Intoduction
Welcome to the final part of my "Guitar Practicing Workout".
This time, I would like to talk less and let ya rather work on some exercises. I'll show you a few exercises which might not seem like rocket-science to you, but they might cause you to focus on aspects of playing you haven't worked on before... I picked a few basic techniques and randomly included some of the exercises I used to do to work on those techniques.
Some of them might look familiar and some of them you might have never thought of before. We'll see.
Furthermore, I am gonna show you 5 etudes I made up through the years. I always thought that, even though it's great to focus on some basic exercises, it's easy to get distracted when you do just those. So a good way of focused, challenging practicing is to make up little etudes that feature certain techniques you're currently working on.
I have made up a bunch of these throughout the years, and I picked out 5 of my favourite ones.
This is in no way some kind of "Every exercise you'll ever need" kinda article. I am just trying to show you some exercises you might have never tried before (example: practicing scale patterns... sure, you can play those patterns ascending and descending, but how about sequences or certain diatonic intervals?!? More on that later…)
So, let's just jump right in. The first few examples are pretty logical, and I am sure most of you have seen those exercises before. Let me try to gather a few of them here, ok? (If you have read Vai's 10 hour workout, you will definitely recognise some of these)
Everyone knows the good ol' symmetrical 1-2-3-4 pattern. Good basic stuff to work on alternate picking and synchronisation of both hands. Now, give your brain and fingers something to chew on... let's twist that 1-2-3-4 thing around a bit, k?
Here ya go, our starting point, ascending and descending. I only tabbed out the runs on the first few strings. I guess it won't be too tough to figure out the rest...
Now, let's change the pattern… 1-3-2-4 ascending and descending...
...and another variation:
Brain-twister
This next one is a real brain- and finger-twister, and is taken from Vai's workout...
The pattern is kinda shifted around on each string… 2 3 4 1 , 3 4 1 2 , 4 1 2 3... try to understand it before ya attempt to play it. This one I tabbed out from the low to the high E-string... ascending and descending...
Now, on to those "zig zag" exercises I like so much. I have talked about and featured them in articles before, I just included them once more this time to show you that this is one other variation you can do with those symmetrical kinda runs...
See, the main-point about the first half of this article is that you should keep the variety in your practicing. Some small variations can make a huge difference, can keep it challenging, and it will help you to stay focused, motivated... and help you build yer chops.
So here are two different "zig zag" run, one on adjacent strings...
and on non-adjacent strings...
OK. The exercises above are by no means the only possible r.h. / synchronisation exercises or all possible exercises you can do with those 1-2-3-4 kinda patterns.
You can throw in stretches (1-2-3-5, 1-3-4-5, 1-3-4-6 etc), you can play em one note per string, you can reverse the order of notes on each string, you can play different directions.
You can spend HOURS doing these kinda exercises if you move them up and down the neck. Imagine you'd play each one of the above exercises over and over, each time moving it up one fret... that should keep ya busy.
And yet again, it's up to YOU how much of this kinda stuff you wanna do. If you're just starting out, if you just wanna play some songs, you might wanna neglect this kinda stuff and focus on strumming and chords instead... although, the exercises above are usually quite helpful for every kinda player. If you have lots of time to practice, if you feel motivated and eager to try every possible variation, you can spend hours and hours without ever really repeating yourself.
Keep in mind: Practice what still needs work, not what's easy already (I first heard this one from Steve Morse). It may not be rocket-science, but if you pay attention to your practicing, you might figure out that you're spending too much time on stuff that doesn't need that much attention anymore. Which is obvious. It can be frustrating sometimes to try and learn new stuff. We usually gravitate to playing something that's kinda easy and feels natural. So if you can play the good ol 1-2-3-4 (exercise 1) at light speed, all relaxed and easily, it might bum you out to go to one of the other exercises… cuz you'll most likely have to decrease the tempo quite a bit in order to play accurately. But there's no progress if you keep doing exercises that are way too easy.
