Daily exercises routine

[FirasKordi]

hello everyone , ive been playing for over a year and 3 months but it was just random playing and stuff ....so am planning to do a organized routine daily to improve my alternate picking , sweep picking and rhythm playing (as well as other techniques) ..ive tried some exercises but seemed a bit not working or dull ......do you have any good exercises or a way of practising that isnt abit boring for like 4+ hours daily

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

i practice a song (not everyday) until i get it right

 

[Winspear]

i practice a song (not everyday) until i get it right

Me too. If you find exercises boring, make exercises out of songs so it's melodic content that's actually rewarding. Then you'll be able to drill it for much longer Break down a passage, find the best fingering and picking pattern, and go at it with a metronome from 50% or whatever.

On Impulse solo by Animals as Leaders is a great exercise. I couldn't even play a blues solo when I learned that..Took a good year of drilling but it was never boring

 

[FirasKordi]

cool ideas guys....i know this seems stupid but do u have any good tricks and tips to learn a lick or riff fast (i use guitar pro for tabs ) because my interests and likes are kinda freaking hard to play (jeff loomis , tosin abasi , mark okubo ...etc)

 

[rjnix_0329]

My tip there would be to stop trying to learn it fast. The more your practice any passage, the better you will get at it, and that can't be rushed. That being said, the best advice for learning a bit that is too difficult or fast is to play it to a metronome. Slow it down, play it at half speed, and then slowly build it up until you are playing it at the correct speed. You'll surprise yourself with how well your hands co-ordinate.

 

[Winspear]

Exactly what I said above, you should be able to get any one bar (or more) into muscle memory no matter how hard, in 30 minutes or so of repetition after you figure out the best way to play it. Take note: INTO MUSCLE MEMORY. Not full speed. Then it's just a case of speeding it up

 

[FirasKordi]

hmm i dont really know how to use metronome on some parts (like sweeping or licks with sweep and alternating at same time) can u give me quick intro on how to use metronome on any lick ^_^

 

[Winspear]

Everything is to a tempo no matter what it is. Turn on the metronome in Guitar Pro and use the Speed Looper tool

 

[sleightest]

I love doing chromatic stuff. Just take a familiar pattern/scale you play, but play every note between what your pinky and 1st finger would play as well. Also I love picking a random technique and genre and trying to hybrid the two. Try to write a grunge song that uses a lot of tremolo picking or write a blues riff with string skipping and hybrid picking etc.

 

[FirasKordi]

ive really developed some good left hand technique , but my right hand technique is really horrible ...sometimes the pick slips , or sometimes it changes position ......guys please any good tips or advises to improve my right hand technique (at sweeping and alternating )

 

[phugoid]

Allow me to bore you with the advice I wish I could share with my younger self.

It sounds to me like you might be trying to play things that are too far ahead of where you are right now, technique-wise.

When I had been playing for a year or two, I thought the only people who knew how to play guitar were Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen and Marty Friedman. Jimi was so sloppy, I thought. Stevie was just playing the same blues licks over and over again. I had a pretty one-dimensional view of what made good music; the harder it was to play, the more exciting and the better it sounded... I even bought a Chris Impellitteri video. Look it up - it's sort of funny.

My playing quickly stagnated, because unlike the olympic-class shredders out there I wasn't ready to practice ten hours a day. I despised my playing, because it fell so short of where I wanted to be. Since then, I've played guitar on and off, always dissatisfied with myself.

And now I'm starting again. I'm just practicing scales and basic techniques, with one big difference: I'm actually listening to the sound coming out of my guitar, and trying to make it sound good.

tl;dr: The most motivating thing is to see your own progress and to hear good sounds coming out of your guitar. That is more likely to happen if you work on stuff at the right level where you are now.

