Lesson 2

If you're a complete beginner, these guitar finger exercises are the very first thing you should spend your time on -- they'll make everything to follow in your guitar-playing life so much easier. And even if you're not a complete beginner, you should regularly be working these exercises anyway. I've been doing them almost daily for going on 35 years. They're simply the most efficient use of your time in terms of getting and keeping your fret hand working properly, and they're the best daily warm-up drills you'll ever learn.

There are three separate guitar finger exercises in this lesson, each demonstrated on the lesson video. The three exercises are meant to get your fret hand fingers working properly. Don't skip or skimp on these exercises, you'll go nowhere fast if you do.

In Exercise 1 we'll use the first and second fingers of your fret hand, and simply walk them across the fretboard, from the low E string to the high E string and back. Pick each note once (this is also an excellent and essential picking exercise). Once you return to the low E string, slide your fingers up one fret and repeat.

Do this until you've played the exercise at every fret you can comfortably reach (this will obviously be different on electric and acoustic guitars). Doing this exercise up the entire fretboard is considered one "round" of the exercise. I've done thousands of rounds of these in my life. You should too. It really works.

Exercise 2 repeats the process using the second and third fingers, and Exercise 3 does the same with the third and fourth fingers. Of course your third and especially fourth finger will be most uncooperative, so plan on exercising them much more, until all four fingers seem to be equally agile.

Tablature for Lesson 2:

Exercise 1

 

 

 

 

Exercise 2

 

Lesson 4

Of course we don't usually play melodies on one string only, as in Lesson 3. That would force us to keep sliding our hand all over the place. And that leads to both fatigue and mistakes. Most guitar playing is done "in position," where we can find all the notes we need right under our fingertips, without moving our hand at all -- or only a little.

So I'm going to show you how to play "Ode To Joy" the way a lead guitarist would play the majority of any guitar solo, in one position, without moving all over the place. To do this, you first need to learn a simple scale pattern. We only need two strings and about a half-dozen notes for this, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

In fact, we're going to play just three notes on each of the two high strings. And to make things even easier, we'll use the same frets on each string: the open string, the first fret, and the third fret. Watch the video and look at the tab and diagram below, then play these six notes over and over to get your hand (and your pick) used to them.

Tablature for Lesson 4:

Your First Guitar Scale

 

 

 

Lesson 6

All the lessons above -- and all the guitar playing you'll do for the rest of your life -- require a basic dexterity of your fret-hand fingers, and an equal agility with your pick hand and strumming abilities. You won't get far if you've got one, but not the other.

Lesson 6 will focus on your pick hand and demonstrate three essential pick hand exercises. Again, don't skip or skimp on the amount of time you put in on these, especially early in your guitar playing journey. Everything else you ever try to play on guitar will come to you exponentially faster if you simply dedicate yourself to regular pick hand and fret hand exercises early and regularly.

That's the reason I've put both fret-hand and pick-hand exercises in Week 1 of this course, risking that you might think I'm not going to teach you anything fun (I will, I promise!)

I really do want you to succeed on guitar, and these exercises are simply that important to your future sucess!

Just do 'em!

In Exercise 1 I simply want you to get used to the concept of alternate picking on one string. Alternate picking is a down-up motion, and it should be used in at least 95 percent of all the guitar playing you ever do -- and that goes for strumming as well as single note playing. You simply must master this technique, or you'll struggle on guitar for the rest of your life. Watch the video and pause it after I demonstrate Exercise 1, then check out the tab, and go for it.

For Exercise 2 I want you to apply the alternate picking technique to the six notes of the scale pattern you learned in Lesson 4. Play each note four times, using alternate picking. Watch the video to see how this is done.

With Exercise 3 I'll have you play those same six notes, and continue using alternate picking, but this time playing each note only once. This may be a little more tricky than playing each note four times as in Exercise 2. Again, watch the video and look at the tablature.

Tablature for Lesson 6:

Exercise 1

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise 2