Guitar scale exercises increase your finger dexterity and overall playing precision when playing leads, solos, or fills in a song. I have long used one particularly good set of single position guitar scale exercises to improve my fret nimbleness over the years. Hopefully you'll find it useful in your warm ups for gigs and practice sessions.
Now to be completely truthful this isn't technically a scale exercise in terms of the major or minor scales you're probably used to thinking about. This exercise covers the entire chromatic scale (all 12 tones) over the six strings of the instrument. Before I get into the specifics of the technique I need to cover a little nomenclature so you and I understand each other as you read through this lesson.
I identify the strings of the guitar beginning with the low E string as 1st, and high E string as 6th with the A, D, G, and B strings successively from 2nd to 5th in between the low and high Es.
These guitar scale exercises begin on the 6th string (again, high E) at the 5th fret and end at the 1st string, 8th fret. For this program you should not have to change hand position on the neck of the instrument. Your goal is to play (pick) each individual note with your pick and have each tone ring out completely clearly at an even tempo. Lastly, you should continue to practice guitar scale exercises like this one until you can increase speed (while maintaining even tempo) to a rapid pace - hopefully 120 beats per minute or better.
I will describe the pattern in the following way - (string/fret/finger). In other words if I write 5/8 that means play the 5th string with the pinky finger pressing just behind the 8th fret. Are you ready for the guitar scale exercises? Great - take a deep breath because here we go.
In rapid succession, play this pattern in forward (high E string to low E string), then reverse it completely, playing low E string to High E.
Here is the guitar scale exercises pattern I use to warm up daily.
6/5/i, 6/6/m, 5/5/i, 6/7/r, 5/6/m, 4/5/i, 6/8/p, 5/7/r, 4/6/m, 3/5/i, 5/8/p, 4/7/r, 3/6/m, 2/5/i, 4/8/p, 3/7/r, 2/6/m, 1/5/i, 3/8/p, 2/7/r, 1/6/m, 2/8/p, 1/7/r, 1/8/p
To reverse the pattern begin at 1/8/p and work your way backwards to 6/5/i at the beginning.
Guitar scale exercises like these are part of the basic lessons offered online for you to see and preview. Many more guitar scale exercises are available on the DVD series and previewed online. Click here to see all the free guitar lessons online for beginning guitarists. Playing guitar is a lot of fun and creates valuable friendships. Try the free guitar lessons online and get valuable insight with video and sound on your PC. | Frank A. Smith
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