Author: Gianni C.

Posted in Technical Exercises

Never-ending chromatic scale

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Never ending chromatic scale exercise.

I think this video is pretty self explanatory. All you have to do is play a continuous chromatic scale without ever breaking the flow of semitones, without any restrictions in terms of fingering or direction on the fretboard. This means you are free to move up, down, diagonally, shift position on a single string play diagonally, as long as you move a semitone (= a fret) up or down. The goal is to have a very even sound no matter what you decide to do. This will give you a more improvised approach to your study of technique, much closer to a real playing situation. After you got the concept and you feel comfortable with the exercise, get the metronome out, and challenge yourself to play this faster, or longer, without making mistakes.

Posted in Technical Exercises

Finger combinations Pt.2 – the next level

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Finger Combinations Pt2 – The next level

Same exercise, just taking it to the next level: play the combinations in different divisions (quarter note, eight note, triplets, quintuplets, and so on…) and at different tempos (but it’s not about speed…it’s about precision and clean technique, remember). Also use stretches between the 1st and 2nd finger, and between the 3rd and 4th. Try using legato: if you are moving to a higher number, you will be hammering-on, to a lower number, pulling off.

Posted in Technical Exercises

Finger combinations Pt.1

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Finger Combinations Pt1 – The basic idea

This exercise is one of those exercises everybody knows but nobody practices…for sure, it is one of the most useful, you’ll see. It consist in playing up to the 12th fret and back all the possible combinations of fingers of the left hand (one at time, of course).

These are the combinations of 2, 3 and 4 fingers.

12 13 14
21 23 24
31 32 34
41 42 43

123 124 132 134 142 143
213 214 231 234 241 243
312 314 321 324 341 342
412 413 421 423 431 432

1234 1243 1324 1342 1423 1432
2134 2143 2314 2341 2413 2431
3124 3142 3214 3241 2413 2431
4123 4132 4213 4231 4312 4321

Start maybe the 1st week with just the combinations of 2 fingers, then move to the other combinations in the following weeks, remember it is about accuracy, not how quickly you can go through the whole thing.

Posted in Technical Exercises

Guitar Technique: Rhythms

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This is quite  simple but challenging exercise. It is based around superimposing a rhythm to the material you are learning, or trying to master. In the video I take as an example a G major scale and superimpose the following rhythms:

You can also reverse the exercise and keep the eight note in the first part of the beat. Good Luck!

Posted in Technical Exercises

Guitar Technique: Left Hand Posture Tips

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I have seen too many times young or inexperienced guitarists having to go back to basics because of poor left hand posture. In this video I’ll give you some tips on how to better your left hand posture following a few simple concepts:

2. Keep your thumb opposite your fingers on the other side of the neck

1. keep your knuckles parallel to the fret board

3. reach out for frets bending each individual finger

4. ‘scroll’ down the neck in a relaxed way like it was a rail, in a relaxed way

I think the most important thing is that you have to be very relaxed in doing all of the above.

THIS IS THE 2021 UPDATED VERISION OF THE VIDEO…the original from 2008 is below