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The Workout...

Part 1
by Eric Vandenberg

Introduction

Hi! My name is Eric and I'm here to PUMP...YOU...UP!!! (Anyone remember that show or the spoof of it on SNL?)
Well uhmmmm ok, I hope you don't think this is some kind of a "The perfect guitar workout that will definitely
improve your chops by 200% or you'll get your money back" type thing.

Cuz I don't think that there is any kind of workout-method that works for EVERY player. It depends on your level,
your style, your current abilities, the time you're able and willing to invest into practicing etc.

My goal with this workout is to show you how to create one yourself, customized for you personally. In the forums
(and not only at the ibreathe-forums) I have seen quite a few posts asking for workouts. And the GW-issue with
Steve Vai's "10 hour workout" was one of the best-selling issues ever.

Now, one thing that people obviously missed (based on posts I have read) is that Steve didn't try to give away a
"works for everyone, for sure" type thing. He tried to make it clear that the workout was his own and worked well
for him, but might not work at all for someone else. Everyone should go and make up his own workout, based on
the examples in Vai's workout.

This applies here too. I'm gonna show you how I created my workout, how I came up with the exercises, how I
adapted it etc. Let's start with

GENERAL THOUGHTS

- First of all, a workout might not be the right thing for everyone. Some people just don't function that way. For
them, it might be better to go by their gut-feeling... to pick up a guitar whenever they feel like it and work on
whatever they feel like right then. Others might need a disciplined way of practicing, an actual schedule, a
workout like the one described below. Now, I don't wanna imply that you NEED to make up a workout. If
something like that just doesn't work for you, then by all means don't force yourself. But at least try it once, it
might just benefit you.

- As I said, our goal is to create a workout that is personalized for you featuring exercises that are supposed to
help you to work on what needs work. So don't take my workout and use it the way it is, unless you really feel
that all those exercises are something you need and want to work on yourself. Replace the ones that you don't
find helpful with some that will help you to improve a certain aspect of your playing.

- A workout should be changed a bit from time to time. As Morse puts it "When you practice, work on what you
can't do yet, not on stuff that is easy already" (D'uh!) Doesn't sound like rocket-science, but it really is all true if
you use the workout on a daily base, some exercises might not be a problem at all after a while. So you'll wanna
replace those with new ones which you haven't worked on yet.

- Remember to be realistic about the time you spend practicing. My workout can keep you busy for several hours.
If you don't have that amount of time, your workout, of course, has to be shorter. If you only have 30 minutes
available, separate that time into 3-4 blocks. Each block should be dedicated to an aspect of playing reading,
technique (Picking, legato etc.), theory, patterns, chords, rhythm or whatever.

If you have a 4 hour workout, and you have to stop after an hour cuz you gotta go to school / work or whatever, it
doesn't make sense. So try to figure out how much time you have, and make up a schedule based on that.

- Combine both "standard", recurring exercises and new ones that way, you'll have some exercises that you
work on every time, and some new one that'll keep it interesting.

I'm gonna focus on some standard aspects of playing picking, legato, chords, scales and patterns etc. Feel free
to add topics based on what you need to work on i.e. theory, harmony, arrangement and reharmonization,
transcribing, reading, analyzing. All that can be part of a workout.

Try to separate two things: mere noodling (just sitting there, doing mechanical exercises, or playing along to
some tunes on TV etc.), which is actually a helpful thing to work on your technique and ears without getting bored
too easily, and focused practicing that latter one is what we're gonna do with our workout.

Check out my "Do Not Disturb" and "Squeeze It Out" articles for more advice and ideas on practicing etc.
Let's get started with the workout, ok?

Warmup and Picking

This is a workout that is typical for what I used to do while I was attending the MI. I'd first

WARM UP

The warm up-phase lasted for about 10-15 minutes. What I did was:
I'd start playing some basic, open chords (I.e. C, G, Eadd9 etc.), picking them to make sure all notes were fretted
correctly. Then I'd play basic bar chords, starting in the upper areas of the neck (i.e. Cmajor, Cminor, Cdim,
Cmaj7, Cdom7, Cmin7, Cm7b5 in 8th position), slowly moving down the neck that way, the stretch would
increase.

Next step was to use chords which involved wide stretches maj add9, min add9, maj9 etc. Eventually, I'd
arpeggiate some really tough ones, i.e. the "Satch-chord" (that's how I referred to it), an Amin11 in 5th position.

