practice techniques(not just for beginners)

[norlo]

Hey Everyone! I'm writing this becuase alot of people(ones that i know) dont practce right. These techniques will help you speed,control,finger memory and independance. Remember if your going to do these start slow and build speed, its more important that your hiting the notes cleanly and in time, speed is a byproduct of a good technqiue.

A few things before we get started:

Fret hand placement- some people were never told this, but its best to keep you thumb 2/3 of the way from the bottem of the neck(unless your bending but thats another topic). Make sure that the part of you hand that meets your fingers(sorry dont know the name of it) does not touch the fretboard at all, it will limit your movement severly.

Watching your hands- ok alot of people will say that you shouldnt look at your finders while your playing, well, if you playing a gig i would tend to agree but when your practacing watch your damn fingers! your practicing to get better right? how can u improve if your not watching your hands? Also(this is the secret to playing fast) you should never use more movement then needed. What i mean is if a finger doesnt need to come of the fretborad dont move it! Also when fretting a note use as little pressure as possible (its called having light fingers). When playing these exersises try to keep your fingers as close to the frets as possible without hitting them, watch your other fingers as you fret a note, they shoudnt move at all if they do slow it down alot and think about what your doing make a effort to make sure that your fingers dont unnecissarily move. And keep your fingers loose or thier gonna end up cramping on you.

A way to think of it is to apply pressure when you need to fret a note and releasing the pressure when your not fretting it dont pull your finger off the fret just relax it.

Belive me on this i had to completely relearn fretting notes becuase of all the tension i would get in my hand but now im alot faster and smoother.

i know alot of you will be like "Duh" but hey some people just dont know these things :)

ok so the patterns:



USE A METRONOME WHILE PRACTICING!

play each pattern starting on the 9th fret, both sitting and standing

1= pointer finger
2= middle finger
3= ring finger
4= pinky finger

each | | represents a pattern

Pattern 1(play as 8th notes)
1-2 | 1-3 | 1-4
2-1 | 2-3 | 2-4
3-1 | 3-2 | 3-4
4-1 | 4-2 | 4-3

Pattern 2(play as 8th notes)
1-2-1 | 1-3-1 | 1-4-1
2-1-2 | 2-3-2 | 2-4-2
3-1-3 | 3-2-3 | 3-4-3
4-1-4 | 4-2-4 | 4-3-4

Pattern 3(play as 16th notes)
1-2-1-2 | 1-3-1-3 | 1-4-1-4
2-1-2-1 | 2-3-2-3 | 1-4-1-4
3-1-3-1 | 3-2-3-2 | 3-4-3-4
4-1-4-1 | 4-2-4-2 | 4-1-4-1

Pattern 4(8th notes)
1-2-3 | 1-2-4 | 1-3-2 | 1-3-4 | 1-4-2 | 1-4-3
2-1-3 | 2-1-4 | 2-3-1 | 2-3-4 | 2-4-1 | 2-4-3
3-1-2 | 3-1-4 | 3-2-1 | 3-2-4 | 3-4-1 | 3-4-2
4-1-2 | 4-1-3 | 4-2-1 | 4-2-3 | 4-3-1 | 4-3-2

Pattern 5(16th notes)
1-2-3-4 | 1-2-4-3 | 1-3-2-4 | 1-3-4-2 | 1-4-2-3 | 1-4-3-2
2-1-3-4 | 2-1-4-3 | 2-3-1-4 | 2-3-4-1 | 2-4-1-3 | 2-4-3-1
3-1-2-4 | 3-1-4-2 | 3-2-1-4 | 3-2-4-1 | 3-4-1-2 | 3-4-2-1
4-1-2-3 | 4-1-3-2 | 4-2-1-3 | 4-2-3-1 | 4-3-1-2 | 4-3-2-1

heres a example:

You want to practice the pattern 1-2-3, its played like this(begining on the 9th fret):

-------------------------------1-2-3---------------------------------
-------------------------1-2-3------1-2-3----------------------------
-------------------1-2-3------------------1-2-3----------------------
-------------1-2-3------------------------------1-2-3----------------
-------1-2-3-------------------------------------------1-2-3---------
-1-2-3-------------------------------------------------------1-2-3---


its pretty much every finger combination possible without skipping strings and i cannot stress this enough...START SLOW!

once you can do that then try it as hammer-ons and pull-offs, should keep you busy for awhile.

happy jammin

[Hawk]

While I thank you for that...

I now firmly believe in the Yngwie Method of Practice. Meaning, just play a lot.

[NegativeBeef]

I find that after watching my fingers while I play and then playing again without looking give me problems. It seems that If i practice a song while watching my fingers I can no longer play it without looking at it as if I don't know how to play at all without looking at my fingers. I think it's that if you practice while looking at your fingers, your memorization of the song is based on observation and not correct fingering positions.

[norlo]

well the way i see it is like this:

i look at my figers to observe what they are doing when i fret a note. for exmple my pinky might move farther away from the fret board whern i fret a note with my middle finger. That would result in the pinky taking longer to reach the desired note. If you know what needs work you can fix it. its just my opinion and im not gonna preach it becuase in the end your gonna do what u want anyways :)

[muchavo]

ive done so many excersises today and gere are some more thanks man

:(

[velvet revolver]

ive done so many excersises today and gere are some more thanks man

:(
does anyone know where the balance lies between practice and actually playing lies, i mean 80% prac and 20% playing or what

[huck_finn]

you should probably practice as much as a you can


but In reality I don't practice as much as I play :( :o

[MrSteed]

does anyone know where the balance lies between practice and actually playing lies, i mean 80% prac and 20% playing or what

It's really up to you. I look at it like this: practice is where you teach yourself the science of guitar, play is where you learn the art.

