31 exercises to improve your playing—right now! _ tab _ guitarplayer2

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31 Exercises to Improve Your PlayingRight Now! | TAB

BY GP STAFFJuly 21, 2015

8. Step Outside the ScaleIf most of your lead lines are vanilla, its time to cram in some flavorful chromaticsnotes outside of a given key, most commonly heard in country and jazz. Start by learning the chromatic

scale (FIGURE 8A), which is composed of 12 notes, each a half step apart. Then, compare that to the seven-note C major scale (C D E F G A B). Finally, try making some lines in the

key of C, using chromatic pitches as passing tonesthat is, tones that connect the scales pitches (FIGURE 8B).

FIGURE 8AB

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9. Skip Strings

Want to add some excitement to your playing? Try some string-skipping lickspatterns involving leaps between nonadjacent strings. FIGURE 9Adepicts a rudimentary shred-style lick

derived from a standard three-notes-per string fingering. FIGURE 9Bshows the same concept, only with a less predictable melody.

FIGURE 9AB

10. Cut Your Picking in HalfWouldnt it be awesome to cut your overall picking activity by 50 percent? Try economy pickingusing a single upstroke or downstroke to articulate notes on neighboring strings, as in

FIGURE 10, measure 1.

Similarly, the arpeggio lick in FIGURE 10, measure 2, requires minimal picking motion. Articulate the first note with a downstroke, rest the pick against the next string, then push the pickthrough this higher string, continuing the motion until each string has been picked. To avoid sounding as though youre playing a strummed chord, fret each note one at a time, releasing each

before playing the next in line. Economy picking may also be used with scalar fragments featuring an odd number of notes per string (FIGURE 10, measure 3).

FIGURE 10

11. Press Mute

Sick of hearing random open strings go clunk in the midst of single-note licks like the one shown in FIGURE 11A? Fret-hand muting is just what you need to clean up this crud. In

FIGURE 11B, after you play the 6th-string notes, fret notes on the 5th string in a way that allows you to barely touch the 6th string with the tip of your 1st finger. This will prevent it fromringing open. Also, note that when youre playing on the higher strings, you can mute the lower strings by placing your fret hands thumb over the top of the neck.

FIGURE 11AB


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12. Name That NoteYou can learn all the theory in the world, but if you dont know where the notes are on the guitar, youll never really get those concepts off paper and into your playing. At the very least, striveto learn the equivalent of the pianos white keys (the C major scale: C D E F G A B) on each string. Realizing that EF and BC are half-step intervals, find all the notes in the C scale first

along the low E string, saying them aloud as you ascend/descend (FIGURE 12, measure 1). Too easy? Break them up in 3rds, say, on the A string ( FIGURE 12, measure 2). Next,

find these notes, one at a time, on all six strings, as in FIGURE 12, measure 3, and then try visualizing the notes within all of your C-scale shapes.

FIGURE 12

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