Exercises Guitar Lessons

So let's take that concept and turn it into a blistering fretboard exercise.

This lick expands on the first by holding each position a little longer before transitioning. Be sure to ensure strings that are not being fretted do not ring out causing unnecessary noise -...

A technique made very popular by guys like Paul Gilbert in the 80's, String-Skipping is a great way to navigate the fretboard in a more sporatic way; to cover more ground. To build on some o...

The final lick consists of another blistering utilization of legato, instead this time, with string-skipping involved. Keep an eye on string noise (as always), start slow, and fun!

Hey everyone! In this lesson we're going to tackle a simple, but effective exercise to build strength in your fingers and help you coordinate separating them when necessary. Remember to...

Hey everyone! This month we're going to discuss some very basic exercises to strengthen your legato technique. These will help build muscle memory that you can apply to scales and muscial p...

Following the previous exercise, this is essentially the same thing but using the whole step, half step combination with fingers 1, 3 and 4. Remember to start slow and only increase the spe...

Now we're going to practice the last "shape" in the form of fingers 1, 2 and 4, but with whole step, whole step intervals. As with the previous drills, start slow and build up the tempo onl...

Now that you feel comfortable with the "shapes" from the first three examples, we're going to apply them across all six strings using a pattern of two steps forward, one step back. These wil...

For the last section, we're going to add to the pattern idea used in the last figure. Now instead of doing two steps forward, one step back, we are going to do three steps forward, one step ...

This month I present to you an exercise you might find to be quite unorthodox. I've been getting a lot of questions about how to clean up playing and finger tone. The answer is quite simple ...

Let's face it. We all want to sound better and there's only so much high end gear can do. The beginning of it all starts at the fingers. I find that finger control is the source of why a lot...

Like I said before, we're going to cycle only the first 7 notes of 'Twinkle twinkle little star' and here are the rules: 1. You get to choose two fingers to play this melody 2. No sliding,...

Have fun with the backing track! Closing statements are in the next video.

Hope this was fun guys. I know play 'Twinkle twinkle little start' can be quite insulting to a lot of you great players out there. But I trust by now that you see this is not the point of th...

Hello again! In this tutorial we will be talking about "odd time". Whether it's odd note groupings in 4/4 or an odd time signature, it is a very useful skill to learn. We will mainly be f...

Now moving onto 7 note groupings. This is the same type of idea that we just accomplished with 5 notes but now with (you guessed it) 7 notes. Again we will be using the one octave C major ...

Hello again! For this tutorial, we will be focusing on the use of polyrhythmic (or metric) modulation. Polyrhythms are something that is always there whether you hear them or not. You can s...

For this riff I am tuned to drop C tuning but you do not have to retune in order to play this riff or learn this concept. You can simply use a C note on your standard tuned guitar or if you...

Hi there guys! In this tutorial I'm going to talk about something that I teach all the time to my college students. This is the idea of learning rhythmic variations. This is something that...

Ok, so now we will explore easiest way to practice this concept. We'll set our metronome at 80bpm and we will use a G major 3 note per string scale with the root starting on the 3rd fret (G...

Now here is a demonstration of how I might apply this in my own playing. Please note that this is still in the mind set of "practicing" so I'm not actually playing the way I would in a prof...

Lick 3 is a little more "mixed up" as far as pick directions are concerned. Much like lick 1, we begin with alternate picking but are soon met with an ascending Dmaj7 arpeggio from the A to ...

Hey everyone! For this tutorial, I want to test your picking abilities with this etude I wrote entitled "The Chaos Lick". It features both economy AND alternate picking styles, both entwined...