In the second quarter, we increase the practice time to a total of
15 minutes. The extra 5 minutes will allow you to work on your
technique, which is an issue for most of us. Although I am giving
you 3 exercises, feel free to pick whatever 1 or 2 you most need
work on. You only have 5 minutes and you can always come back
later. The remaining 10 minutes of your 15 minute practice
session can be split between bar chord/root review and just
playing. I keep emphasizing knowing the roots because every-
thing else in my system,( which you will learn in the 3rd and 4th
quarters), is located off of these roots. The faster you can locate
these roots, the faster you can locate everything else and when
you’re jamming with other musicians it will not look good if
you have to stop and look at your notes! OK, that ends the
lecture, let’s start with the technique.
TECHNIQUE EXERCISES: There is a ton of material out there
to practice, it would easily be possible to come up with a 1 or 2
hour a day technique program. However with my philosophy
of least time and effort, I only use 3 exercises, because in my
experience most guitar players have 3 main problems:
-they can’t stretch far enough
-they can’t play and pick fast enough
-they keep picking the wrong strings
We’ll start with stretching.
1-STRETCHING: You must have a certain amount of flexibility
and reach in order to play more complex chords, scales and
riffs. I generally start this exercise on the 9th fret. (my cheesy
home made tab follows this description).
Place the 1st finger on the 1st string, 9th fret. Place the 2nd
finger on the 2nd string, 10th fret. Place the 3rd finger on the
3rd string, 11th fret. Place the 4th finger on the 4th string 12th
fret. Congratulations! You are playing a D major 7 chord.
Pick each note until the entire chord is clear, then; move only
the 1st finger from the 1st string 9th fret to the 8th fret and
keep all the other fingers in place and pick each note, making
sure all 4 notes sound clear. Then move only the 2nd finger
from the 2nd string 10th fret to the 9th fret, keeping all the
other fingers in place and the notes clean. Next move the 3rd
finger from the 3rd string 11th fret to the 10th fret and pick
all 4 strings and finally move your 4th finger from the 4th
string 12th fret to the 11th fret and pick. If you did this
correctly, moving only 1 finger at a time while keeping the
other 3 in position and picking all 4 notes cleanly, it
probably hurt a little and sounded terrible until you moved
all 4 fingers down. (now you’re playing a Db major 7 chord)
Once you can do this cleanly, moving only 1 finger at a
time, continue by moving the 1st finger from the 8th fret
1st string to the 7th fret (keeping all the other fingers in
place). Then move the 2nd finger from the 9th fret 2nd
string to the 8th fret, etc…. The goal is to walk your way
all the way down to the 1st fret, moving 1 finger at a time
and picking all the notes clean. Good luck!
(tab)
1–9—->8——8——-8——-8——->7—–7
2—10—-10—>9——-9——–9——–9—->8
3—-11—–11—–11—>10——10——10—–10….etc.
4——12—–12——12—-12—–>11——-11—–11
That wraps it up for this post. The next post will
add the other 2 technique exercises and complete the
syllabus for the second quarter. Remember, 5 minutes
learning the stretching exercise and 10 minutes of
chord/root review and jamming. We’re still building
the habit of regular practice.