All this would last for about 5-10 minutes. To conclude the warmup-phase, I'd play a few scale patterns of the a)
major and minor scale and b) chromatic scale, and do some fast picking on a single-string and on two adjacent
strings. This would help to get the right hand warmed up, and to synch up both hands (r.h./l.h. synchronisation)

Next part (and remember, this is just one example workout!) would be

ALTERNATE PICKING

Check out my "Art Of Picking, Pt. III" article for bunches of picking exercises, ranging from one string-exercises to
6 string scalar or chromatic runs.

Here are some of the picking exercises I used:

I'd start out with some chromatic (I actually do refer to them as mechanical exercises) runs, using different finger
combinations. Start on the low E-string, play up to the high E-String, shift your hand up one fret and descend
again. Once you reach the low E-String, shift your hand another fret and ascend again. Continue to do so until
you're in 12th position, then move down the neck again

Next, I'd do variations on that first exercise. This is closely related to the approach explained in "Squeeze It
Out"... vary any exercise and play all possible variations. Here are examples of those variations. Play each one up
to 12th position and back, as described above...
OK, so much for 4 notes per string. Let's continue with three notes per string, chromatically...

Same as above: up to 12th position and back. I'd do this one in two different versions: First, using fingers 1,2,3,
then using fingers 2,3,4. The latter might feel awkward, and you have to be careful to not hurt yourself. Also, you
might hardly ever use that kinda stuff in a song, but it is a good exercise to get your fingers to work, and to
improve your synchronisation.

Even though it's a weird exercise, it has some benefits, and it makes sense to work on some stuff what you'd
never use in a solo or anything these are EXERCISES, not actual pieces of music. Those exercises are supposed
to improve synchronisation and l.h. technique.

Here are the next few exercises (I guess you realized already that with some of those exercises, I only tab out the
first bar or so, so you can see what the exercise is about. It's your job to apply them to all the other strings and
move them up and down the neck)

When I was still struggling with my picking technique a lot, I used to play each one of these exercises TWICE, the
first time starting with a downstroke, next time starting with an upstroke.

Picking, continued and Legato

Let's work on two notes per string (useful for arps and pentatonic scales):
And check this out:

Above the first of these bars, it says "try different finger combinations". This refers to the first and second bar
halftone steps and wholetone steps. Try playing them with i.e. finger 1-2, 2-3, 3-4

Make sure you don't hurt yourself. If the stretches are too big, move the whole thing up, say, a perfect 5th,
starting at the 8th fret. If that works, move it up to, say the 20th position gradually. And every day, try to
gradually move it DOWN the neck, thereby increasing the stretches, until you eventually can do it in the lowest
positions.

Here are two scalar exercises 1st, the pentatonic scale:

and a 3NPS major scale:


Also, work on single-string and 2 (or 3) adjacent string exercises. Once again, I'd like to refer to the "Art Of
Picking, part III". Include exercises from that "exercise compendium" to the workout as well, to cover the most
important aspects of picking. (Don't forget about the PG-Lick!!!)

I didn't see the sense in reprinting those same exercises once again, so build your own "Picking"-block for your
workout from the exercises above and from the ones in the aforementioned article.

Let's move on to the next block of our segment actually, it's up to you to decide what to work on next. You could
do music theory, scalar stuff or whatever... let's work on some legato now...

LEGATO

I'm not going to include many legato-exercises here. First of all, there are several sources for those, like i.e. my
"Good Morning, Left Hand" article which deals with legato entirely. You can also just play the exercises from the
picking-block legato-style, utilizing hammer-on's / pull-offs Chromatic exercises, utilizing different finger-
combinations, scalar runs, arps etc. Depending on the level you're on and the legato-exercises you have done
already, you can customize your own legato-block from all those sources.

Take a few small breaks in between to give your hands some rest... legato-playing in combination with wide
stretches actually are risky cuz you might hurt your left hand.

Scales and Patterns

Time for the next part:

SCALES and PATTERNS

Here, I'd like to refer to my "Squeeze It Out" article once more. In that article, I wrote about alternating an
exercise several times, thereby getting several NEW exercises out of the original one.

See, it takes time to i.e. memorize patterns, learning to play all over the fretboard. It doesn't make sense to rush
(like, "OK, I wanna learn, memorize and apply all 7 longform patterns today"). It takes some time, and you HAVE
that time if you practice on a regular base.

