Most of McKee's YouTube performances appear on the album, along with a handful of tracks carried over from Dreamcatcher. McKee's third CD, Art of Motion, was released on Candyrat Records in November 2005. He placed second in the Fingerstyle Guitar Competition of the Canadian Guitar Festival that year. The album was later re-released by McKee's label in response to the popularity he garnered on YouTube. The album includes his cover of Toto's "Africa" and "Theme from Schindler's List," as well as a harp guitar tribute to Michael Hedges entitled "The Friend I Never Met." McKee used the title track to win the opportunity to perform with bassist Michael Manring, with whom he has since toured. McKee released his second album, Dreamcatcher, in 2004. Only 1,000 copies of Nocturne were ever produced and the album is now out of circulation. That same year, he was placed third at the National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition in Winfield, Kansas. In 2003, McKee toured in Taiwan with Jacques Stotzem, Isato Nakagawa, and Masaaki Kishibe, and earned first place in the Miscellaneous Acoustic Instrument contest of the New Jersey State Fiddling and Picking Championships with a Ron Spillers harpguitar he purchased from Stephen Bennett in 2002. The instrument can be heard in a number of his songs on later albums, such as "Into The Ocean" and "Gates of Gnomeria". In 2001, McKee independently released his first album, Nocturne. He began to be influenced by guitarists such as Michael Hedges, Billy McLaughlin, Pat Kirtley, and from Passion Session by Don Ross, as he continued studying the instrument on his own. Later that year, with his mother's permission, he obtained his GED in order to quit attending high school and play more guitar. McKee later bought an instructional videotape from Reed and began to learn many of his acoustic guitar techniques from it. McKee's electric guitar-playing cousin inspired him to continue learning, taking him out for his 16th birthday to see a guitarist named Preston Reed perform live at a clinic. He began learning shred guitar music, including songs by Metallica, Eric Johnson, and Joe Satriani.
Initially underwhelmed by his guitar lessons, McKee began teaching himself how to play guitar. McKee played his first guitar, an Aria nylon string bought by his father, at age 13.