 

[FirasKordi]

wise words dude .....the problem is that am not really at all into blues or 80's thrash metal (not so hard songs) what i usually listen to and the reason why i started playing is cuz of guys like Jeff loomis , tosin abasi and marc okubo (fcking hard songs), so its a bit hard for me to learn an easy song i dont like .. and when i try to practice slow i get distracted quickly and start playin fast and freaking sloppy .......i used to play on a shitty epiphone special 2 , so the pickups wasnt perfect and thats why i didnt notice my sweeping is sloppy alot (so i kept trying to play fast) , when i got my Loomis signature with 707's emg's i noticed that all what i did was sloppy alot ....and trying all over again to perfect my technique is abit hard alot now (especially right hand picking and muting) so thats why i get depressed each time i try to practice now

 

[GlxyDs]

It's going to be hard. It's going to be boring. No matter what you have to practice slow. 60 bpm slow! Then slowly speed up, going a bit faster every day. If you get to a point you can't play, back the metronome up 10 bpm and start again, moving it up a couple of clicks a day.

You can do this with anything really. Make sure everything sounds clean! You need to learn how to make all notes clean. Everyone wants to play fast, but you need to be relaxed at all times, so focus on your body while doing this.

Hopefully some good will come out of it!

 

[Konfyouzd]

Record yourself and play along to yourself. Similar to using a song as a practice exercise, but you can make it up every time. Helps with improv.

 

[sleightest]

ive really developed some good left hand technique , but my right hand technique is really horrible ...sometimes the pick slips , or sometimes it changes position ......guys please any good tips or advises to improve my right hand technique (at sweeping and alternating )

Theres a gimicky planet waves pick thats supposed to force you into using proper grip but I cant vouch for it. But sometimes stupid things like that can help. I would buy a sample pack of assorted picks and try some different ones. I like picks that are stupid grippy but I also hold my pick in my mouth when I fingerpick, so I dont like the ones with sandpaper. The cool phat cats picks in 1.0 and the XL Jazz 3 are my favorite picks right now. Also the snarling dogs brain picks are very grippy.

 

[SirMyghin]

Everything is to a tempo no matter what it is. Turn on the metronome in Guitar Pro and use the Speed Looper tool

Terribly idea EE, it lacks developing any sort of rhythmic awareness as a player, which as he doesn't know how to use a metronome, he doesn't have. It may help play a passage, but that is all it will achieve as you are depending on cues, not your rhythmic ability.

 

[FirasKordi]

thanks guys .....hmmm i have another question (really stupid one) , how can i make sure that a specific exercise or a lick am playing is developing my technique more than another exercise ???

 

[Max Dread]

It's interesting what you write here because I am the complete opposite.... I do have a wide and varied taste, but like most people there is music out there that I can’t stand! And yet I’ve never really come across anything that I don’t enjoy playing on the guitar. I teach a bit of guitar, and as such I am often learning songs I really don’t like. The latest example is Naive by the Kooks. I hate it! And yet I enjoy playing it.....

Sorry if this is not in the slightest bit helpful to you! But it just interested me to hear you say the opposite to how I feel about playing different styles of music.

As for the other points you make, I really think it is a case of having to be more disciplined. Exercises, etc. are a means to an end. I personally really enjoy the WHOLE process. If you find that you don’t , then keep your eye on the light at the end of the tunnel and try to endure the time and effort needed to reach that light.

I think the analogy of sports often works well with music. So if we take football as an example, think of all the hours spent training, exercising, stretching, the attention that has to be given to diet, sleep, and so on and so on.... All so that for a couple of hours a week they get to play the game they love.

Hard work pays off.....

 

[FirasKordi]

awesome reply dude ....i do love a wide variety of music (from classical , jazz , arabic classical songs( cuz am arabian) to metal and djent) ....but usually when i ask ppl which songs are good for beginner like me , they keep advising me to learn Megadeth , metallica ...etc songs and i tried but it just dont feel good .............as for the exercises , as i said earlier , i cant decide if the exercise am doing now is better than an exercise i heard about