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Today we’re looking at some very simple stretching drills for your fretting hand. Below you’ll find a link to the pdf with the exercises.

First, you have 4 basic stretches. Play through them a few times. They don’t sound amazing when you play them, but they work. Get your fingers used to them.

Now look below that. These are the first exercises that I do during my warm up routine. They stretch my hand, and prepare it for more effort.

If you it’s too difficult for you to play those, then try moving your hand higher up the neck, and if it’s too easy, then move it down the neck.

Have fun!

PDF: stretchingpt1

The better the quality of your demo, the more professional you will be seen as. This does not necessarily mean having your demo recorded at the most expensive top of the line studio in town. Just pay attention to the details. A recording in garageband/audacity can be perfect for a demo, as long as you’ve done it right.. Remember to have an even mix and to allow the vocals to be cleanly heard. Try to capture the energy of your sound. Have no more than three or four songs on it. Your best songs. You are there to impress.
2. Look for venues that book new bands
!

Every town has a few of those. In Melbourne we have Idgaff and the Barleycorn Hotel. Certainly every town has one or two of them. Email or call them, and ask if they have any spots available anytime soon. Most importantly, be polite. Don’t want to be on their bad side now, do you?
3. Ask around!

Knowing the right people definitely helps. If your friends have a band, why not ask them if your new act could open their next show? Assuming you are actually friends with them, and the sound fits, why would they say no?

Another avenue to pursue is asking other bands. Often a band will be asked to organize the whole lineup for a gig. Ask bands that sound like you to keep you in mind when they’re organizing stuff, and keep them in mind when you’re organizing stuff. Make contacts!
4. Battle of the Bands

Battle of the Bands kind of gigs can be very hit and miss. Some actually offer genuinely decent prizes, and a lot of great publicity. In most cases its a gig that is sold out and well run. However, there are a few draw backs – the crowd is most likely there to support their own friends, and you definitely need to bring your own crowd.
Things to avoid:

1. 
Pay-to-play gigs.

People who organize those are the scum of the earth in my opinion. With some very limited exceptions of course, but that’s always the case.
A pay to play gig is one where the promoter organizes the venue and… that’s it. Later they pawn off stacks of tickets onto the acts they hire, so that the bands themselves can sell the tickets, for a small commission based on how many tickets they sell. In many cases, bands have to pay if they don’t sell enough tickets.

2. Hassling people.

If a booker doesn’t get back to you straight away, don’t email them again and again 12 times a week. You will definitely not get a gig then. They will get to you eventually. I try not to email gig organizers more than once a month if they haven’t gotten back to me.

Consistent practice, is of course the key to any successful learning of a musical instrument. However, not just any practice will bring results, it needs to be specific. Most techniques can be broken down into simpler parts, the mastering of which will make mastering the technique much easier.
Not knowing what your problem X is, I can only tell you this: look for the basic ingredients of the technique you are trying to learn. Master them, and then add them together until you have achieved the technique you wanted to.

Lets take tapping for example. Very quickly we can see that a big part of tapping is legato, and then of course the actual tapping with your picking hand. Legato can be divided further into two techniques – hammer-ons and pull-offs.

So therefore you could do the following exercises to improve your tapping:
- Hammer ons using any combination of fingers (both using just two fingers eg, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4.. etc and using more than two fingers eg, 1-2-3, 1-3-4.. etc.)
- Pull-offs using any combination of fingers
- Any combination of hammer ons and pull offs
- Adding 1 finger taps to a combination of hammer ons and pull offs
- Adding 2 finger taps to a combination of the above
- 3 finger taps
- 4 finger taps
- Tapping switching position on the neck
- Tapping switching strings

It has four parts to it. Each can be repeated as a separate exercise.

Part one is a simple melody using quarter notes. Easy.
Part two is still a simple melody, this time we are using quarter notes and eight notes.
Part three gets a bit more tricky. We are using triplets of eight notes, as well as a few quarter notes to break it up. The fingerings are a bit tricky (just a bit) for this one, but I have left them intentionally blank, so that you can have the pleasure of figuring it out
Part four uses quarter, eight and sixteenth notes for the melody. The fingering isn’t much more difficult than part three.

