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- Applied properly, these exercises will help you to develop confidence in you playing and will help make you aware of weak areas of your playing that need concentrated effort. They are a great way to start out a practice session. They will help loosen your fingers and stretch your hand muscles to get you ready to practice other material.
Guitar Exercises
Here you’ll find guitar exercises that will help you develop speed, endurance, accuracy, and finger strength. This physical aspect of guitar playing is called technique. These exercises are not to be performed for their musical value.
These exercises are not something you play through once and then forget about. Performing these exercises regularly is an absolute must. It’s not unlike going to the gym to workout. If you stick with it and keep a regular schedule you will see a marked improvement as time goes by.
- Chromatic Ladder
- Finger Confusion
- Fret Hand Strength
- Chromatic Finger Dexterity
- Legato Exercises
- Major Scale Exercise
- Endurance Exercises
- Major Scale 2
- Tapping Exercise
- Chromatic Variation Exercises
- Two-Finger Drills
Guitar Exercises Tips
- Stick With It
It doesn’t matter what level of guitar playing you are at. It doesn’t matter what style of music you play. Everyone can benefit from the same guitar exercises. And it’s important that you keep doing them. If you slack off at the gym you’ll see you muscle development deteriorate after time. It’s the same with these technique exercises. You can spend months or even years building up blazing fretboard speed, but the point where you stop exercising your fingers on a regular basis is the point where your hard earned skills will deteriorate.
- Overkill Can Cause Injury
Don’t overdo it! These exercises should be part of your regular practice routine, but you don’t want to practice them to the point where you may injure your hands. If you feel a little too much discomfort or cramping in your hands, by all means, cut back a little. Like at the gym, your muscles and tendons need time to recuperate in between workouts.
- Start Out Slow
You should always play each exercise at a speed that you are comfortable with. If cannot play the exercises smoothly and without mistakes, then you are going too fast and you need to slow it down a little. Start out slow and slowly build speed. We’re striving for good technique, not fast bad technique. Speed comes with time.
Don’t get frustrated! You may not see improvement overnight, but you will see improvement eventually. If you practice these guitar exercises just 15 minutes a day for a week, at the end of the week you will have improved guaranteed. With practice, you can only get better, not worse. Record yourself playing some of these guitar exercises. After you have had a few weeks to practice them, go back and listen to the recording that you did. You’ll be blown away!
- Use A Metronome
A metronome is a simple device that keeps the time by creating a regular beat. You will find using one in conjunction with the exercises in this section very beneficial. To practice with a metronome simply play one, two, or three notes per beat. When you are able to play an exercise without error at one speed, then you just speed the metronome up a little.
You can get a metronome at any music store. They come in all shapes and sizes, most notable is the traditional piano metronome with it’s swinging pendulum. Prices range from about $10 all the way to $100+. There’s no need to spend more than $20 for one.