Useful exercises for guitarists for every day. Exercise from hell
Undoubtedly, guitar don't need any exercises. However, for both the beginner and for the experienced guitarist rest is needed between the performance of a particular song.
The exercises below are easy to remember and easy to perform.
So, we have a guitar, a metronome, and some time (I still want to relax).
All the exercises that we will look at today will not have any theoretical value, they will be pure mechanics.
Remember that each exercise should be played all over the fretboard, and an alternating stroke should be used, except where the stroke is discussed separately.
If you feel pain or severe fatigue hands, you should stop and rest. If you play a series of exercises often, your hands will get used to it, and even after long breaks you will not need to stop, it will be enough just to slow down the metronome tempo.
Let's start with the first exercise, which is shown by absolutely all teachers to absolutely all beginner guitarists.
Exercise #1
Turn on the metronome at a tempo of 88, if such a tempo is difficult, you can start from 50. You should play from the first fret to the last available, I have 24 frets on the guitar, so the last one will be the 20th fret.
After you have finished with the first exercise, without stopping, move on to exercise number 2.
Exercise #2
The second exercise also does not really bother the brain, but it trains work using various combinations fingers of the left hand. The downward movement from the 6th to the 1st string uses one pattern, while moving back from the 1st to the 6th string uses a mirror pattern. Here we work out a bunch of fingers 1.3 and 2.4. Such "bundles" will come in handy in the future, at least for playing fifth chords, which, of course, will be supported by all lovers of playing with overdrive.
Exercise #3
In the next exercise, we will continue to train in practicing the use of various combinations of fingers of the left hand. this time the main group of fingers to which exercise 1,2,3 and 2,3,4 is oriented.
Exercise #4
In the 4th exercise, we are working on the ligament of fingers 3.4 and 1.2.
We already considered these 4 exercises a few months ago, let's supplement our arsenal with new ones.
Exercise #5
Exercise number 5 - movement in the opposite direction
The fifth exercise will simultaneously combine exercise 1 and partially exercise 3. One movement from the 6th string to the 1st takes enough a large number of time, so with exercise 5 you can work not on the entire fretboard, but, for example, only up to the 12th fret.
When playing exercise number 5 for the first time, you may often get confused in your fingers, this is normal, just give it some time.
In all the exercises above, the fret number corresponds to the finger of the left hand, use this fingering to move all over the fretboard.
Exercise #6
In the final exercise for today, an alternating stroke is also used, changing the string does not affect the movement of the pick. That is, for the first triplet, a down/up/down movement is used, the next triplet on the 5th string will be played with a stroke up/down/up. By grouping notes into 2 triplets, we get a complete cycle of down / up picking. If the metronome tempo 88 in this exercise is too slow for you, you can increase it by 15-20 beats.
All of the above exercises should be played as a warm-up, sometimes alternating with the warm-up offered by Frank Gambale at Chop Builder School. Total time depends on the speed of the metronome, usually at 88 beats all exercises are played in less than half an hour.
PS: many, when playing these exercises, mistakenly say that they are playing a chromatic scale. This is not true. Try to guess why.
See you!
The basic technique of playing the electric guitar is the alternating stroke. It is with him that you should start classes. Let's remember how to hold the pick correctly and extract the first sounds. Let's start with open strings.
P- hit with a mediator from top to bottom
V- hit with a mediator from the bottom up
The mediator is perpendicular to the string. Swing and lower the pick onto the string. Note that every first note in a bar is always struck down. It is important to work this out so that in the future the hand automatically moves in the right direction and the sequence of blows is observed.
Now let's try to connect the right hand. We play with a variable stroke, up and down.
We play the next exercise by pressing certain notes on the strings. Play in the same way, with a variable stroke, following the sequence of strokes.
The phalanges must be bent. There must be a small distance between the fingers and the strings, otherwise the fingers will touch and muffle the adjacent strings.