Click here to download the exercise: Picking exercise 1
Happy Pickin’!

1. Music theory becomes simple.

Western music theory can be confusing. There are a lot of concepts to understand, and they’re not all very clear to see on the guitar at times. On the piano, everything is linear. You can quite easily see how everything is put together, and it suddenly becomes very linear and easy to understand.

2. Hand coordination and strength increase

Learning the piano has caused my hands to become much more independent. It probably isn’t as much of a gain for electric guitarists, but classical guitarists will appreciate having more independence in their hands.
Secondly, practicing the piano has greatly improved the strength of my fingers, which brought about an increased ability to control the dynamics of my playing.

3. Your sight reading and standard notation reading skills will increase.

There is no tab for piano. You have to learn how to read standard notation (in two clefs at that!). Reading music, is in my opinion an essential skill for any musician, for an extreme variety of reasons, and you know I am a fan of it. Here are some good reasons why.

1. Always have new strings on your guitar.
Some players don’t like the sound of new guitar strings. I’ve heard people complain that they sound too “twangy” or “rich” (sic!).

Personally, I think nothing improves the sound of your electric or acoustic guitar than a new set of string. Find a brand that makes ones that sound best to your ear, and go with them. I change mine after about a week of casual playing, after 3 days of teaching and before every gig.

2. Learn easy tunes.
As a guitarist, you doubtlessly have been asked many times to play something. NOW.

Ah how I used to hate this, especially being into shred and stuff. Nobody wanted to listen to me throw down the solo from Dream Theater’s As I am. Its a kickass solo. But not something you can play to impress your friends and family by a bon-fire.

That’s why I recommend having a few very easy, but very impressive tunes in your pocket. The fact that they’re easy means that more likely than not you can just pick up any guitar and play them. Think, most of Stairway to Heaven, some Chet Atkins arrangements for solo guitar (if you’re into fingerstyle playing) or if you’re a classical guitarist, any study by Leo Brouwer.

3. Practice.

Bet you thought I wasn’t going to mention this one? Well.. I thought you’d be tricked, so you win. But yes. Practice. By far the most important thing you can do to sound great in any situation. The tone comes mostly from your fingers, so make sure you practice your guitar and make it an extension of your hand, as opposed to an instrument.

Happy Pickin’!

ps. As you may have noticed, there are no exercises on the blog today. I’m still working out my schedule, so sit tight and I’m certain to post a nice guitar workout by Monday!

Furthermore, if you ever have any questions that you’d like me to answer in the blog or just in a return email, please do email me at maxsipowicz@gmail.com

Music is a language. There is no denying that. It is not only a phonetic language, but also a written one. If you spoke English fluently, would you consider it so, unless you could not also read? I wouldn’t. Same with music. Underneath you have a few reasons for why learning how to read standard notation is an important skill to develop.

1. It makes learning easier.

Sure, we have a crapload of magazines aimed at teaching you how to play and they provide tab. But is tab really so good? Tab does not include the pacing, the dynamics, the tempo, note values.. its kind of terrible actually.
Furthermore, there is no greater resource to develop great technique in my opinion than classical guitar (and not just guitar) studies and exercises. Learning a Bach cello sonata on the guitar will improve your playing 21039 times more than any number of guitar magazines.

2. Most professional engagements will require reading skills.

If you ever dreamed of becoming a session player, you damn better learn how to read standard notation.. and well at that. In most cases when you rock up to a gig you’ll be given a piece of paper with the music on it, and be expected to be ready to play your parts within a few minutes. If you fill-in for the guitarist in a jazz/wedding/cover band you’ll also be given lead sheets for all of the songs.
Sure, sometimes you won’t need to be able to read to fill in at the gig. But do you really want to limit your work opportunities because of lacking a skill that is pretty easy to develop?

3. Separate yourself from the pack.

It’s a fact that most guitarists simply can’t read standard notation (unless they all read this article and get motivated ). If you want to increase your likelihood of becoming better than the rest of them, learn how to read music.

