Grateful Dead Music Forum

anyone know any exercises to get your pickin' hand cooperate with your fretting hand more and vice versa. to just make it more "fluid" to go up and down the neck hitting the notes you want.

i find when i try to things with speed, my two hands don't seem to cooperate too well and bad noises start coming out

i was wondering if there's any special exercises anyone knows rather than just going up and down scales.

Whatever you do, do it alot !! Repitition is a good thing ... eventually it comes naturally .... I read an article years and years ago about the great jazz player Joe Pass ... if your unfamiliar ... become so ... he said alot of guys worked constantly on speed and so forth where he claims hand strength and endurance is key ... he developed his by massaging his wife's shoulders ...

There are some threads that discuss this but you'll have to search. In one of them I mentioned something I used to do a lot and still do from time to time.

Go both ways, from the 1st to the sixth string and vice versa covering the last 4 frets changing the fret pattern.

For example start on the E and hit the 1st fret, 3rd, 2nd then 4th. Go to the A string and do the same. To the D next etc. Then change the rotation;

2143
4312
etc

Like this

e------------------------------
b------------------------------
g-----------------------etc.-------
d---------------1-3-2-4-------------
a--------1-3-2-4-------------------
E-1-3-2-4---------------------------

Change the frets moving up the neck, go in the other direction, change picking style and repetition, over and over, speeding up as you get a grip on it.

I'm currently making my way through the Giuliani 120 Right Hand Studies. The left hand is just two chords (C and G7), but the right hand goes through a number of complicated pick patterns. I've found it very useful in developing left and right hand coordination and independence.

You can find them in a book called "Pumping Nylon" by Scott Tennent. Or here's a link to an online version: http://tulsaguitar.org/guliani%201.html

Thanx heavynylon thats a great link

bluegrass..much better than any exercise, u can only do those 4 finger chromatic patterns for so much id suggest no more than 30 mins a day...play music pick melodys...dont turn into some robot picking out chromatic exercises...they work but dont over do it...once again just play music

play fiddle tunes get a thicker pick and strings start thumping out bass runs between your chord changes pick arpeggios until you go mad and practice like the devil...

do the 1234 thing up and down. then try to do up and down the neck. also try hammerons and pulloffs in same thing. i used to practice about 5 hours a day at speed and getting that stuff down. and its helped. ive won tons of guitar offs because of single not picking speed, and clarity