So... keep that in mind, k?!?
The 6 minute trill exercise
Legato-stuff
OK, let me show you a few legato-things you can try. Maybe you haven't thought of this kinda stuff yet, maybe you have, we'll see. Again.. this is not a complete list of important legato-exercises, I am just trying to show you a few ones that a lot of my students seem to never think of when they practise.
The first one is a classic one, focusing on endurance. This one works for both beginners and intermediate players, and even for pros it can be a good warm-up exercise.
It's the legendary "6 Minute trill exercise" (I first heard about it at a Gary Hoey-workshop, BTW).
This one should be done once a day, and it will help you to work on endurance, left hand strength and accuracy, and… relaxing the hand, simply because it's a longer trill exercise.
It's actually pretty easy. Put your hand in first position (index finger at 1st fret) onto the high e-string. Then, take an alarm clock or stopwatch which will help you to know when 1 minute is over.
Now, for one minute, hammer on at the 4th fret with your pinkie, and pull off back to the first finger which stays at the first fret the whole time. Decide for yourself what tempo you start at, but here's the catch: You have to maintain an even tempo throughout that minute. Don't speed up, don't slow down. Most likely, you'll start too fast, and after about half a minute, it will become some kind of a torture... you'll most likely find out that you won't be able to maintain the trill for a whole minute. So… start out slowly. This is no contest, it's a workout!
After one minute, do trills at the 3rd fret with your ring finger (pull off to the first finger at 1st fret). IMPORTANT: If this still is too much of a stretch for your left hand, start higher up on the neck, like in 5th position, or an octave higher than the TAB… at the 13th fret.
So, you're trilling with your ring finger for one minute. Then, you triller with your middle finger at the second fret for one minute. Again, try to maintain an even tempo and try to keep the notes at an even volume... and relax your left hand, otherwise it will be pure torture.
So, 3 minutes are over. Let's move on. Leave your index finger at the first fret, put your middle finger down onto the 2nd fret and leave it there for the rest of the exercise. Then, with your ring finger, do ho's and po's at the 3rd fret for one minute. RELAX. Do this for one minute. Next, hammer on / pull off at the 4th fret with your index- and middle finger positioned at the 1st and 2nd fret, respectively. Again, one minute.
Here comes the final minute.. and the toughest triller of em all. With your index and middle finger still positioned at 1st and 2nd fret, put your ring finger down at the 3rd fret and leave it there… and do hammer ons and pull offs (trills) at the 4th fret with your pinkie. This is the hardest one, and will feel mighty awkward at first. Start slowly. And relax.
If any of this hurts a lot, stop!!! Move to a higher position on the neck, or take a break. Don't hurt yourself! Maybe start with a half minute of each one for a few days, then move up to one minute. If you do this once a day, you should notice an increase of speed, accuracy and strength within a few weeks.
Regarding other legato-exercises (runs etc.), you can basically do the ones in my legato-article, or even the ones above legato-style. One thing that seems to be forgotten about quite often seems to be playing along one string. A lot of people tend to think "Gee, playing on one string is beginner-stuff. I can nail all those 3NPS-patterns on six strings, so I'm beyond that". But you can create some cool licks on one string only, and it might give ya some interesting ideas. After all, it's pretty logical to think along one string… if you imagine a scale by thinking of its formula (W-W-H-W-W-W-H eg.), you can easily translate that to the one string... a jump of 2 frets is a whole tone, one fret is a half tone.
More legato
One of the legato-exercises (key of Amin) I used to do a lot in all kinds of different variations (hint!) is shown here:
I'm not gonna go into too much detail, I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. Of course, business as usual: try different keys, use different strings, different rhythms etc.
Here is a variation on that, this time incorporating the open string (another cool thing you can do with along-the-string-kinda playing):
What else can ya vary? Do something similar on two adjacent strings… or two non-adjacent ones. How about three? How about big stretches? Sliding between two distant positions, doing trills?
