FRETTING AND PICKING ACCURACY
THE CORE OF ANY TECHNIQUE WORKOUT IS MAKING YOUR FINGERS MOVE MORE EFFICIENTLY. OUR EXERCISES WILL HELP.
When most people think of a guitar workout, they inevitably think of ‘getting faster’, but this can be a fool’s errand. Winding up the speed on your metronome might not do you any good in the long run if you aren’t playing accurately – you’ll just end up playing sloppily quickly. It’s important to keep in mind that speed is a byproduct of accuracy. These exercises will improve your dexterity and accuracy, which will in turn allow you to play faster. Work through the examples slowly and only increase the speed when you can play an exercise ten times without error.
LEGATO WORKOUT
A fret-hand technique, legato refers to the use of hammer-ons and pull-offs instead of picking every note. It can seem easy, but it’s important to be able to make every note roughly the same volume, whether picked or not. Try our exercise taking careful note of which notes are picked.
FINGER ROLLS
Playing the same fret on adjacent strings is a tricky move – especially if you don’t want the notes to bleed into each other. Play the first note here with the pad of your finger then ‘roll’ onto the tip to play the second note. Do the opposite for the second half of the exercise.
MAJOR SCALE IN 3RDS
Running up and down scales has its place, but playing them using intervals (3rd, 4ths and 5ths) will improve your dexterity, keep you on your toes and provide new ideas for licks. Don’t get what we mean? Listen to the audio track and you’ll hear how we’ve made this pattern
