Ive been playing guitar for only like a year and 2 months, ive basically been doing john petrucci exercises and everything Matt and Corey has shown for lessons the whole time. I can cleanly play a few trivium songs like Rain, Like light to flies, Requiem and I know matt said he didnt know much theory and i am wondering if it would be really necessary to learn theory asap or not.

I am farmiliar with the C.A.G.E.D chord system but should i learn more about major/minor chords and scales and where they appear on the fretboard? I just wanna know what else i should be learning whilst i continue doing scales, sweeps, pinched harmonics and chords etc, as well as learning new songs and playing lots and lots.

Thanks - Adrian

Depends on what you plan to do. If you want to be a studio musician and pump out back to back albums of nonstop shredding that gets boring after the second album then learn theory. When you're live in front of thousands of people, it doesn't make much of a difference if you're a good song writer. I started out similar to you learning a bunch of other bands stuff (started off with metallica and black sabbath) but honestly i haven't learned another bands song in over a couple years. I have a band going and it's just not the same playing someone else's music. Try getting a drum machine and a simple recorder. See what you can come up with by your self. Take pieces of songs you love and change them up. Find the chord progression and change the beat. Layer it up with a backing track with the chord progression and the melody/riffs/solos (Although i do admit not learning anyone else's music has limited my playing style, i need to get out of this rut)