Guitar Lesson-Strength and Independence

One of the first obstacles one faces when learning to play guitar is; there is a physical aspect that is unique to the guitar. You can have the information right in front of your eyes, a chord diagram or a tab, and you can know where the fingers are supposed to go but, unless you have developed the physical technique, the fingers won’t cooperate.

You need to develop, finger strength, finger independence, picking technique and coordination between the two hands. All at the same time.

I am going to present a series of exercises that will help accomplish all of those things and, at the same time.

These are non-musical exercises.

These aren’t scales or musical sounding patterns of notes, these are meant for working on the physical aspect which, in turn, will allow you to tackle the musical aspect with freedom.

For beginners: If you have never played or are just starting, these exercises can be extremely helpful. If you were to work on these for a couple of weeks first, then went to work on those chord diagrams or tabs, you would find that your fingers would be more cooperative and you would learn the things you want to learn faster.

If you have been playing for a while: These exercises stress finger independence, not just finger strength. Doing these exercises properly will clean up technique, even chord technique because, they focus on making your fingers equal partners. They focus on strengthening the weak link.

They can also be used as a great warm up routine for accomplished players.

First one…

The thumb of your fret hand needs to be on the back of the neck, in between the first and second fret. The top of the thumb should be angled slightly towards the headstock. The thumb acts as a pivot, that is the key to finger stretches. As you play notes on the third and fourth fret, pivot (turn) the thumb to accommodate the stretch. A lot of players use different hand positions for different things. For instance, you will see players grabbing the top of the neck for leverage when doing wide string bends. Not with this though, a classical style hand position is needed for this exercise.
Play each note with the tip of the finger. Place each finger as close to the fret as possible. You don’t have to press hard-the closer your finger is to the fret, the less pressure required. Pressing too hard makes the note go sharp.

When ascending, keep the first finger in place behind the first fret as you play the next note. Do this with each finger, each note. When you have played all four notes on a string, all four fingers should still be on the string before you go to the next string.

Some players naturally play ascending patterns better, some descending. If you play the going up part better than the going down part-slow the going up part to match your speed on the going down part. Find which one you are weakest at. Play the whole thing ascending and descending, without stopping when you change from ascending to descending, as slowly as you need to in order to execute it flawlessly.

Alternate pick each note. Start with a down stroke. Repeat the pattern and start with an up stroke.

When you can do all of this mistake free, doesn’t matter how fast, repeat the whole thing starting on the second fret. Eventually, work until you can play the pattern starting on each of the first five frets and then returning the whole pattern, one position at a time back to the first fret. Then, when you have built strength, go to the twelfth fret and back.

If you feel any pain, at any time, stop immediately.

Play slow-speed will come-accuracy and independence are more important, they will allow you to develop clean speed.

The next set of exercises really focus on finger independence.

All of the same rules apply, fingertips, close to the frets, leave the previous note fretted on the going up part, alternate pick, slow as needed, ascending and descending without stopping then…

Now, you will most likely find that using fingers 2 and 3 more difficult but, probably not as tricky as…

Whichever one is the most difficult, that needs to be your tempo. The weakest link needs to catch up to the things that you do with ease. And, believe it or not, restraining yourself on the easier parts helps develop tempo.

Next…

and…

and finally…

By this point you have worked every possible two note/two finger-per string combination. The weakest links have received as much attention as the ones that come with ease. If you do this enough, the gap between them starts to close.

Now, here’s the routine.

Spend 15-20 minutes a day on this. Don’t overdo it. Any pain, stop immediately.
Play the four finger exercise for half of the 15-20 minutes.
Spend the other half of the time on the two finger exercises as a set.
As you build strength, start moving them up and down the neck-all of them

Over the years, I have shown this routine to hundreds of guitar players at different levels of ability. The ones that tried it showed improvement in all aspects of their playing in a matter of a few weeks. It can be very frustrating, even though it looks simple on paper. The trick is to have patience, play slow and clean-speed will come-dexterity will come.

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Tags: coordination, finger strength, Guitar, Guitar Lesson, independence, learning to play guitar, Music, tab