Further Finger Strength Building for Guitar: 2

More Altered Chromatic Scales for Faster Fingers for Guitar Playing

Aug 22, 2009

Finger strength is essential for playing any instrument. In this second article we continue exercises to continue building power in fingers to help speed guitar playing.

A sure way to enhance ability on guitar and surpass difficulties is to increase the strength and muscles in the fingers. After all when fingers can do more on the neck of a guitar, more can be said with music.

Its a good idea to warm up with the aforementioned set and then move on, to make sure the fingers are warm and ready to continue pushing the muscles. Remember these are tough exercises and shouldn't be pushed too hard. Work it as hard as need be.

Run through this with a metronome gaining speed until reaching the point at which it seems too fast.

This exercise is specially designed to aid the passing of fingers across the neck, so that those blindly fast runs across the neck will begin to seem simpler and simpler.

After the exercise is complete, again it is recommended that the guitarist take a break, sit back, watch a video of Santana sweetly caressing his guitar, then.... reset the metronome and move on.

Backwards Guitar Exercises

The second exercise is shown in image 3. It may look easy, but it tests new muscles, it will force the pinkie to gain power as it stretches to grab the string below.

This is another great exercise, completely reversing the order in which the muscles will used, therefore building their strength further.

So again it is advised the musician take a short break, breath the sweet air, stretch the fingers wide, warm up a cup of coffee, turn on some classic B.B. King albums, then move on to....

String Skipping

This is one of the hardest skills in completely mastering the guitar, Far too many times a guitarist is willing to run through the same scales, the same simple licks, because they simply aren't able to mix around the strings to create more in depth, creative melodies.

So to help combat this, this exercise will use the same starting run but move it between the strings. The exercise is shown in image 4.

This will help ease passing between strings, this will make solos and improvisations much sweeter, this will set a performer above the standard set who run through the same sets of lines repetitively, this will help a guitarist leap forward as an artist.

Once more this set will help expand a worth while warm up and will help fingers power through those tough phrases the rest struggle to master.

It is even a good idea to mix in a few of the exercises from the previous lesson, so instead of simply running up and down the neck, mix about with the more life-like licks from the first lesson.

Once this lesson is completed to a confident level, there are further exercises at

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The copyright of the article Further Finger Strength Building for Guitar: 2 in Guitar is owned by Michael Catley. Permission to republish Further Finger Strength Building for Guitar: 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.