Also, you don't only wanna be able to play a scale (pattern) up and down, you wanna try lots of different things
with it, deriving licks from it, sequences etc.

One of my favorite things to do when practicing was to come up with many possible ways of playing through a
scale, mainly different sequences. Cuz that way (remember, this worked for me and might not work for
EVERYONE), I was able to explore and memorize the patterns I was working on quite thoroughly.

Let us take one of the most elementary ones, or good ol' pentatonic pattern. You know, the one pretty much every
guitarist learns at one point.
Here it is, descending and ascending...

You have seen that one, right? After you have played this one a few times up and down, you should have
memorized it. What do you do? You move on to the next pattern, or to, say, a pattern of the major scale, right?

WRONG!

Let's get to work on the pentatonic pattern some more! Just playing it up and down a few times really doesn't cut
it. You wanna know the pattern inside out, so you gotta play through it in many ways.
Let's apply sequences first. Here's the good ol' "2 down, 1 back up" type sequence. Look at the TAB, play through
it or listen to Powertab playing it back. Either you have heard this one a bunch of times before, or you'll be able to
understand this sequence after a while.

Here's the ascending version:

OK, this might take a while to get down, especially if you have never done this kind of exercise. But once you
UNDERSTAND the sequence, it's kinda easy to apply it. I think of it like "OK, first note" then I play the next 2
without thinking of it. When the sequence then starts over again, from the second note this time, I think "OK,
second note", not thinking about the rest of the 3 note sequence as I play it.

So, to not get confused or kinda lose where I was, I only pay attention to what note I start the sequence.

It might help to make up a number code. Out pentatonic scale has 5 notes, so let's number them 1,2,3,4 and 5.
(D'uh!) Now, the sequence works like 1-2-3 2-3-4 3-4-5 4-5-1 (Octave of the first) 5-1-2 1-2-3 etc.

Anyway, I have mentioned that sequence several times before.

Once you can nail this, move on and work on the next sequence. "3 down, 2 back up" (descending) or "3 up, 2
back down" (ascending). Again, listening to it, or playing it, or simply looking at it will most likely make it easier to
understand. Here ya go:

Ascending:
Number code would be (Ascending): 1-2-3-4 2-3-4-5 3-4-5-1 4-5-1-2 5-1-2-3 etc.

This might already be a brain-twister. If you have played the previous sequence a bunch of times, it might feel
awkward to now apply this new one.

Once you have come to grips with it, let's change the sequence again this time, it's "4 down, 3 up".
Here ya go:

Scales continued

Believe me, once you have done that kinda stuff to a single pattern, you'll know the pattern way better than you'd
know it by just playing it up and down a few times. Also, you can take a few notes out of the pattern (one
fragment of that pattern) and come up with some cool licks and runs with only those few notes.

Your hands will know their way around in this pattern.

Compare it to, say, playing some video-game. You can of course just go and try to get through it, finish it as fast
as possible. You'll reach your goal (seeing the end), but you haven't gotten everything out of the game. You might
have missed some hidden secrets or places in the game.

Now, imagine you go "OK, I do have a lot of time on my hands, I like this game a lot, I paid a bunch of dough for
it and I really wanna take my time with it". So you sit down and you explore the levels (or areas etc.). Once you
get to the higher levels (where the game gets harder), you might have an easier time, cuz you spend so much
time at the first level that you can easily handle all the controls etc. You really explore the game and get
everything out of it.
Or say, you read some big book. Like, a classic, or a book written a bunch of years ago. Say, you wanna read
"War & Peace" or something. There'll be a lot of strange words in there that you might not hear a lot in real life,
basically because the book has been written in times when the vocabulary of people was a bit different.

Now, you can of course rush through the book. You can still understand it, even if you don't get every single word
or sentence. You get the story, you'll figure out how it ends. Now imagine you really wanna understand some of
those long sentences with all those strange words. You get a dictionary to figure out what they mean. Or you re-
read a sentence a few times till you eventually get it. Believe me, this can make such a book way more enjoyable,
cuz you get more nuances, and you might suddenly find some things you have entirely missed when you first
rushed through it. Of course, this doesn't work for everyone, but I have mentioned that before, right? Hope you
get what I mean.

Back to our scale you can apply even more sentences, like "5 down, 4 back up".

