I am pretty lazy about life, in general, I do not meditate as much as I used to, nor do I get out to exercise much, but as far as my guitar fitness, I am constantly striving to stay at the top of my game, and learn new things. For the serious guitarist, there is much competition in life and career that take our focus away from the fitness of guitar, careers to support our music and or family, other hobbies or interests, various life circumstances that can hamper or slow our scheduling of music to a quiet lull.

In any point in life whether our musical habits are busy or slow, maximizing your practice time, is a huge element, and while practice in itself is a great idea anyhow, it serves best when it is the most efficient and the productive at the same time. Virtually every guitarist that has any type of practice routine, has a different method from the next, I find for me the most effective, is cross training routines, meaning to mix several concepts of scale methods, per 15 minute sessions, this is a method used and promoted by John Pettruci of Dream Theater and it keeps him very guitar-fit.

There is a program called YMetronome, find it (www.google.com), get it and use it. Many guitar players get stuck in a rut developing speed, (though speed is not everything) they blaze into it like a kid in a candy store, learning all the super bad ass riffs of the moment, and doing the best they can to shred like the heroes they enjoy listening to. The reason this program is my top choice, is because it is free, and it has a timed increment feature, meaning after so many beats, it increases in speed according to your setting. This enables you to utilize the best known method of speed training available, which simply put, is to START VERY SLOW master the riff or method in the slowest speed you can stand to play it in, and as soon as you reach a flaw in your routine, START OVER, there is no cheating, or benefit thereof, you only would cheat yourself out of the learning experience and perfection of skills. Listed below are some methods to get you started into a routine, which is always a benefit, for training and motivation (based on results) that will encourage you to become better, and or find other useful training methods as well. Much of what you are about to read, is of course, subjective and for some people the ideal routines, or methods, may be different, hopefully you find something useful in it. Do not hesitate to post opinions or responses.

TRAINING METHODS

Alternate picking - up down up down up down, this is another crucial element of speed and or prowess, even at slower speeds, it improves everything about your playing, even tone when done properly.

Attack Drills - Attack, simply put is how hard you strike the string when playing, be it for lead or rhythm, it serves both realms well for tone, as well as attitude in a riff or song, starting with three attack modes, a soft, then medium, then hard (not so hard as to break strings, but to get a more aggressive chug or tone across to the listener) while playing chords, or lead patterns, or scale practice. This is a simple routine, and can get boring easily, so incorporate it into other exercises, 2, 3, or 4 strokes to match appropriately.

Simple Scales - there are a massive amount of technical scales out there in the world today, and well over 3000 possible chords so I try and focus on the more simple attributes when explaining or teaching, that being said, start with basic pentatonic scales, you cant go wrong starting there, but do not get stuck there as so many do, once in a rut, it can be hard to get motivated to move on, and pentatonic scales are easy enough, that you can sound good with them in no time, and let’s face it, people when they achieve a level of completion with anything in life, they find a comfort zone in it, and often can trap themselves there for a while. since everyone has the capability of learning differently, I will leave the resource choice up to the reader, a google search of pentatonic scales, will lead you to more than a few different learning methods.

Eye - Hand Co-ordination - The sooner you can learn to not look at what you are doing, the better, learn your fret board, and all mechanics and playing areas associated with it, try to wander, do not get locked into a certain area if at all possible. Some of the greatest players in the world, if you look at the guitars they play the most, have fret wear far more in certain areas than others, while they are great for reasons other than this alone, one sure thing, is that the greatness was obtained at least in part, to the notes they played often enough to leave the fret wear on the neck in the first place. That last statement, is a good indication of how much time it can take to master your sound. The average guitarist will go through a set of frets on a neck in about ten years, this is when it will start typically buzzing, or fretting out. The guitarist that stays out in the proverbial woodshed, 12-16 hours a day, will go through a fret job every 2-3 years in some cases, and in a few, more than that can happen if they play hard, and do not have a light touch.

Pick Placement - How one holds a pick, can make life very hard, or very easy, I myself hold mine almost completely opposite of the string, much like cutting across the string with a knife, and I play in a diagonal stroke against the string, for me, this works well, and while it may work for you, it may not work for others. Placement, and style of attack, must be functional together to be productive, and by finding your method, you find an integral part of your tone as well as style.

Cross Training - Using any of the methods above, and mixing them with one or two or even more of the other methods above, or any others that are beneficial to your training, can be very helpful to encourage more learning, and break up the normal repetitive issues associated with practicing routines or scales. This is the hybrid training method used by many of the better players in the industry, I hope it serves you well.

IMPORTANT - REMEMBER when you are training (not just for speed, but any training) TO KEEP IT TIGHT, start slow and work your way up, as soon as you hear any slop in it, start over, from the slowest point and go up again, while this is always irritating to go back to the beginning, it helps so much more than taking shortcuts, cheating yourself, gets you nowhere, maximize your training, and naturally it will maximize your skills!

Till next time - Anek