Let's take a look at the guitar riff. Reef is a rhythmic pattern. This pattern will be played in fifth intervals. A fifth is two sounds (interval), the distance between which is 3.5 tones. To put it simply, all hard rock is played on fifths. The sound of fifths gives drive. For more information on intervals, see
In the meronome, set the tempo to 90 and play down strokes.
To add rhythm and color to this exercise, let's play this riff using the pizzicato technique. Pizzicato- This is a technique of playing, which consists in lightly muting the strings with the edge of the palm of the right hand. To perform it, you need to put the edge of your palm at the beginning of the string holder on the strings and thereby slightly muffle their sound. If you press hard, the strings will be muffled, if you press it lightly, the pizzicato reception will not sound. The pizzicato is indicated by − PM—.
We play the same blows down. Thus, the first two quarter beats are played with the pizzicato technique, the third with an open tone and the last beat in the measure again with the pizzicato. Then, in each measure, this pattern is repeated.
And now let's take a look at the introduction to the old, but good song of Metallica - "Motorbreath". Everything is played with pizzicato. Please note that there is already a certain rhythmic pattern in this passage. Therefore, you should calculate the duration of each note. For a faster understanding of the rhythm, you can listen to the song and memorize the rhythm. In the original this riff is played at a very fast tempo, but we will play it at a slow tempo.
Chromatic exercise
This is a very useful technique development exercise. It is played by both beginners and experienced musicians. Chromatism- this is an increase or decrease in the degree of the fret or the degree of the main scale by a semitone (that is, to the adjacent fret). The peculiarity of this exercise is that here you do not need to think about the sounds, about the phrases that you play. There is no artistic thought in it. This exercise is purely technical.
Play with alternating stroke using metronome.It is very important to monitor the quality of the sound, first play at a slow pace, then, feeling confident, gradually increase the pace. Remember, you don't need to trade quality for speed. All strokes, both downwards and upwards, must be the same, of course. The downstroke is always stronger and easier to execute. Therefore, you need to work out and hit up. After you have mastered the chromatic exercise in the standard way, you can try playing strokes in reverse, starting with an upward stroke.
Consider another chromatic exercise. It will strengthen your fingers. We follow articulation. Articulation- this is a clear performance (pronunciation) of the sounds that you play. The strike on the string must occur simultaneously with the pressing of the string.
I advise you to master the exercises not only in tablature, try to learn notes. This will be very useful to you.
Having become acquainted with the variable stroke, then you can start learning chords. A chord is three or more notes. In any music, whether it be a song or instrumental music, there is harmony. Harmony is a combination (sequence) of certain chords. Harmony is what music is made of. Therefore, learning chords is one of the first things you should pay attention to.
You can get acquainted with the chords
.
Now, as an exercise, we will analyze the A minor pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is the mother of all guitar solos, speaking plain language. We will not delve into the theory, what is there and how you can find out in the section for experienced musicians. Here you just need to remember how the scale sounds and where to press the notes.
Greetings, dear friends:=) Well, the long-awaited spring has come, almost all the snow has already melted and the warmth and smell of the approaching summer wafted on the street:=) So I decided, in honor of the onset of spring, to please you dear friends, and prepared for you this article, in which I will tell and show useful exercises for guitarists on every day.
This set of exercises will help you develop the coordination and consistency of movements of the right and left hands, as well as develop the stretching of the fingers of the left hand, which is so necessary for all novice guitarists.
For each exercise, I have prepared a detailed video tutorial in which I show and explain everything. There is more for each exercise. So it will not be difficult for you to learn and perform these exercises.
So, let's get down to the consideration of the exercises themselves for the guitarist.
"Ladder on one string"
The essence of this exercise is as follows: starting from the first fret of the 6th string, with all four fingers of your left hand, you alternately play the string at each fret. Then move the first finger of your left hand to the second fret, and play each fret in turn in the same way. Having reached the 12th fret, we repeat the same thing only in the opposite direction.
After completing the exercise on the 6th string, repeat it on all other strings.