Science is training your fingers to do any motion you want reproducably any
time you want.

Art is self-expression.

By learning the science, you can increase the complexity of your art.

When your complexity increases, your self-expression is more rewarding.

If you allow yourself to use only a single note, you can probably be pretty
expressive with it (and not even make any mistakes!). However, it
probably will not be all that rewarding. (I would add that trying this, even
if you're pretty advanced is probably a good exercise just to show that
there'sore to expression than just playing fast).

I practice about 90% and play about 10%. At least right now.

[muchavo]

Lately , i practice every chance i get to play for like ten mins and play only when i know i can for at least 1 and 1/2 to 3 hours, other wise i justdont have time to warm up to my peak

[Guitars4eva]

I have this cd but i only can memorize the chords because i dont own a guitar yet. I am asking for one for christmas. I really hope i get one.

[Mordrida]

These excersises do help. Also remember to relax!!!. You can't stress this enough.

I do have something to add though. Even though these finger exercises do help with precision and finger strength don't do them too much. The reason i say this is because if you do something enough you get what they call "Muscle memory" These tight (in the box) exercises could slow you down in other area's of your playing.

What i like to do personally is to take an excersise like this and move around the fret board with them. If you constantly do them around the ninth fret for example your fingers "Remember" the consistency of size for those frets. You will find if you learn these backwards and forwards that if you try to move to say..the third fret your back to square one.

Try changing it up by using the same patterns but move diagonally across the fret board. Up and down. This way your fingers get used to the changes in fret size.

Also once you get good at doing that start skipping strings for instance the 1-2-3 excersise start at like the 3rd fret move up the fretboard diagonally but change the string. What i mean by this is 1st finger 3rd fret on the low E. Then 2nd finger 4th fret on the low E. Then 3rd finger 5th fret on the A string. Now for the lateral movement.....1st finger 4th fret on the A. 2nd finger 5th fret on the A. 3rd finger 6th fret on the D.

Get yourself to start thinking as the fret board as a whole rather then a bunch of little parts. People always are amazed by people like Yngwie because he is all over the neck. The only way to do that is to get your fingers moving all over the neck. If you constantly practice in a small box you may be good at fast modal runs but suck really bad for long position changing runs.

I really lack in this area because i never practiced correctly. I mean i can do long legato randy rhoads style modal runs in my sleep. But trying to do something like the middle section of Slash's solo for sweet child o mine and i choke. I have no precision with the wild posistion changes necessary to make it sound smooth. I sound like an amateur.

[wild_axeman]

While I thank you for that...

I now firmly believe in the Yngwie Method of Practice. Meaning, just play a lot.

Then there's the Hendrix method of - just jam alot (ALL THE TIME) with other musicians as much as possible.

Yngwie didn't just play alot he said he played musically alot,played etudes alot and improvised alot.He said he really would just improvise all the time and that instead of just practicing scales or whatever he made sure that he was practicing music and playing things that are musical as practice.That way you're practicing music instead of non musical stuff like finger exercises that don't sound or feel much like music.

But yeah they both um played alot! :eek:

oh yeah Paul Gilbert would do finger exercises to strengthen his fingers and especially worked on his picking and speed but he would also try to make those exercises as musical as possible...make them etude-nal..i guess you could say

[zuxx_fretfreak]

Do u have a practice tips for increase our pitch sensitivity(ear training), Thanx
Zuxy

[hotlixx]

Then there's the Hendrix method of - just jam alot (ALL THE TIME) with other musicians as much as possible.

Yngwie didn't just play alot he said he played musically alot,played etudes alot and improvised alot.He said he really would just improvise all the time and that instead of just practicing scales or whatever he made sure that he was practicing music and playing things that are musical as practice.That way you're practicing music instead of non musical stuff like finger exercises that don't sound or feel much like music.

But yeah they both um played alot! :eek:

oh yeah Paul Gilbert would do finger exercises to strengthen his fingers and especially worked on his picking and speed but he would also try to make those exercises as musical as possible...make them etude-nal..i guess you could say

Yea, etudes rule, is there a book of etudes for guitar? cuz there are like a million of them for violin, but i have yet to see a good book of etudes/songs for guitar practice and technique development. Cuz what i really want is just a fat book full of tons of etudes or songs so i don't play the same stuff when i practice.

[PowerKord]

Thanks. This is a very good excercise.

[srvfn1990]

Do u have a practice tips for increase our pitch sensitivity(ear training), Thanx


yeah i'm working alot on my ear training. i usually just hum what i think is a C or any not on the fretboard and play that not and see how close i got and if i get it wrong i finnd out what note i was humming, this method has helped me alot. also i got this Freeware program that quizes you its pretty cool. its down there check it out, i find myself just sitting there doing it alot. so far for just doing it three days i can already tell a difference.

http://www.miles.be/

[Codemeister]

A lot of players confuse practicing with playing sloppy bits of songs that they know over and over for hours on end. You probobly won't get better by doing that.

[Scruffles]

A lot of players confuse practicing with playing sloppy bits of songs that they know over and over for hours on end. You probobly won't get better by doing that.

Eh, I just think that whenever you're playing guitar, you're getting better.

[lordgrudge]

Also the more exposure you get the better....

[Codemeister]

Eh, I just think that whenever you're playing guitar, you're getting better.

For some people thats the case.

[RTS]

Good advice NORLO . I would say once you get close to mastering the guitar them you can move slightly away from those fundimentals.I know personally I could not get my pulloffs and hammerons and bends like you said with proper position.If I am laying down a very heavy riff I go a bit outside those guidlines but if I hit classical I must stay within the peramiters or I will loose the speed. Same with blues Good post man.