Ok, now you may look at this lesson and think "oh this is stupid, I know how to practice." In reality though, most kids that play guitar do not know how to really practice and self discipline themselves. Some people call playing their favorite band's songs for an hour practicing. No, thats not practicing, thats playing. This article is going to concentrate on PRACTICING, improving your technique, and all that fun stuff. Now this may seem monotenous and boring, but trust me, its worth it. We are going to be doing picking hand workouts, and fretting hand workouts.

Lets start out with your picking hand, cause that is what a lot of people overlook and instead work on putting their fingers in the right place. Now place your fingers on a random chord that you like the best and KEEP THEM THERE. Now, this will help work your alternating picking. Im going to use G as an example. ^ will indicate upstroke, v will indicate downstroke.


E|-----3-3-------------3-3-
B|----3---3----------3----3-
G|---0-----0--------0------0-
D|--0-------0------0--------0-
A|-0---------0----0----------0-
E|3------------3-3------------3
--v^v^v^-v^v^v-^v^v^v-^v^v^

Now you should start that exercise slow because it may seem easy, but when you get faster and faster it gets harder and harder. Now here is where the self-discipline comes in to play. This exercise is extremely boring, but it will help you as a player. If you mess up, take your hands off the guitar, wait a few seconds and start all over again. Maybe you can set a goal like..100 times not messing up or whatever you feel is appropriate. Set aside 5 minutes during the day to do this exercise, do it every day for a week, and I guarentee that your alternate picking will be faster, and more accurate.

Now this exercise may seem different, but I find that drum rudiments can help your cross string picking a lot. Nik sent me some of these rudiments because he is a drum wiz. Imagine in the beginning that the right hand is the A string, and the left hand is the low E string. Once you get these good and fast, you can move further apart and the D string will become the left, and the low E string will stay the right, keep going with this until you can cross pick across both E strings with these rudiments. You can do this with both alternate and downpicking.

Ex 1. Single Paradiddle
R L R R L R L L

Ex 2. Triple Paradiddle
R L R L R L R R L R L R L R L L

Ex 3. Triple Stroke Roll (This may be hard with, each is done in triplets)
R R R L L L R R R L L L 

Ex 4. Dono what its called, I just put random ones down.
R R L L R R R L R R L

Do those backwards forwards, all downpicking, alternate picking, everything.

If you set aside time each day to do these 2 exercises, you will see an increase in your picking greatly. Remember to start slow, and if you mess up, take a break and start over.

Now lets go into your fretting hand. There isnt much that i've really thought of to say here, so i'm gona make it up as we go.

Most guitarists depends on their first 3 fingers, index, middle, and ring. We want to get all your fingers strong so you can do fast legato licks, anything, and precise also. Use your clean channel when you do these exercises because distortion hides what the note actually sounds like. If you hear one thing wrong, like one note is more muffled then the other, take a break, and start all over.

Use all hammer ons and pull offs for this, sit on your picking hand or something so it doesnt get in the way. Do these exercises on all the strings, i'm just gona post on one string to save space. For all the 1's use your index, 2's use your middle, 3's use your ring, and 4's use your pinky. Dont cheat!


E|0h1-0h2-0h3-0h4 h4p0-h3p0-h2p0-h1p0

Repeat that 1000 times until your fingers start to get tired, but not hurt.

For this one use all trills until that finger starts to get tired.


E|-1tr2--1tr3--1tr4--2tr3--2tr4-3tr4


I'm tired of writing and my fingers are getting tired, so there you have it. Now you have a little workout, and a way to really PRACTICE and improve your technique.