Of course you can. Ignore the lout making the gratuitous assertions. He thinks his word is gospel.

I liked the advice to start learning by taking up a technique that is unrelated to doing what you do now. Seems as though it would be harder to break old habits than to learn new ones. As you learn new techniques,they should lead to modifications in old ones.

But don't let anyone tell you that you can't learn new techniques or even break old habits. It is a matter of setting your mind to it and practice, practice, practice. Rick Fielding used to sit with me and draw different chord charts. His style, and he encouraged me to follow it, was to always have a guitar around. If you are just sitting watching TV, do so with the guitar in hand just making the same chord shape, or picking technique (alternating thumb for example). He felt that the real impediment was muscle memory, and the only cure for that was repetition.

Good luck, and happy picking,

Mick

Mick