>>New Target and Pay Per Lesson - Exercises for Fretting Hand Dexterity

[tgjameela]

Hi Everyone,

Our newest TARGET and Pay Per Lesson release is on Exercises for Fretting Hand Dexterity with Doug Young.

This lesson explores a series of exercises that that greatly improve your finger dexterity and independence.
These are great for aspiring lead players, but equally useful for fingerstyle, or even just strumming chords, as
these exercises will make it easier to change chord shapes.

Get your fingers feeling loose and fast, and teach them to go where you want them to go! The exercises can be
used with any guitar tuning, and are great as warm-ups, or for intensive technique development.

Enjoy this level 2 lesson!

https://www.totallyguitars.com/target-s ... esson.html

[Craig]

Doug,

Thank you for this lesson. It is great! I like to play finger style so the "total control" segment is really helpful for me. I found out right away that my pinky has a mind of it's own :laugh: I usually just start playing whatever songs I'm working on, this definitely encourages me to use these exercises as a quick warm-up before I get started since I can see right away how much it will help my playing in the long run.

Thanks again,

Craig

[dougyoung]

Glad it's helpful. The total control thing is really hard Depending on the part of the sequence, my fingers take turns rebelling! I have to return to it often, or they decide they're back in control again...

[Craig]

I know in one of the segments you said you would address the right hand later but here is what I'm thinking... since I like to play finger style, I wanted to use my thumb for strings 6, 5, and 4 and my fingers for 3, 2, and 1 when doing these exercises. Plus, I recently posted a video of Here Comes the Sun for review and one of Neil's main suggestions was to alternate fingers when playing quarter notes on the same string as I tend to use the same finger. Hoping to kill two birds with one exercise! Right now it is definitely as challenging on the mental side as it is on the finger control side but with repetition will become habit is the plan. Good plan or no?

Thanks,

Craig

[TGNeil]

Craig wrote:

I know in one of the segments you said you would address the right hand later but here is what I'm thinking... since I like to play finger style, I wanted to use my thumb for strings 6, 5, and 4 and my fingers for 3, 2, and 1 when doing these exercises. Plus, I recently posted a video of Here Comes the Sun for review and one of Neil's main suggestions was to alternate fingers when playing quarter notes on the same string as I tend to use the same finger. Hoping to kill two birds with one exercise! Right now it is definitely as challenging on the mental side as it is on the finger control side but with repetition will become habit is the plan. Good plan or no?

Thanks,

Craig

Hey Craig,

If I said quarter notes I meant eighth notes. Consecutive quarters are fine.

Neil

[Craig]

No, my mistake. I meant eighth notes and that is what you said in your review.

Thanks for checking though!

Craig

[dougyoung]

You can definitely do that, or anything you like. It adds a level of complexity, tho. Say you try to play the top strings using a imam pattern, fingers 1,2,3,2 on the 4 string version. Makes sense, but it can be a bit head-spinning to try to do 1,2,3,2 (imam) on one hand, and all the other patterns, 1,3,2,4, 1,3,4,2 etc, on the other. If you can do that, great! I usually just separate the two and treat these as fretting hand exercises alone, so I can put my full focus on them. I do other exercises for the picking hand.

[Craig]

Yes, makes sense because the focus of these exercises are the left hand. I realized I might be getting ahead of myself when I was concerned that my head might explode! :laugh: I'll stick to the basics for now and look forward to your right hand exercise lesson in the future!

I really appreciate these lessons so please keep them coming. I also appreciate your time responding on this thread.

Thanks again,

Craig

[familyman4]

Yes, very useful thread indeed....

I remember going thru warm up lessons with Doug at an IGC camp as well, great refresher for me! Especially since my hands have started the unfortunate process of getting arthritis in my joints. It hurts to play now but it certainly helps to spend a little time warming up before playing, then it doesn't hurt as badly.

Again, a wonderful addition to the lesson list.

Bart

[thereshopeyet]

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