Here is the tablature for the first exercise:
Exercise for guitarists #2
"Ladder on all strings"
This exercise is similar to the previous one, the only difference is that after playing four frets in turn, we do not move along the fretboard along one string, but go down one string.
Here is the tablature for the second exercise:
"Chromatic tonality scale A (la) for two octaves"
A rather scary and incomprehensible name, especially for beginners who are not friends and do not want to be friends with muses. theory:=)
Dear friends, there is nothing to be afraid of, everything is quite simple. This exercise is a bit similar to the previous one. The essence is the same, alternately playing four frets of each string, we just start playing from the fifth fret of the 6th string, and with subsequent transitions down the string, the first finger moves to the fret.
This is how the tablature of this exercise looks like:
"Spider"
This exercise will be more difficult than the previous ones, as here you will need to stretch your fingers and a little dexterity.
The essence of the exercise is as follows: with the first finger of the left hand, we press the first fret of the 6th string, we lose. Then with the second finger of the left hand we press the second fret of the 5th string, we lose. Next, we put the third finger on the third fret of the 4th string, we lose. Fourth finger on the fourth fret of the 3rd string. Then we move the little finger of the left hand one fret forward and plays everything in reverse order. Thus, we move along the neck up to the 12th fret.
Here is the tablature:
Guitar Exercise #5
"Collect-Throw"
This exercise perfectly develops stretching of the fingers of the left hand. Its essence is quite simple, first we collect all the fingers together, then we throw them out as far as possible. I tell and show in more detail in the video tutorial.
Exercise for guitarists #6
"To Stretch Your Fingers"
Here is another exercise that will help improve the stretch in your fingers. I will not paint with text, watch the video tutorial and you will understand how it is done.
Exercise for guitarists number 7
"To Stretch Your Fingers"
The essence of this exercise is to alternately stretch each finger. Place your first finger on the seventh fret of the 6th string, play. Put the second finger on the eighth fret of the 6th string, lose. Next, remove the second finger and again play the seventh fret, pressed by the first finger. Now with your second finger, reach the ninth fret of the 6th string and play it, then remove it again and play the seventh fret. Likewise, play with the third finger from the 9th fret, and with the fourth from the 10th.
Here is the tablature:
Guitar Exercise #8
"Developing the Right Hand"
In this exercise, we will develop the coordination of the movements of the right hand. To be honest, I'm already tired of writing everything in text, so watch the video tutorial carefully and practice this exercise :=)
Here are the tablature charts of what should be played in this exercise:
Well, dear friends, that's all. Carefully study and put into practice all the exercises for guitarists, which I told you about in this article. These exercises can be performed every day as a warm-up, devoting 15 to 25 minutes to their implementation. Do not rush, practice and learn everything gradually, and I'm sure you will succeed: =)
Guys, be sure to leave your comments under this article, write what you liked, what you didn’t like. Feel free to express your opinion :=) And also put likes, click on the buttons I like from various social networks and repost.
Many guitarists want to master the virtuoso technique, play everything "fast and loud", so to speak. Unfortunately, not all young performers are aware of what can be behind the ease of performance, which can be observed from the stage of the guitar maestro. All work on the technique of a guitarist can be divided into two forms:
- development of technique and mastery of new techniques of playing the guitar
- keeping fingers in good shape
Yes Yes exactly. And a good guitarist is constantly working on both forms of technique improvement.
But let's get to work already. In the previous materials devoted to it, it was supposed to work with a set of exercises for 90 minutes daily! Practice shows that only a few who consider themselves pros and have great ambitions in guitar music-making can afford such an amount of time spent only on supporting the performing apparatus in good shape.
The following exercises should also be played daily, but the time is reduced to about 45 minutes per day. Exercises are arranged taking into account the tension and relaxation of different muscle groups, making it possible to alternately strain some and relax others. Therefore, this complex, like the previous one, should be played in the order of the described sequence, taking into account the comments.
