Guitar Picking Exercises Part 1

Recently while I was working on my guitar soloing I noticed problems with my picking.

Too often I'd find myself picking the wrong string for the note I wanted to play and instead picking an adjacent one. I'd either get a muffled note or a wrong note boomed out loudly.

I decided to create myself a set of picking exercises to develop this skill and fix my problems.

Today I'm going to share my first exercises with you. So here in this post are some basic alternating picking exercises.

Open Strings And Scale Patterns

In the exercise tabs below each note is shown picked as an open string. If you work like this then you can concentrate on your picking hand with no distractions.

But it's a good idea to do the exercise over some scale patterns or chords too so it is more like real playing as you work your right and left hands together.

Basic Alternate Picking Exercises

Alternate picking is the foundation of many other picking exercises. As you pick you play notes alternately with down strokes and up strokes. It is an essential skill to master if you want to develop regular picking rhythm and speed.

The two exercises shown below give you basic alternating picking practice as you move down the strings and back up working one string at a time.

Eighth Note Exercise

The first exercise is played as straight eighth notes. I work through them at different tempos and also use a sixteenth note variation

E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E
|---------------------0-0------------------------|
|-----------------0-0-----0-0--------------------|
|-------------0-0-------------0-0----------------|
|---------0-0---------------------0-0------------|
|-----0-0-----------------------------0-0--------|
|-0-0-------------------------------------0-0----|

When you play the eighth notes ensure you start on a down stroke each time you move to a new string. Then do the same exercise starting on an up stroke for each string.

Triplet Note Exercise

|-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-| |-3-|
E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E
|-------------------------------0-0-0---------------------------------|
|-------------------------0-0-0-------0-0-0---------------------------|
|-------------------0-0-0-------------------0-0-0---------------------|
|-------------0-0-0-------------------------------0-0-0---------------|
|-------0-0-0-------------------------------------------0-0-0---------|
|-0-0-0-------------------------------------------------------0-0-0---|

When you play the triplets above you should start the 6th, 4th and 2nd strings with down strokes and the 5th, 3rd and 1st strings with up strokes. Then start over again beginning with an up stroke on the 6th string.

If you don't make a mistake you should start the 6th, 4th and 2nd strings with up strokes and the 5th, 3rd and 1st with down strokes.

That wraps up this set of exercises. In the next part of the series we'll make things a little more complex by working across pairs of strings. Click here to sign up for free and be notified by email when the next lesson is published.

Update: Now you can read and try these other parts of the series...
Guitar Picking Exercises Part 4 – Alternate Across The Fretboard
Guitar Picking Exercises Part 3 – String Skipping
Guitar Picking Exercises Part 2 – Adjacent Strings

3 Reasons To Make Your Own Jam Tracks

Jam tracks are a wonderful tool to learn guitar with. Jam tracks train you to play in time, show up wrong notes in your licks and solos, and make practice a lot more fun. It's easy to find a wealth of great jam tracks recorded by professional musicians in many different musical styles. But while these high-quality tracks are a valuable resource, don't neglect the power of simple jam tracks you can record for yourself with your guitar.

When you make your own jam tracks you'll oblige yourself to pay attention to the timing of your rhythm guitar playing. Guitar players who play on their own a lot might not notice if their timing varies. But when you try to play along to your rhythm track you'll quickly notice timing problems so you can fix them.

Timing is not the only thing we sometimes get a little lazy about. How often do you make the effort to play a song all the way through without any mistakes? Playing all the way through a three or four minute song on your own is a great way to build endurance and concentration (provided you don't cheat with a looper).

Finally, if you spend much of your practice time soloing over backing tracks you could probably use some extra work on your chord skills. If you have to play a rhythm backing for three or four minutes you'll soon notice gaps in this area. You'll be dying to learn some new chord shapes and picking skills so your next backing won't be so embarrassingly boring.

Let me summarize my three reasons for recording my own backing tracks, at least some of the time.

1. It improves my rhythm guitar timing.

2. It builds endurance and concentration.

3. I learn interesting new chords and accompaniment techniques.

What About You?

Do you make your own backing tracks or simply play along to pre-recorded ones? Do you think making your own backing tracks has benefited you, or is a waste of time? If so, tell us why by clicking the comments link below...

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Here's An Easy F Chord With No Barre

One of the most common topics I get questions about is how to play F barre (or bar) chords. This chord seems to trouble just about every guitar learner at some time.

Bar chords are difficult and usually take some time to master. And it's unfortunate that F both one of the most difficult bar chords to play and often one of the first that players attempt to learn.

It's far easier to start learning bar chords further up the neck. Using the same shape as F you could play an A major at the fifth fret or C major at the eighth fret with less difficulty.

