Getting the Runs!
On the odd occasion, i get a new student walk in the door at school. Most of the time its your atypical male, early to middle age who is keen on picking back up the guitar .
The come in, sit down and tell me what they want to achieve. Most of the time they are just wanting to get back on the guitar playing horse and learn a few more tricks of the trade that they either once knew before and re-learn the stuff they have forgotten or they just want to dust off the guitar and get the fingers working again in a better state than they used to be.
Its not just the standard “businessman/woman” who wants to do this, sometimes its a seasoned professional guitarist just wanting a second opinion on their playing along with some extra techniques that will help them hone their already ample skill on the instrument or maybe they just want an outside view of their own on playing the guitar. Most of the best learning is done by watching someone else play the guitar and what better way to do that than up close.
Playing the guitar is one of the most enjoyable thing a person can do and its extremely addictive!
Its a lot of fun, a great time waster and a sanity saver. For me, i use it to switch off after working all day and it gives me the mental down time.
Here are some of my warm up exercises that I use to get into the playing mood and warm the fingers up by just getting down to the basics of simple playing technique. Not only are they simple to play and great for warming up, they prove to be useful in teaching players a way of rounding out a players technique, finger placement improvement and giving them some alternatives to their current playing techniques.
The first one is a basic run one fret after the other.
Pretty simple run, there is nothing to it. But there are a couple of rules to doing these exercises:
- Match the fret number to the finger number
- Finger one – Index finger
- Finger two – Middle finger
- Finger three – Ring finger
- Finger four – Pinky
- Play the sequence keeping a fretted note in its position
- Basically means keep pressing the note down when playing the subsequent frets
- Keep the fingers as close to and parallel to the fret wire.
- Keep the thumb below the top neck line and at least at right angles to the neck of the guitar.
- Alternate picking strokes (Down Up Down Up etc…)
- Can be played in reverse as well.
Following these rules aren’t set in stone for any player but for these exercises, it encourages the player to focus on “how” they are playing the guitar, not how fast they can go or how much feel they can get into the run and so on. Nor is it about applying theory to the guitar, that’s an entirely different topic all together.
The second run is the same as the first but you will notice that the starting fret on each string changes forcing the player to shift their hand position along the neck slightly. When doing this run, keep the same rules as above. Movement from one position to another should be smooth and seamless in context of the run:
This run is similar to the previous but as the run moves through the strings the gap between positions increases and then decreases. Once again, follow the same rules as before:
The run can be altered to suit a players needs and skill. Instead of the pattern return towards the first position, the pattern can continue opening up along the fretboard (IE: the gap gets wider)
Time to skip!
A lot of players are great from one string to the next but not all are that crash hot at skipping over strings, especially if their picking technique is small and tight (lots of shredders are like this and have a very tight and accurate picking). This run is just an introduction into the world of physical technique of skipping strings and is helpful for players who want more control of their playing when jumping strings.
This next one is one of my favourites, I use it to warm up and get not only the fingers moving but the eye moving as well. One thing that is over looked is not only that the guitarist must have both hands in sync but also they eye. This is great for helping that eye look at the right spot to get the player landing in the right place at the right time.
Like all the runs, play them in both directions, ascending and descending
Splitting the pattern
After playing all these four note per string pattern, sometimes ill split them up into two note groups and run through the exercise like so:
The same rules apply to this exercise as the four note per string patters. For example, when playing frets 3 and 4, keep depressing 1 and 2. When 3 and 4 are completed, 1 and 2 onwards keeping 3 and 4 depressed. Sort of helps encourage independent finger movement. Lots of players (especially learner players) don’t have much control over what their fretting hands fingers are doing. On the odd occasion when say moving finger number two, finger number one might move too far away from the fret board and so on. This helps a player develop some better control over what their fingers get up to when they aren’t playing.
This run is just the inverse of the previous run. To play this one, start the pattern with finger three and proceed from there.
5 Note Position Shifting Practice
Sometimes, notes played aren’t always played in the common three notes per string pattern which persists in literally every player. Sometimes its necessary to shift along the same string weather or not the music requires it or if its a convenient position shift. Most players do this with ease but these drills are more focused on maintaining a structured movement technique along the string.
The above two examples are pretty easy to do. Play them the same way you would the four fret drills above but they require an extra frets movement in a particular direction. On the ascending drill, the shift pattern happens on the fifth fret. This is generally how i do this. I invariably shift position using my fourth finger (pinky) to the fifth fret then when moving to the next string i will jump to that 1st fret with my first finger.
The next two are identical frets to the first, the only real difference is the shifting finger. The first five frets are played with the first finger doing the shifting, moving on to the next string and shifting with the second finger and so on in ascending and descending fashion.
The shift finger reverses direction when you reach the fourth finger as the shifter note.
To most advanced players, this is a snap. Well sorry to disappoint but its not always about you is it? Ha.
These are just some practice drills that i use and i teach with to help out guitarists of all levels. Most intermediate to advanced players have seen these types of things before and really do not help them much at all but if you are that type of player who thinks “Hmmm my playing technique needs a bit of work” or your just thinking that you need something outside your normal scale runs that you do, then you should get some use out of these.
The best way to get something out of these is to use the old Karate Kid movie method, “Wax On Wax Off!”
I will write more about these techniques soon with other drills and exercises when time permits.
Next? Pattern Drills across individual strings.
© 2010 Brendan McLaughlin