This is a simple exercise with various combinations of arpeggios played on open strings for 12 minutes. About 2 minutes should be devoted to each of the six measures, repeating the playback.
Then for 2-3 minutes we work on the coordination of the left and right hands of the guitarist. In the musical example below, only the rhythmic scheme of this exercise is given. Yes, you can start by playing only this formation, but then it will not be about coordinating both hands. To achieve the best effect, the described scheme should be played in the right hand, not forgetting to accentuate the marked notes, and in the left hand, a simple chromatic scale. First on the second, then on the third strings. The scale can simply be played up from the open string to the note at the 12th fret, and then down from the note at the 12th fret. In the right hand, use only fingers i-m. In the future, of course, no one forbids you to modernize the fingering of your right hand.
Take your time with the pace, but watch the quality of the transitions from position to position and the beautiful sound. The quality of the transitions lies in the fact that the entire ascending and descending passage is even in rhythm and tempo, the notes are of a strictly specified duration, as if they were performed without changing positions.
For the next 6-7 minutes, concentrate on the legato technique of the left hand. To do this, play the described exercise with the fingering: 1-2, 2-1, 2-3, 3-2, 3-4, 4-3. As a rule, legato exercises in the left hand are more difficult to do at a slow pace, but they can be even more useful.
Now left hand just asking for help. Let's give her more movement and also activate her right hand. Scale passages are perfect for this.
Perform each of the following three exercises for approximately 2 minutes. The same passage exercises have already been used in "" and are accompanied by a video example.
We play this exercise from IV to IX fret and fingers i-m
We play this version of the exercise from I to VII fret with fingers i-m.
Final exercise for passage technique play 2 minutes from I to V frets and fingers m-a
Your performing apparatus at this stage of the game of exercises is warmed up, however, let's finish a few more legato exercises, while using the pairs of fingers that were previously ignored: 1-3, 3-1, 2-4, 4-2, 1 -4, 4-1. For this exercise, by analogy with the previous legato exercise, take about 6-7 minutes.
The arpeggio game completes the complex of daily exercises for the guitarist. This is an analogy of the first exercise, but using different combinations of notes and, accordingly, the fingering of the right hand. Allocate about 12 minutes for all arpeggio exercises, i.e. Approximately 2 minutes to repeat each measure.
So, after about 45 minutes, you have prepared your performing apparatus, i.e. hands to play the guitar. But it may not be worth jumping straight into playing pieces. remember, that good game needs a fresh mind. Take a short break before continuing with your workout. Keep your drive and desire to exercise for a long period. And heated fingers remain in this form, depending on your physiology, up to several hours.
The pursuit of speed did not remain fruitless! Your velocity is already 120 VPM (8 notes per second). And this is not the limit. In this tutorial, I'm going to put together the most insidious drills I've been able to find, so make sure you can play at 120 GBM for a few minutes without any problems. If not, go back to the variable bar-sequence lesson.
In fact, this is the last lesson, which contains exercises aimed at developing a directly variable stroke. After that, you will need to develop legate technique, tapping, etc. Links will be given at the end of the lesson.
It's not for nothing that I called this lesson that way. Here I will mainly use the book, which is called Exercises from Hell. Japanese edition. AT this moment I am looking for other books in the same series. The problem is that they are only available on the Japanese Internet, and I'm not very good with Japanese. Not so long ago I ordered the second part, you can download it. Well, for now...
Let's start with exercises from the Super Shred Guitar video school by Jeff Loomis.
Exercise 1. Perhaps the easiest exercise in this lesson. But! You must bringthe speed of this exercise is up to 160 UVM.
Exercise 2. It's much more difficult exercise. Start at low speed. The purpose of the exercise is to develop the independence of the fingers. You must learn to play this drill at 130 lbs.