Every time, you have to get used to the new sequence, and soon, you'll be able to apply all kinds of different
sequences to any scale or pattern you want to so you don't only learn the patterns inside out, you also have
improved your playing-abilities.

Also try to play those examples using different note values. Play i.e. the first sequence in 8th note triplets, second
one in 8th notes or sixteenths, third one in quintuplets, sixth one in sixtuplets. This will work well, cuz that division
fits the different sequences very well... that way, each part of the sequence will start on a downbeat.

Other than the sequences shown above, you can i.e. play the pattern skipping strings, or skipping notes, as in the
next example:

Am I slipping too far off topic? I don't think I am. Cuz I have met quite a few people who sat down and practiced
for a week or two, and their "practicing scales" block consisted of nothing but playing the pentatonic, major and
3NPS-patterns ascending and descending a few times.

No sequences, no variations.

After those two weeks, they were like "OK, I can nail those. What else is there to do?"

But they were not able to apply sequences, and although they could see the patterns on the fretboard, and could
play them up and down, they couldn't do much more with them. You can spend days working on those "simple"
pentatonic patterns, applying all kinds of sequences and playing approaches. Especially if you add aspects like
"Play all alternate picking, starting with an upstroke / a downstroke", "Play all legato", "Combine two" etc.

And based on what you need to work on, you should really work on this kinda stuff in your workout. You have
plenty of time, so take ONE simple scale and practice it in as many ways as possible. THEN move on (the next day
or so)

After a while, or maybe to add some variety, you can work on things like 4NPS-scales, chromatic scales etc. But
don't forget about really exploring those scales.

Chords and arps

Next block (remember, the order of topics is up to you)

CHORDS and ARPS

Chords gee, a lot of people forget about that kinda stuff once they get into lead guitar techniques. But I think
that even "shredders" should know the fretboard inside out, and should be able to accompany their sixtuplet-
attacks with some interesting chords.

OK, you can get a lot of material about chords, chord scales and arps here at ibreathe or in some books etc. So
lemme just focus on listing some of the exercises I did

- Arp Exercise #1: Pick any note as a root, say, D. Then, from that note, play all triads as arps (D maj, Dmin,
Ddim, Dsus2, Dsus4). Then 7th chords, like maj7, m7, (dom)7, m7b5 etc.

- Arp Exercise #2: Inversions. Based on exercise #1, I'd take i.e. the Dmin-arp, and play it in several different
areas of the neck, in all inversions. (D-F-A, F-A-D, A-D-F)

- Arp Exercise #3: Taking triad arps and playing i.e. a chord scale ascending on two adjacent strings. Example:
Arpeggiated Dmaj chord scale (Dmaj-Em-F#m-Gmaj-Amaj-Bmin-C#dim) on the B- and E-String:

- Chord Exercise #1: Playing triads from any chord scale (say E maj), starting on the lowest 3 strings, playing
those triads ascending till I reach the seventh chord, then moving on to the A, D and G-string, again playing those
triads on those, then on D, G and B...

- Chord Exercise #2: Taking a fake book and slowly (with a metronome) playing
through 3 or 4 songs, just playing the chords.

- Chord Exercise #3: Picking one note as a root, then building and fretting random chords from it. Ex. C:
C maj, Cmin7, Cmaj9, Cmaj add9, C13, Cdim etc.

Those are just some random examples from the chord workout blocks I worked on. Try to keep some variety, and
try to cover lots of different chords. At first, you wanna focus on triads, and once you feel familiar with those, their
different shapes and inversions, you wanna move on... and you have made a good step forwards, cuz knowing
chords and being able to apply them to the fretboard sure helps to navigate on the fretboard, finding your way
around.

To Be Continued...

OK, I am gonna take a break now, and I will be back with the second part of my workout-article in a little while.

I hope this one will already be helpful for you, and hopefully it'll give you some ideas to create your own workout.
Make sure to pay attention to what's important for YOU. Figure out what's best for you, make sure to keep it
interesting and fun, make sure you don't work on one thing for too long while forgetting about other important
aspects (i.e. working on your picking 24/7 while never looking at chords beyond power-chords)
Stay tuned for part II...

Files
Here you can download the three Powertab-files belonging to this article.

Part 1: Picking

Part 2: Scales and Arps

Part 3: The arpeggio-exercise from the "Chords and Arps"-part

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