4. How do you want to understand music if you can’t read what it’s saying?

If you are anything like me, and there is a good chance that you are, you want to know as much about music as possible. Any musical analysis will be made much easier if you can look at a piece of sheet music and comprehend what is being said. If you can look at sheet music and kind of hear in your head whats happening on the paper, you’re 5 steps ahead of the guy who can’t.

Here are my main sources of inspiration:

1. Art.

Many a great piece of music were inspired by a painting or sculpture. Try to look at some visual art and see what it makes you feel. I enjoy going to an art gallery or museum and just perusing the artworks for a few hours. More often than not I come out with new music in my head, that I can’t wait to try to play when I get home. Art galleries and museums also have the benefit of usually being quiet, unless a school trip comes along or something.

2. Literature

Nothing like sitting down with a good book for a few hours. A good book will make you see images in your head, you will imagine yourself to be part of the plot. This can lead to some cool sounds originating in your head. Likewise with poetry. In fact, I often consider a new piece of music I write as a poem in sound. Poetry often has everything that a piece of music would – tempo, rhythm, melody, meter.. I strongly encourage you to read something interesting.

3. Other music

DUH! It might seem a bit counter intuitive to listen to music written by someone else when you are trying to write new original music. However, in reality, I think nothing can motivate me as much to practice and get better than listening to someone else. Furthermore, a good way to see what can still be done in music is to look at what has been done. Just don’t do what all those indie bands you hear on the radio are doing and copy stuff from the 70s and 80s. That’s shit. We’re only interested in new stuff.

4. Sit in silence

If you’re anything like me, and judging by the fact that you’re reading this I’ll guess you are, you probably hear music in your head all the time. That’s why I suggest sitting around in silence for a while. First, you’re likely to start hearing songs you know that you’ve heard. Then, after a while, if you discard those songs, you can start imagining your own music. This is how I’ve come up with some of my best ideas, so I highly recommend this to you.

5. Play a piece you know really really well.

So far I’ve mainly concentrated on methods of getting inspired to write music, but practicing is equally important. I found that the best way to keep myself motivated to practice and still feeling excited about playing music is to play an easy-ish piece that is a lot of fun to play. If you get into one of those moods where it feels like nothing is working, playing a piece that is really easy can be a great motivation booster!

The simple solution for this is the Guide Finger. It is a concept which has been shown to me by my guitar teacher when I was studying classical guitar, and I have been using it for quite some time now.  The whole idea is that if you need to switch positions on the neck, the most efficient way of doing so is to use the finger which you will use to fret the first note you are going to play after the change of position as a guide. The assumption is that then, the rest of your hand is going to be in place to play whatever notes follow and thus the change of position is going to be done quickly and efficiently.

This first example, which you will see below, is merely a scale run in C-Major on the high E string going from the first position starting on the empty string, and ending in the 10th position also on the E, but this time on the 12th fret. Couldn’t be simpler.

Now, I think the most logical way to attempt this is to first decide on where our hands are going to go. I move my fretting hand from first position, to fifth and then to tenth. The way to do this without missing a beat is to use one of your fingers as a guide finger.
So from first position to fifth, your pointing finger is going to be your guide finger. Then from fifth to tenth you will also use your pointing finger. This however will need to change when going back down the neck.
From tenth position to fifth I use my pinky as the guide finger. Then from fifth to first I use my first finger.

As usual, attempt this exercise at a slow tempo before speeding up for ULTIMATE POWER.

The second example, I take from Heitor Villa-Lobos’ 3rd Prelude for Guitar. It is just an example of a scale run which goes across strings and then all the way up the scale on one string. It was originally written for classical guitar, and thus meant to be played with your fingers, but I think it works equally well when picked with a plectrum.

As you can see, it starts off in first position and then suddenly goes to 5th. Its tempting to use the pointing finger as a guide here, but instinctively you will play the G on the E string with your ring finger, and that is the finger you should use as a guide.
As you can see, the guide finger can be used to assist you in moving around the fretboard more quickly in a more linear fashion. It has helped me a lot, and I hope it does you some good as well. Try to come up with some of your own examples for the use of guide fingers!