Advanced Finger Strengthening for Guitar: 3
Altered Chromatic Scales and Further Guitar Exercises
Aug 25, 2009
Finger strength is what separates able and ‘great’ guitarists from those who cannot cut the grade. Without finger strength a guitarist simply cannot manage the intense and complex licks which are essential in later and further playing.
Prior to these more advanced exercises, it is advised that the reader try some basic warm-up and strengthening exercises.
It’s 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.
So remember, play exercises with ALL FOUR fingers
ALWAYS Using Alternate Picking or individual right hand fingers!
Mixing Exercises Together
This exercise is shown in image 2
This exercise is wonderful. It brings together the scales used in the first lesson and intertwines them all in one exercise. This will help the guitarist in mastering each one of these licks fully, but will also help to create more life like practice and warm ups. As most music written will not follow simple patterns this helps teach the musician to be ready to alter thinking patterns and be ready to play the unusual and inventive music in front of him.
Once more after this is completed to the highest possible pace on a metronome, it is recommended the guitarist take a rest, relax and tense the finger muscles to keep the blood flowing and listen to an Albert King record in order to feel how finger strength can really help expression.
Finger Dancing
This exercise is shown in image 3.
This is a very complex and inventive exercise. The image shows that the guitarist must use specific left hand fingers in order to perform this correctly. In the image the number 1 indicates the use of the index finger, the number 2 the middle finger, the number 3 the ring finger and the number 4 the pinkie.
Although this exercise may seem very tough and tricky it will enable the guitarist to use more than one finger in a melody, this will aid improvisation greatly as it will allow the musician to ‘plan ahead’ with notes to play in the future, also it will help development of jazz chord shapes and the use of unusual voicing of melodies.
It is a very worthwhile and effective exercise to perfect!
Once again after this has been built as fast as possible it is recommended that the musician take a rest, check the tuning of the instrument and watch a video of how Johnny Marr inventively picked out rhythm patterns.
Sliding and Stretching
This exercise is shown in image 4.
This is a wonderful warm up and warm down exercise for guitarists. This feels awkward on the first try however will slowly get faster and easier. It will really help tease out those muscles and get them ready and loose for hard work.
This exercise doesn’t necessarily have to be practiced with a metronome it is more of a warm up and stretch for the fingers before starting practice.
So keep going though all these exercises!
These will all help push muscles in order to drive them to higher ability and greater strength, and, if practiced correctly, can form the background to a hard working and meaningful practice routine.
Keep Blusing!
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