There are so many things you can vary to keep it interesting, depending on how much you wanna work on this kinda stuff. And the more you get used to variations, the easier they'll be after a while. Or rather: the easier it'll be to adjust to variations.
Of course, you can use that "variations"-approach to WHATEVER you're working on. Chords, arps, sight-reading, rhythmic exercises etc.
Lemme show you variations for one other aspect of a typical practice-session: Scales and Patterns. I hope you have read about that "pentatonic scale workout" I talked about in the 1st part of the workout-trilogy. Because if you have familiarized yourself with those exercises, you should be kinda used to sequences. Let's work on a regular 3NPS-pattern this scale, key of C Major. Here is the pattern:
OK, the first variation should look familiar by now… applying a "Move up 3, jump back 2" sequence (1-2-3-4 2-3-4-5 3-4-5-6.. these numbers represent the notes of the scale… not frets or fingers. In notes: C-D-E-F D-E-F-G E-F-G-A etc.)
OK, now, to experience that awkward feel, let's skip right to a "move up 2, jump back 1" sequence (1-2-3 2-3-4 3-4-5 or C-D-E D-E-F E-F-G etc.)
It's odd, but I found this sequence to be easier with the 2NPS pentatonic scale, while the sequence above seems to be easier with 3NPS scale. I guess I am missing something (most likely, my mind).
Intervals and harmony
Now, let's play intervals. Which wasn't really covered in the scale workout. We're gonna do triads in the diatonic context, so it's not gonna be a major third all the time, or a major third all the time.
Here is how that looks.
This is another good way of memorizing and even UNDERSTANDING a pattern, and it will really help you to get it under your fingers.
As you can see, at first we play each note separately, and the second time we play diads (2 notes at a time).
Do ya like this stuff?
Well, then let's play the same scale / pattern in fourths this time. There ya go:
And in fifths, for the people that never can get enough:
Do I have to say it? Again… sigh… ok, one more time… Do this with different intervals (sixths, seconds etc.), with different patterns (there are 7 3nps patterns for the major and minor scales. See if you can play through them in intervals!!! Take your time!)
If you still haven't enough (don't come visiting me at the institution I'm kept in… they might keep you there, too, since you seem to have the same illness I suffer from :)), try different kinda scales (harmonic minor, melodic minor etc.)
AGAIN: CUSTOMIZE THIS WHOLE FREAKIN' WORKOUT SO IT'S PERFECT FOR YOU!!!!
I guess I got my point across. Variation is the key. It will help ya build chops, help ya to adjust to different stuff quicker, and it will keep it interesting.
Etudes
See, as much as I promote focusing on a few basic exercises if needed (like the PG-lick) it's tough sometimes to not get distracted or bored. Playing something over and over will keep your hands busy, but most likely not your mind. So… what can ya do.
Another piece of advice by Mr. Morse: "Play actual music. Make up etudes based on the technique you wanna work on. That's challenging and will keep you busy!" (Thanks, Steve)
So I decided to share some of my own etudes with you people out there. Feel free to use them in your practicing. But most importantly, try to make up your own etudes. It's fun, and you might come up with a very nice piece of music in the process!
The first one I have posted in the forums already, but since we have a lot of traffic there, I decided to publish it in this article once more. It's an "inside picking" etude. I came up with this one day while noodling. I really like the sound of it, and it's more challenging and entertaining to play this than to just do inside picking on two adjacent strings, never changing the notes you fret.
MIDI Powertab
Basically, the bass note keeps changing from B to C. It's almost classical sounding. Try it. The first part might seem rather easy to play (Pay attention to the picking-indications! That's the whole point!!!). But once you start playing on two non-adjacent strings, it gets a bit tougher. If you started at a high tempo because playing on two adjacent strings might seem easy, you might get into trouble now. If you have to slow down, start all over again, slower this time!
Combine an etude like this with regular inside-picking exercises, and you'll most likely find out that you wont get distracted as quickly anymore. And that's the point!
