Flatpicking
Guitar Lesson Number One
Right
Hand Exercises
Over the past few years I've had the good fortune to meet and
work with a lot of flatpicking guitar players at clinics and
workshops. I teach several clinics every month for the Takamine
Guitar Company and I have also taught at a wide variety of music
camps, like Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamp, Camp Bluegrass, Nashcamp,
St. Louis Flatpick Weekend, Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend, Colorado
Roots Music Camp, the Banjo and Guitar Cruise, and others.
While instructing at these camps and clinics I have noticed
that many of the beginning and intermediate level players, and
even the advanced players to some degree, are all struggling
with speed, note clarity, fluidity, and tone. For the most part,
I believe that all of these issues can be resolved by working
on right hand accuracy, comfort, relaxation, and economy of
motion.
In order to test my theory, I used two of my private students
as "guinea pigs." I developed a series of right hand
exercises and told them that if they would both work on these
exercises, with a slow metronome tempo of about 60bpm, for at
least 10 minutes per day, then I would give them their lessons
for free. I insisted that they keep the metronome tempo at 60
for at least one month.
Both of these gentle man were over the age of 60 and let me
know that they needed to learn quickly because they "didn't
have much time left!" I assured them that if they practiced
what I was asking that they would progress much faster than
if I sat down and taught them a bunch of new tunes.
To their surprise, I was right! These two both made tremendous
progress over the course of a few short months (they had lessons
one time per month). They both developed the ability to play
faster and cleaner with improved accuracy and better tone. As
a result they also were more confident and more comfortable
when playing their solos and their learning curve increased
greatly.
One temptation that these students had was to increase the metronome
tempo after a short while working at 60bpm. They wanted to crank
that metronome up a few more notches after they felt like they
had mastered 60bpm. I refused to allow this. I wanted them to
stay at 60 bpm for at least a full month before they increased
the speed. After a month I let them move up to 80 bpm, but not
before then.
The importance at staying at a certain level of practice far
beyond the point where you think you are ready to progress is
the invaluable process of gaining "muscle memory."
You may think that you are ready to move on once you have been
able to execute something correctly a few times and understand
it in your head. However, until you have built a muscle memory
and can execute it correctly without thinking about it, in other
words "do it in your sleep", you really haven't got
it. I feel like many students move forward when they really
aren't ready to do so and thus get tripped up later because
they haven't worked the fundamentals enough.
You may think that practicing like this will be boring, but
remember, I'm only asking for 10 minutes a day on these right
hand exercises. After that 10 minutes, go ahead and do what
ever you want to do on your guitar. But if you practice these
exercises for 10 minutes per day and do it for one month at
60 bpm, I think that you will see the same results that my two
"guinea pig" students achieved. After a full month
of 10 minutes a day, then move up to 80 bpm with these exercises.
I will first present each one of these exercises below and then
put them all together in a workout routine that you can follow
for your 10 minutes of daily practice.
When
you get to the "Ten Minute Practice
Rountine" section I have included on that page a link
to an audio file that includes the first 7 line of the practice
routine (exercises 5 and 6 aren't included, but you'll get the
idea). If you are having trouble with the tab of the exercises,
skip to the "Ten Minute Practice Routine" section
and listen to the various exercises as they appear in the practice
routine. The first line you will here is exercise 1, followed
by line 2 (exercise 2), line 3 (exercise 1), line 4, (exercise
3), line 5 (exercise 1), line 6 (exercise 4) and line 7 (exercise
1). This audio may help you hear what each exercise is supposed
to sound like.
Exercise
1:
Exercise
1 is the core of our practice. The pattern is shown below and
is executed with a down down down-up-down right hand pattern.
The notes are shown as X's because you are going to mute the
strings with your left hand so that you can completely focus
on the right hand.
