Sunday, August 22, 2010

Guitar Practice - A Confession

Ok so I have a little confession to make. I play guitar quite regularly which is cool. I learn new tunes occasionally and jam with friends or backing tracks as well. I also write original material a fair bit and create guitar licks and lessons too. What I don't do is abide by a regular structured guitar practice regime including scales, chords, rhythm etc. I'm going to try and change that. While there are excellent musicians on both sides of the practice question in the past a diligent practice routine has improved my playing and fostered greater creativity. So in that spirit I'm going to share with you a new warm up exercise that works on left and right hand synchronization and string crossing. It is written in eighth notes. Try strict alternate picking and work slowly until you can play it correctly to a metronome. It is a variation on some of the left hand permutations but randomized ( to some extent) and spread over multiple strings.
Happy Practicing.