So we have been talking about speed development, and I am going to show you three exercises that are very simple. These are chromatic exercises, and what that means is that the chromatic exercise contains all same items or half steps which is just from one fret to another as opposed to a whole step which would be skipping further in between.
So if you were to take your index finger and put it on the fifth fret of the low E, which would be this, and then move your middle finger to the sixth fret on that same string, that's a half step in between, sharp or flat, doesn't matter.
So a chromatic passage would be sinking up four frets in a row, and this is really good for the fretting hand as well as the picking hand because it sinks those up together. So what we would do is play four frets in succession on one string and then move up to the next string and do the same, and go all the way up until we reach our high E, and then descend so in the same fashion.
We're starting this on the first fret of the low E. So we'd go first fret, second fret, third fret, fourth fret -- and then descend. Okay, so that's the basic pattern behind that and each time you come down, you can go all the way up in that. So then you can start it on the second fret of the low E. But, here's how I would like to do it, and this is really cool because there's kind of an uneven alternate picking involved where once you reach the high E, your pinky will end up on the fourth fret as the last note, but then you are going to slide it up in even timings with the fifth fret and then start descending from there.
So I am going to attempt to call out the frets to as I pick this out without making any mistakes here. So one, two, three, four next string one, two, three, four, D string, one, two, three, four, G string, one, two, three, four, E string, one, two, three, four, E string, one, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, five, four, three, two, five, four, three, two, five, four, three, two, five, four, three, two, five, four, three, two, three, four, five, six, three, four, five, six and so on.
The important thing about this is this is really great because it gets you out kind of this boxed information which is great stuff, but you are trapped in that sort of a pattern. So what we are trying to accomplish here is the ability to be able to glide around the neck with ease which is very, very important.
And also other things that you can do with that because all these exercises or any exercise for that matter is really set up to be reconstructed in original sense by you yourself or whoever is experimenting with them at the time, and so everything can be customized to bring the best out of your planning.
So there are so many things that you can do even particular with the chromatic type of exercises, and one more thing that you can possibly do and it's basically just using your imagination to really look at, and see what can be done with it. You could start it on the first fret again, like we have been doing one, two, three, four, then go two, three, four, five, then go one, two, three, four, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, two, three, four, five, just like that. So it's very simple. Definitely do the chromatic exercise and try and cover as much of the neck without stopping as possible.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services