking Hand, Testing Your Fretting, and Core Fretting Patterns – along with the three etudes and all the rudiments. This is already over 40 minutes of the sequence. The remaining sections will upload over the next several weeks as we edit and export. Stay tuned!

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Synchronicity Seminar Overview

What's covered and who it's for

 

Chapter 2 - Synchronicity Requirements

What skill level do you need for Synchronicity?

 

Songs

How To Use The Etudes

Exploiting stealth single-string construction

 

Latin Etude

The "other" shred guitar: nylon-string acoustic

 

Rock Etude

Fast sequences for modern hard rock and metal

 

Jazz Etude

Classic fast bebop vamp arranged for single-string speed

 

Tracks And Tablature

 

Core Concepts

Chapter 1 - Internal vs External Synchronization

Following your internal metronome

 

Chapter 2 - Constant Picking Speed

Create complex practice phrases with this simple concept

 

Chapter 3 - Chunking

The foundation of motor memory

 

Chunking The Picking Hand

Chapter 1 - Chunking Twos

The alternate picking atom

 

Chapter 2 - Downstroke Vs Upstroke Chunking

Tracking your playing with a landmark pickstroke

 

Chapter 3 - Tremolo Fours And Sixes

The most common chunks in fast phrasing

 

Chapter 4 - The Final Chunk

The easiest way to stick the landing

 

Chapter 5 - The 65-Note Challenge

Metachunking for long lines

 

Testing Your Fretting

Chapter 1 - Fretting Diagnostics

Tips for testing the fretting hand

 

Chapter 2 - Legato Basics

A crash course in pick-free playing

 

Chapter 3 - Three-Note Shapes

Naming the most important shapes in fretting

 

Chapter 4 - Three-Note Fingerings

Ranking your finger-to-fret combinations

 

Chapter 5 - The Hammer-Pull Test

A single pluck as a core testing tool

 

Chapter 6 - Chromatic Shapes

Four fingers is a core skill

 

Chapter 7 - Two-Note Shapes

Terrible twos and trills

 

Chapter 8 - Including Open Strings

Augmenting your reach with a mechanical freebie

 

Chapter 9 - Roll Pattern Speed

Use these elemental patterns as powerful diagnostics

 

Chapter 10 - Testing The Fretting Matrix

Score your skills with this comprehensive fretting inventory

 

Chapter 11 - Rushing

Isolating the most common fretting error

 

Chapter 12 - Larger Motions

Generating stronger feedback for faster learning

 

Fretting Test Clips

 

Core Fretting Patterns

Chapter 1 - Six-Note Patterns

Why six is a pillar of efficient chunking

 

Chapter 2 - The Power Of Permutations

Unlock killer variations with a simple mod

 

Chapter 3 - Four-Note Patterns

Speed Racer, Csardas, and more

 

Chapter 4 - Odd-Numbered Patterns

Secretly the most efficient fretting motions you can make

 

Chapter 5 - Chromatic Patterns

More fingers means more variety

 

Chapter 6 - Single-String Shifting

Keeping it together horizontally

 

Chapter 7 - Vertical Scales

Keeping it together across the strings

 

Rudiments

How To Use Rudiments

Make the most of these fundamental patterns

 

Rudiment Clips