Guitar Exercises

[Kevin]

in addition to playing scales, these couple of exercises will help strengthen your hands and improve your technique

the trick to making these successful is to play with the tips of your fingers, not just slap your fingers flat on the notes. your fingers should form an arch over the strings when you're playing, to help with this, keep your knuckles as close to the fretboard as you can, and keep your hand straight.

do these till it hurts, and then do them again.
alternate right hand fingers, or picking strokes, as it's handy in training that as well.



hammers/pulls

this one is pretty simple. play first note with first finger, hammer the next with the second. then while keeping the first finger on the first fret, play the second fret with the second finger and hammer with the third. same from third to fourth. so your hand is staying attached to the fret board, but only the finger doing the hammering/pulling is moving.
play this on any string but the high e string, so your learn not to hit the strings around you when you're playing. it helps make hammers/pulls much cleaner.

first position second position
--------------------------------------------------------------
-1h2-2h3-3h4-4p3-3p2-2p1--2h3-3h4-4h5-5p4-4p3-3p2-etc---------
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------



4th finger strength

this exercise alternates between your left hand 4th finger, and the other 3 fingers.
for example, the pattern of notes is this -12-11-12-10-12-9- and the fingering is 4,3,4,2,4,1.
so starting with your 1st finger on the 9th fret on the high e string, play the pattern and move from string to string, and then go back across the strings till you're back where you started. then start again from the 8th fret and keep going till you've reach the first fret. then do it all back untill you're at the 9th again :p

-12-11-12-10-12-9----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------12-11-12-10-12-9-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------12-11-12-10-12-9------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------12-11-12-10-12-9-------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------12-11-12-10-12-9--------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12-11-12-10-12-9---


i'll update with some more sometime, but feel free to ask questions and post your own :)

[RollOn]

Thanks heaps for that Kevin! :)
I'll give some of them a go in a minute, I'm still learning so should find them very beneficial.
Cheers again for sharing them with us!

[Strider]

http://www.myguitarsolo.com/gym.htm

that's a pretty good site.

[_jimmy_]

mad name for a site, my guitar solo

[Sammas]

Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome Metronome


There is no point doing any exercises if you don't use a metronome... Im sure many will strug their shoulders, but seriously. Rhythm and timing is relative, thinking you are playing in time doesn't mean you are playing in time... You need a reference. Metronome! :D

[Strider]

I totally agree with that Sammas! In fact I use a Metronome especially when I play Chet Atkins style songs. To get the 'boom click' happening in perfect timing pretty much keeps your whole song correct and when it comes to playing songs which are purely strumming etc, I find it helps a lot. Great advice.