- Julian Bream

Julian Bream is one the most famous classical guitar performers. This quote from his interview was first seen in The Guitar Player Magazine in June 1990. This and other interviews and lessons with greatest guitarists covering past 40 years of guitar history are published in a book The Guitar Player Book – The Ultimate Resource for Guitarists.

They are great no just for warm up, but for developing finger independence as well.

These exercises are quite fun too! You might even consider dropping guitar and doing something like this:

So lets begin. This exercise is taken from the book by Guthrie Govan, called Creative Guitar 1: Cutting Edge Techniques. Here it is:

Difficult part is that you have to keep all four fingers on the strings all the time. How else can you get stretching! We start with a Emaj7 chord and move the fingers one by way until we reach Ebmaj7 chord (same chord shape but one fret lower), then do same maneuver, one more time, one more… continue until you reach the nut (do not be frustrated if you cannot do that right away).

Start with any position that is comfortable, but preferably as high up the neck as possible and move to the nut.  You might get stuck somewhere along the way. if that will be the case try going back 2-3 frets and work your way up from there. Remember that reaching the nut is a long term goal. It might take several weeks to get there.

You must be very careful playing this exercise! Never start on it unless you had a good warm up. Chromatic exercises are a great way to get your hand in shape, doing some legato runs will be a great way to warm up too. Good luck!

Please notice that first two notes of every arpeggio are picked up, while the third one is picked down. Make sure NOT to sweep-pick those notes. The idea is to give the picking hand as much work out as possible, so we are not after the economy of motion here.

Here is the basic form of the exercise:

As you can see each finger is responsible for one fret. I start with the 1st fret only because the pattern is more obvious there (fret number corresponds to the finger number). It is advised to start playing the pattern higher on the neck (say 12th fret and then move down to the nut).

Below are some variations of the basic exercise. Play them all so that you ill not feel bored too quick!

First variation changes the order of the notes: we play from left to right when moving down and from right to left when moving up. The second variation shuffles things around even more. Thats great for the finger independence.

Feel free to come up with your own variations.

The word of advice: it is very important to play this particular exercise using metronome. Start slow and make sure each note is sounded well. Play with alternate picking.

I marked the root in every position for reference. Its always nice to know where the roots are!

Start slowly, make sure that each note is sounded equally loud and with right timing (yep, use metronome). Try to keep your fretting hand as relaxed as possible! Remember, legato is all about quick and light! Making effort to hit the string harder will not do any good. So stop and relax as soon as you feel that your hand is overstressed. You might also want to start higher on the neck, so there will be not so much stretching and gradually move down to the open position.

Do not start with running up and down the whole pattern. Try playing 3 notes on one string for a while, then play two adjacent strings up and down, then add another string, and so on. If your hand is not strong enough, you might want to cover only one pattern at a time.

Here is a sample of what I like to play on two adjacent strings, based on 1st pattern:

You can easily come up with dozen of variations!

Most importantly, do not over do this exercise! Stop as soon as you feel light burning in your fretting hand! I find that burning occurs really fast when you start playing too fast without proper warm up, and you hand is not relaxed. Take a couple minutes break and then come back to the exercise. Not following this advice may cause great damage to your hand, really!

And lastly a playing tip: you do not have to pick string at all. Use you picking hand to mute strings close to the nut instead.

As an example lets harmonize C major scale. We all know that it can be played with notes like this

C D E F G A B C

It can as well be played with chords like this:

C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim – C

Up, thats harmonization! Chords are very basic so I will do not think it is necessary to tell you how to play them. Playing this exercise name the chord you are playing and also the scale degree, from which it is build.

C	Dm	Em	F	G	Am	Bdim	C
I	ii	iii	IV	V	vi	viio	I

Pay attention that minor chords are marked with small roman numerals. This is a common practice, so get used to it. Knowing these scale degrees is the key to transposing the songs from key to key, taken that you know the chords in a given of course.

You can harmonize same scale in a number of different ways: use only triads, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th chords, play in different positions (great exercise for expanding your fretboard knowledge). You can harmonize any other scale in the same way. You might need to refer to some music theory book for help though.

Homework: harmonize major scale in other keys. Try at least F, G, D, A, E and B using most simple chords staying as close to the open position as possible.

Visualizing fretboard is a great exercise that can be done literally at any time and any place. It is not easy at first, so take your time. Start with a single string on just one fret (remember open positions!) and build your fretboard step by step going from fret to fret and from string to string. Practice visualizing scale patterns, chords, arpeggios, riffs, solos, anything you can think of.

When you feel comfortable with naming the notes, try to learn degrees of the scale (interval from the root) as well. That will come in handy for many things like building chords.

Another thing to practice is singing the notes and then playing them. The ultimate goal is to be able to play what you hear in your head. Remember it is not as hard as it seems! Just give it a try! Start slow with something simple, and gradually build up the speed and complexity.

The essense of the Satriani Exercise, or Satch Exercise if you please, is very simple: find the notes one by one all over fretboard.

Here is how it works:

• Set the metronome to 50-60 bpm
• Choose any note (lets do F for illustration)
• Start with 6th string. With every tic of the metronome locate the F on the given string. First one will be on the 1st fret, second on 13th fret. Next move to the 5th string. F will be on the 5th string 3rd fret, next one will be on the 5th string [fill in the lank] fret and so on. You can start from the 1st string and work your way up. The idea is to find all the possible locations for the chosen note. Do not forget about open strings.
• Lower the tempo if you cannot find the notes in time, and raise it if you feel bored…

If you are not very familiar with the notes on the fretboard, it is good idea to learn 1-2 notes so that you know them well, and then add notes one by one. C and G are good ones to start with. Good time to do such Satch Exercise is during the break from more intensive workout, like working on alternate picking or legato. Give your hands some rest and get the brain to work!