General Music Chat

Hello, I am new here! I dont know if there was a thread started similar to this but I wanted to get one going as a resource for practicing guitarists:

Here is a practice regimen I have developed that may be of some interest.

My main goal is to achieve accuracy, dexterity, finger independence and speed

The whole practice session takes about 3 hours on a moderate tempo setting with a METRONOME

Broken down into segments, the regimen consists of:

1) Scales and Modes = 70 positions (Alternate Picking)
2) Cycle of 5ths/4ths (Alternate Picking)
3) Arpeggios = Major, Minor, Aug, Dim, Dom (Alternate Picking)
4) Chromatics on all frets (Alternate/Reverse Picking)
5) Hexatonics (Alternate Picking)
6) 7th arpeggios (Alternate Picking)
7) Triad Arpeggios (Sweep Picking)
8 ) Chord Inversions (Strumming/Fingerstyle)
9) Pentatonic Tapping (Tapping)
10) Sightreading (Aural/Visual Training)
11) Improvisation over Sequences (Free Form)

here are some reading guides that will help you develop your own system:

Basic Music Theory focused for Guitar Players:


A scales and Modes encyclopedia:


Book about how music interacts with human psychology


Please feel free to post your own practice tips!!

Welcome to bandmix jsantos. That is some excellent info you have posted. I think I will adapt some of it to my practice regimen. Thanks!

Welcome to bandmix jsantos. That is some excellent info you have posted. I think I will adapt some of it to my practice regimen. Thanks!

Thanks for the welcome JH! Did you ever have formal guitar lessons? I am self taught.

Holy Crap! That's exactly what I do every freakin' day! Only not in that order of course. I tell people that I practice no less than 5 hours a day and they don't understand what takes so much time! There ya go! Ya see... I get home at 12 in the afternoon everyday so that's how come I have time to do this!

Acoustic with 13 gauge strings
1. finger exercises i.e. 1-4-3-4-2-4-3-4 etc...
2. triplet arpeggios and quad arpeggios
3. major and minor scales and all different inversions of said scales
4. Pentatonics
5. Right hand picking exercises
6. Short arpeggios
7. long arpeggios'
8. scales in double notes
9. scales in 3 note chords (major- minor-minor- major,etc..)
10. 7th progressions

Now over to the electric

Learn song if I have to for band and then improvise, improvise , improvise using all the technique from my acoustic practice including hammer ons and pulloffs

Either go to rehearsal or gig if it's a weekend

beddy bye time.... and wake up at 1AM... go to work... come home and repeat!

Holy Crap! That's exactly what I do every freakin' day! Only not in that order of course. I tell people that I practice no less than 5 hours a day and they don't understand what takes so much time!

Acoustic with 13 gauge strings

wow... practicing all that with an acoustic is like body building for your digits.

I bet you got some mad stamina and can bend like 2 octaves.

jsantos, I played violin thru junior high and high school. I started playing guitar at the age of 13 self taught untill 16 took lessons for 3 years and have been self taught since then. Which means I have been playing guitar for 37 years and have been a musician for 40 years. I gave up playing violin right after high school (the chicks just didn't dig it) LOL! I started playing violin again in the early 90's but it was just taking to much time away from guitar so I quite the violin again in 1994. I have been playing pro. for about 30 years.

I am just impressed that he can get up at 1am.

See if knew all this stuff I would set up a guitar gym.
You know a station workout kinda like a Curves for guitar players.
That would be so much more beneficial than what I have experienced before with guitar lessons.

It's like (to a certain point) how and where to place your fingers should take precedence over why. So much of the cerebral understanding of music theory stands in the way of the physical accomplishment required.
especially for folk like myself where spatial learning is the easy part.
Music theory gives me a headache.

Jamie's site has some nice tips. Books and DVD's are where the real meat is though:

http://www.guitarprinciples.com/GettingBetter/secret_of_speed.html

Back in the day, my guitar bible was "Sal Salvadores Single String Studies" it's a must for anyone wanting to become a proficient lead guitarist!

Plus I got my associates in music which was an enormous help in my disciplined itinerary!

HECK, SOUNDS LIKE TO MUCH WORK....
Now ,CRIP , I know you don't drink, so this won't work for you. To work the fretboard hand I open beer cans. ONE finger at a time. First the index finger.
When that one starts to hurt ,[ from a condition I call BEERFINGER] I move to the middle finger, then the ring finger, and finally the pinkie. WHAT A WORK OUT!!!!
To keep the pickhand in shape I allways do the heavy lifting with that hand.It also keeps my biceps in shape.
Total practice time can be any where from 15 minutes to whenever you run outta beer.

Wow, giongi2!! Adding tab pull fingertip exercising to the 12 oz. curl. WHAT A CONCEPT!!!! I'm going to get right on that one (BURP) again.

Anyone played a Sitar?

i tried to once failed horribly at it.

YOU DO THAT RAT.... ANOTHER BENEFIT IS ,,,,BY THE TIME YOU GET GET TO YOUR PINKIE FINGER,,,,,,,,DON'T MATTER WHAT YOU PLAY,,,,,, YOU SOUND GREAT!!!!! SHOOT WRONG ONE

...so much for me trying to actually be serious for a minute without a "big boobies" insert