Petrucci picking/warm up exercise question

[jonmkrobs]

Hi everyone. I recently got the John Petrucci "Rock Discipline" vid - it's pretty good. At the stat of the vid he shows you some right hand warm ups which I've tabbed below...........

E ----------------------------------------5-----9----------------------------
B ------------------------------5-------------------------5------------------
G ---------------------6-------------6-------------6---------------6-------
D ------------7-------------7 --------------------------------7-------------7---
A ------------------7---------------------------------------------------7--------
E -------5-----------------------------------------------------------------------5




Anyhows he goes thru this arpeggio from the 'A' above to C, E, C#, G, B and F# (all barre chords with root on 6th string).

He tells you to practice this sequence starting on a downstroke, then starting on an upstroke. Then play each note twice (first starting with a d'stroke, then an Up). Then each note 3 times, then each note 4 times. Hope this makes sense?!

He gives an example of the exercise playing each note twice at warp time speed (at least to my eyes and ears) semiquavers about 176 bpm. I've only just started practising it, but can only get the each note twice thing @ 88 bpm (exactly half speed) and my RH tenses up LOADS at this speed. Yep, I know (or hope?) it'll get better with practice.

Anyways what I wanted to ask is as this is on the vid just as a warm up - is it still a good exercise to work on for developing speed? It'll obviously help with string skipping. Should I carry on working at it til I can get it really fast. I want to work on picking technique anyway, so I don't mind doing 'mechanical' exercises. Is this a good one or just meant as a warm up thing?

Thanks for any advice guys.

Jon :-)

[jonmkrobs]

E ----------------------------------------5-----9
B ------------------------------5-------------------------5
G ---------------------6-------------6-------------6---------------6
D ------------7-------------7 --------------------------------7-------------7
A ------------------7---------------------------------------------------7
E -------5-----------------------------------------------------------------------5





Sorry if the tab above has come out all wrong again. Any advice on how to tab on here would be gratefully received too!

[phantom]

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[jonmkrobs]

Thanks Phantom, I'll do that and try again later! :cool:

[EricV]

Jon,
this exercise might be a good chopbuilder if you build it up to speed.
But actually, it´s an exercise to get your right hand going... kinda aiming at the strings. So the focus here should be to hit the right string at the right moment, using alternate picking.
If you like the sound of it at high speed, work oin it. But remember what its purpose actually is.
BTW; I use a similar exercise for students of mine who are just starting out... it´s a good way to work on getting the right hand to work, to learn how to hit the right strings etc.
Eric

[1 Wah Freak]

Hi all,
This is my first post here at this forum. I think this might be a great place to hang. I've spent the last few months hanging out at Aron's Stomp Box forum building my own pedals. Highly recomended!! Anyway, forgive me for possibly bringing up old material but on the John P. subject, I've also been working on some of those excersises and I'm really getting discouraged over of the progress I'm making with a particular excersise. The part that I'm stuck on is part of a larger excersice. I've isolated the troubling part below. I've been working on it for a few weeks and I just can't seem to get any faster or more accurate with it. I'm not sure if stems from my left or right hand. The trouble is when I switch strings from the G string the D string. It's very difficult to stop momentum of the upstroke, get the pick past the D string and turnaround for the downstroke. Anything over 90 bpm and everything starts to go south. The other aspect is making sure that each of my left hand fingers has completely released the string before striking the next note. All these things really add up when trying to go faster. Is this just a hard excersise or am I missing something? Any suggestions?

4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1
E ------------------------------------------------------------------------
B -------------------------------------------------------------------------
G --------10-----9------8-----7-------------------------------------------
D --------------------------------------10-----9-----8-----7----------------
A -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
E ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
d u d u d u d u

[Alan(Lost)]

The fastest way of playing this one, as a loop, is to use economy picking. It seems near impossible at first, but it takes a lot of practice and really is the fastest way in the end. But it must be played as a loop (repeated).

The picking pattern for this would be:

|D U D U>U D U D>|D U D...etc

You're picking the forth and fifth notes in one movement, and also the final note going into the first note again.