Well, now let's move on to the exercises from the book Exercises from Hell. In fact, I don't know if that's what it's called. But it is not important. The main thing is that it contains crazy exercises aimed at turning your fingers into a shadow fluttering over the neck of the guitar. Of course, speed should not be the goal, it is only a means, and you should never forget this. There are hundreds of examples of mega-fast guitarists achieving absolutely nothing. Go to YouTube and I'm sure you will find a lot of evidence of this. You will see hundreds and thousands of videos in which guys give out ten, fifteen, twenty notes per second. But they lack… I would call it musical flair. Since you can play fifteen notes per second, or you can play one, but with soul. And for those who do the second, people will be drawn. The first one will go unnoticed. How to develop this “musical flair” in yourself. Firstly naturally play! Play what you like. Play songs by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Try to achieve the same expression as theirs. And yes! It will be insanely difficult, but worth it. Secondly, teach music theory . AND, third, of course, remember about articulation. After all, this is what gives the guitar expressiveness and the same expression. If you let it, that's what makes the guitar talk. Perhaps someone will laugh at me now, but those who, like me, are devoted to the guitar, will agree with me. I hope I managed to convey to you what I wanted.
Now back to speed.
Exercise 3. In this exercise you will practice jumping over the strings using all four fingers. Play this exercise at a speed of 160 UPM.
Exercise 4. Similar to the previous exercise. Pay attention to the rhythmic pattern in the last measure and think about the sequence of strokes to play it. The speed of this exercise is similar to the previous one - 160 UVM.
Exercise 5. The next exercise is just terrible! So terrible that you have to bring the speed of its execution to only 100 UPM. Watch out don't break your fingers.
Exercise 6. Here, go up to 115 UVM.
Exercise 7. And triplets again. Yes, one more note per string. Play at 140 speed.
Exercise 8. And now sextoles. A pattern similar to triplets, with the only difference that it combines six notes instead of three, equal in sound to four notes of the same duration. Bring this exercise to a speed of 110 UPM, which will actually be equal to 165 UPM when playing with regular sixteenths.
Let's talk a little about how to quickly become successful in the guitar craft. In Speed Mechanics For Lead Guitar, Troy Stetina shares some great tricks.
Definition of difficulty- at this stage, you must not only find a difficult phrase for yourself, but also determine what this very difficulty lies in. Next, you should separate the work of the right and left hands. Because from time to time right hand helps to pass a difficult fragment with the left, and vice versa. Play difficult places only with your left, using pools and hammers. When you're done with that, pay attention to the right one and make sure you use correct sequence strokes. Increase the amplitude of the strokes for a while to make sure that you play with a continuous variable stroke. Now put it all together, using the right stroke and gradually adding notes before and after the difficult moment.
Creating Variations. You identified the difficult moments and worked through them. Now start creating different variations that will surpass these moments in complexity. Create your own exercises. They should be aimed at eliminating your specific problems. Thus, you will achieve the desired result much faster.
Transition time. Transition time is directly related to how synchronized and coordinated your hands are.
You see four notes. The black areas are the transition time between them.
If you increase the tempo, the notes become shorter, but the transition time does not.
Therefore, it is necessary to increase not only the speed, but also the transition time.
Play the notes slowly, but move from one note to the next very quickly. This way you can achieve a smooth sound at a fast pace. Don't play too fast! The faster you play, the more you concentrate on where to put your fingers. Try to think about quality, not quantity. Achieve a more meaningful game.
Dynamics. The ability to control dynamics allows for better control of the instrument. Learn to play from "very quiet" to "very loud" and the expressiveness of your playing will increase significantly.
Velocity group method. And last but not least effective. This method will only work if you have worked through all the previous ones. Start with a short sequence and work it up to top speed. Then add one note each time. Play as fast as you can without making mistakes.
That's all. If you complete all these exercises, you can consider yourself, if not a master of the variable stroke, then definitely not a beginner or even an intermediate guitarist. But this is not the end! Then move on to the next lessons on leverage, legato in practice, from heavy to trash, and tapping and sweeping if you haven't already. You can check your progress on the famous composition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov -