Friday, April 18, 2014

Basic finger exercise

As far as dexterity and playability of your hands is concerned, there is a very popular and good finger exercise to practice. By doing this exercise, your fingers will become independent and comfortable with the fret board. Below is provided a tabulator which you need to play with a specific goal. The specific goals are clarity,evenness,timing and proper techniques. The warning is please do not try to go for speed. Speed will hamper your dexterity and technique as far as a beginner is concerned. The exercise is given starting with first fret. But as a beginner if you do not find yourself comfortable to stretch that much, I suggest you to start on the fifth fret. And after getting comfortable, play this exercise all over the fret board, each time starting on a different fret.


So the above image shows the basic exercise you need to practice. Use your all the four fingers except the thumb. The rule to be followed is "ONE FINGER PER FRET". Remember to play everything with timing and use alternate picking. But do not always stick to alternate picking. It is a good practice to devote 20 percent of your practice time with only up picking or with only down picking. Rest 80 percent should be devoted to alternate picking. Alternate picking means hitting the string alternately with a down stroke followed by an up stroke. Down picking means hitting the string only with a down stroke.
Now while playing it is always better to use a metronome. A metronome is a device which produces a clicking sound on a particular interval of time. So you just need to set the timing and tempo and try to play along with those clicks. This will improve your evenness and timing in playing. And last but not the least, do not run after speed, focus on good practising techniques.

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