Three Practising Principles For Guitar Scales Practice And The Secret To Playing Faster
Are you really making the most of your guitar scales practice? Many guitar players think they are but in actual fact they are not paying enough attention to some important practising principles and consequently holding back their progress.
This can easily be addressed by following these three simple principles.
Fretting Hand Technique Pay attention to your fretting hand and make sure that your fingers stay close to the fret board.
Always keep your fingers touching the strings even when they are not fretting the note being played.
If fretting a note with your first finger then yes you will need to keep the other fingers out of the way, but if you are playing a note with your middle, ring or pinky finger it's important to keep the other fingers touching the string behind.
Do this and your hand will develop real control and accuracy.
Always Practice To A Metronome This is something a great deal of guitar students seem to ignore but at their peril.
The metronome is an excellent practising tool for two very good reasons.
When you first learn a scale or exercise you have to work through it slowly so it is very easy to pick the notes using only down strokes.
However, there is a danger that this will become a habit and eventually work against you.
Your fretting hand will be getting faster but start to get held back by the limited ability of your picking hand.
Picking only down strokes means twice the effort for each note played.
If you alternate pick from the word go you will have a positive habit already established and be getting two notes out of each movement rather than just one.
This can easily be addressed by following these three simple principles.
Fretting Hand Technique Pay attention to your fretting hand and make sure that your fingers stay close to the fret board.
Always keep your fingers touching the strings even when they are not fretting the note being played.
If fretting a note with your first finger then yes you will need to keep the other fingers out of the way, but if you are playing a note with your middle, ring or pinky finger it's important to keep the other fingers touching the string behind.
Do this and your hand will develop real control and accuracy.
Always Practice To A Metronome This is something a great deal of guitar students seem to ignore but at their peril.
The metronome is an excellent practising tool for two very good reasons.
- Firstly, it will improve your timing.
This is important because if you want be a good musician you need to play in time and the only way to know for sure is to practice with a metronome.
Over a period of time you will also have a record of your progress as you see your metronome tempo get faster the more you practice. - Secondly, assuming you are practising to a reasonable speed, it will restrict the urge to try and play faster than your true ability will allow at that stage.
Consequently, your brain will have a chance to connect with what your fingers are doing.
If your brain understands what it is supposed to be doing it will have more command over your fingers and it's your brain that needs to be in the driving seat not your fingers.
When you first learn a scale or exercise you have to work through it slowly so it is very easy to pick the notes using only down strokes.
However, there is a danger that this will become a habit and eventually work against you.
Your fretting hand will be getting faster but start to get held back by the limited ability of your picking hand.
Picking only down strokes means twice the effort for each note played.
If you alternate pick from the word go you will have a positive habit already established and be getting two notes out of each movement rather than just one.
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