An Easy F Chord With No Barre

But for those of you that just have to play an F chord, here are two positions you can use to play an easy F chord with no barre.

The first requires only three fingers but includes all the notes of the F major chord - the root (F), major third (A) and fifth (C).

  x|---|---|---|
5  |-1-|---|---|
3  |---|-2-|---|
R  |---|---|-3-|
  x|---|---|---|
  x|---|---|---|

Play this one with your first finger at the first fret of the 2nd string. Lean the finger down slightly so it mutes the first string. If you don't mute this string the extra note will make an F major 7 chord. This can fit in some situations but will sound strange in others. Let your ears guide you and if in doubt mute this note out.

Another Easy F Chord With No Barre

The second position shown below is almost identical but adds an additional fifth (C) note in the bass. In this formation your second, third and fourth fingers are in the same position as they would be if you played an F barre chord - it's a good way to train for it.

  x|---|---|---|
5  |-1-|---|---|
3  |---|-2-|---|
R  |---|---|-4-|
5  |---|---|-3-|
  x|---|---|---|

If you haven't yet mastered the F barre chord then these two easy F chords with no barre should come in handy.

Keep in mind that there is always more than one way to achieve your goal on the guitar. Learn how chords and scales are created and get to know your fretboard well and you'll be able to find lots of alternatives to help you solve all your guitar playing problems.

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Introducing Tempo Music Cards

When I was a kid at school I had great fun learning to read and spell with flash cards. The easy to use cards made learning fun and were a powerful tool for learning and memorizing patterns of letters and words.

Learning about guitar and music gives plenty of opportunities to learn and memorize patterns and that's why I think Tempo Music Cards for guitar are such a great idea.

The first set of cards, 50 Essential Open Chords, is a pack of 50 flash cards complete with chord names, chord diagrams, guitar tab, note names and scale degrees presented in a clear, easy to read format.

Music Card Games

With these music cards you can build your guitar skills in a number of ways. Here are just a few ideas.

1. Review the cards to learn and memorize chord fingerings.
2. Carry a card around each day to study one chord.
3. Learn to recognize tab format for each chord to improve your tab reading.
4. Learn how the chords are created by studying the note names and scale degrees.
5. Pick out a set of cards for one key and shuffle them to practice random chord progressions.
6. Shuffle a few cards to make up songs.

The list could go on, but I think you get the idea.

You can make up games with these cards to learn both with your guitar and when you don't have it handy, so you can make the most of time away from the guitar to build your skills.

Tempo Music Web Site

As well as selling packs of cards the Temp Music Cards web site offers videos, articles, tips and games to help you get the most out of your cards. You can find some beginner videos showing you exercises to help you learn your first chords, and ideas for practice routines based around the cards.

What Next?

Aaron Matthies, creator of Tempo Music Cards, has plans for more packs in the future. Aaron's planning on creating cards to help learn scale patterns, fingerings, and music theory.

But right now, he's concentrating on getting word out about the 50 Essential Open Chords. The pack costs US$12.99 at the time of writing and you can purchase it or learn more by visiting his Tempo Music Cards web site.

6 Ways To Maintain Your Guitar Skills When You've Got No Time

You might have noticed a lack of posts here over the past week or two. The truth is I've just been way to busy to keep up my blogging schedule, projects at work and at home have kept my days, evenings and weekends occupied. So much so that I haven't even found much time to practice guitar.

It's always frustrating to be kept away from the guitar by other projects, but sometimes that just the way life goes and there is little we can do about it. Or is there? During busy periods like this one when my guitar has to take a back seat I still have a few tactics up my sleeve to help me keep my hand in and not lose too much of the little guitar skill I've acquired through hard work over the years.

Today I'm sharing a few of the ideas that I use when I have no time to practice with you. Maybe next time you're stuck for guitar practice time they'll help you too.

Essential Guitar Exercises

This one is really a first line of defence to maintain the most important guitar skills when time gets tight. During almost any busy period you should be able to find at least a few minutes a day to pick up your guitar. A 10 minute essential guitar exercise routine is great for this.

My essential guitar exercises include a couple of up and down the neck scale patterns, some bending, hammer-on and pull-off exercises and a bunch of chords. The basic set is usually a little over 5 minutes worth and I add a song to this, whichever one I feel like, to have a little more fun too.

Develop a set of essential exercises that work for you and that you can run through in only 5 or 10 minutes. It's a great way to ensure that you can pack in some useful guitar practice on even the busiest days.

Guitar Games

Another way to squeeze some musical exercises into your day is to play some guitar or music games on your computer. There are plenty of great applications to do this. One that I like to use is GuitarGames. Because it's a web site I can use it from anywhere I have a computer, and it has some really useful learning tools that are a lot of fun too.