Etude No2
This one is not really a very creative piece of art (feel free to come up with something REALLY creative!), but that's not really the point. This one is aimed at working on scale patterns of the major scale and on pedaltone-melodies.
Actually, I picked this up from a piano-player. One day, I sat in a music school, noodling on my guitar, when I heard some pianist do some warm-ups. This one was one of the warm-ups. It was easy to figure out what he was doing, and soon I had arranged it for the guitar.
The basic idea is simple... we play down the Cmajor scale in different patterns, alternating between a scale note and the top note of the pattern. This highest note is our "pedaltone". So, in notes we play: B-C-A-C-G-C-F-C-E-C-D-C-E-C
The C is played as every other note... do you see the system behind it? Once you do, it should be easy to learn this one.
We start in 5th position. Pay attention to economical left hand-fingering.
Note that we move through the different patterns of the major scale.. the whole etude only uses notes from the key of C major. It's rather logical, so once you understand it, it should be a piece of cake.
Some fingering s might feel awkward, but hey, what doesn't kill ya…
Here ya go...
MIDI Powertab
Etude No3
Basically, a slight variation of Etude II, this uses the same patterns. Only this time, we have three pedaltones... the reoccurring notes C-B-C in pattern 1. So you play the two highest notes of the patterns in between while moving down the scale.
I guess its easier to understand once you see it or hear it, so without any further ado:
MIDI Powertab
Etude 4
The next etude I picked focuses on sweeping. What I did was I took the chord progression of a song I liked "Little Wing" and swept the chords. My intention was to create a short piece of music instead of just doing chromatic sweep-exercises.
The goal also was to not shift positions too much, to stay in the same area of the neck without moving too much. Which is a good way to work on fretboard-navigation… to locate certain triads on the fretboard.
Check it out. The basic chord progression is: Em / G / Am / Em / Bm Bbm / Am C / G / F / C / D.
Please note that this in no way is something like a "heartfelt tribute to Jimi". A lot of people might think that basing some technical exercise on this beautiful song is some kind of a sacrileg. I also changed the length of the chords a bit, etc.
So this is no cover-version or anything. I just borrowed the chord progression and used it as a sweep-picking etude.
MIDI Powertab
At the end of the Powertab, you'll hear a possible variation… that one is more difficult, it's faster. If you want to, try to play through the whole progression at that tempo etc.
Etude 5 and conclusion
The final etude is combining several different techniques. I took a simple, baroque-sounding chord progression, which, I guess, is very similar to the chord progression of Pachebels "Canon In D"... the key here is G major though.
The first time, the chord progression is played with sweep-picking and six string-arps. This is very similar to a part of the Cacophony-song "Go Off".
This whole first part is being repeated.
Then, we switch to string-skipping… the shapes I used here are a mix between arps and scales, and I guess if you follow the chord-progression, you'll see how I came up with the notes I chose. Try to play it either legato-style, or with alternate picking thoughout. This part is being repeated, also!
And finally, let's tap... tapping triads. My intention here again was to avoid huge position shifts… You can easily play several different arps by changing only one or two notes, and that is what is going on.
MIDI Powertab
This etude might be a bit more challenging, cuz you have to use three different techniques. But it sure is a good chopbuilder. And why don't you try to come up with more variations? Take the basic chord progression and then try to play through them using even more techniques...
Conclusion
OK, that's it. Gee, I wouldn't have thought that this whole workout-thing would turn out to be 3 episodes long. Especially not since I wrote so much about practicing already. But this whole workout-thing still seems to be talked about a lot, and so I guess it made sense that I went a bit more into detail.
Note that I didn't really give away a specific, detailed workout-schedule. Simply because it's up to you to create one for yourself. I was just trying to show you how many different things you can work at, how to keep it challenging, motivating and fun, and how to make the best out of your practicing time.
I hope you enjoyed this whole thing.
See ya next time!!!