In only 5 minutes, during a lunch break for example, you can work on your fretboard knowledge, do a bit of ear training, or brush up on some music theory. You can even compete with your musician friends to see who can do best in the high scores table.

Visualization

When things are really tough and time is really at a premium I like to keep guitar in mind with some visualization exercises during the day. I fit these in while walking or cycling, or when I'm waiting around for a few minutes, maybe for a meeting to start.

Visualizations can be used for anything, but one good starting point is your routine of essential guitar exercises. Try to visualize those in your mind. Move your mind's eye around to view yourself performing them from all angles and ensure that you really know exactly where your fingers go and all the movements you perform to get them into place.

Listening

Another way you can keep your musical skills alive is to listen attentively to music. Maybe you have some background music as you drive your car or as you work at your computer. Keep an attentive ear open to pick out chord changes or notice the little details of what is going on in the music.

This mental and ear exercise will stand you in good stead when you are back with your guitar strapped on again.

Guitar Blogging

Might seem like a strange idea when you're lacking time, but sometimes guitar blogging helps me. Lack of practice time doesn't always mean that you don't have any time at all. It can mean that you simply don't have time when you can pick up your guitar, like when you're travelling for example.

But if you have a computer handy then bashing out a few articles on guitar playing is a good way to exercise your musical brain and can bring you new insights into the guitar and music in general. If you don't have a computer, then a pen and paper makes an effective low-tech alternative.

Reading

Don't feel up to writing about playing guitar? Then get some good books on music and on playing guitar and brush up on your theory by reading them instead. Or get some song books and practice your sight reading, you can easily carry a page or two of music in a pocket to profit from a few moments to improve.

It's always tough to find guitar practice time, but with the techniques above I can always find a way to get in at least a few minutes a day to improve my guitar and musical skills. With a little imagination you can create short routines and exercises like these that will ensure your skills don't erode too much when you can't spend the time you'd like to with your favourite instrument.

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Photo by zoutedrop.

Guitar Master Class Review

In this review I'm going to tell you about Guitar Master Class, an instructional web site and community for guitar players and learners. You'll learn about the features of the web site, a little of its history, information on lessons and pricing, and a review of some lessons I followed on the site.

About Guitar Master Class

Guitar Master Class was founded in March 2006 by professional guitarist and instructor Krostofer Dahl. One of the first lessons ever was Curious Coincidence which became very popular. The site has grown steadily since then and now in 2010 thousands of daily visitors and members follow a large collection of video lessons and take part in the friendly Guitar Master Class community.

Site Features

Guitar Master Class aims to be a real community for guitarists so in addition to video lessons it offers a number of interesting and useful features.

Lick of The Day - a daily guitar lick presented in video and tab format. Complete with a backing track at normal and slow speeds, the scales and theory used, and a guitar tip.

Instructor feedback - record your performance and receive feedback from the instructor, or work with a mentor to receive guidance and a personalised learning programme.

Collaboration - the site offers several ways for members to collaborate. For example, you can join a virtual band or participate in on-line performances.

Guitar Lessons

Guitar lessons on the site are rated by difficulty and organised by style, instructor and level. You can browse the catalogue or search using keywords to find what you're interested in. You can also save bookmarks that make it easy to find favourite lessons or the one you're working on quickly.

My Guitar Lessons Experience

I started my tour of Guitar Master Class with some funk guitar lessons presented by Ivan Milenkovic. Old School Funk Rhythm Guitar shows some 70s style funk riffs. After that one I moved on to try a Modern Funk Rhythm Guitar lesson.

The lessons were fun to learn and showed some really useful licks. Everything was thoroughly explained and clearly presented. I particularly liked the fact that both were accompanied with full tab and backing tracks at various speeds. The lesson page also has a space to save your own practice notes. These extra tools make the lesson player a very well thought out tool.

The Lesson Player

The distinct John Frusciante flavour of the modern funk lesson inspired me to try out a song lesson on the Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Californication.

Again the song was very clearly presented. A nice touch was the animated chord diagrams that accompany the videos. These helpful animations made it easy to see the exact fingerings played.

To complete my tour I also tried out an acoustic blues lesson that showed some very convincing delta blues for beginners, and finished with Malaguena, a classical piece. It was nice to see some classical lessons as it's a style often neglected by online guitar
instruction sites.

Pricing

Subscription to the site costs from US$19 to US$29 per month depending upon the payment options you choose. You can pay by credit card or Paypal. Of course, you can preview the video lessons for free before signing up if you want to see what you're going to get.

Conclusion

Guitar Master Class is a very well put together site. Lessons are high quality and comprehensive with close up step by step video, tabs and backing tracks. It covers a wide range of styles although hard rock and metal music seem to be the best catered for in song lessons.

With its high-quality lessons and interactive community features it will please many guitarists keen to improve their guitar technique.


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