Welcome to the first issue of Fingerstyle Gui-tar Journal! I’m very excited to present a se-ries of articles and lessons that will help fin-gerstyle guitarists explore the many facets of jazz through standards, harmony, chord voicings, rhythmic concepts, technique, and much more. This article is the first of two dealing with the development of speed and facility using the fingers of the picking hand.
What You’ll Need:
1) A Metronome
2) A Deep Well of Patience!
Speed and facility come gradually as a re-sult of persistence, accuracy, and consisten-cy. It’s important to establish a routine that works for you, both with regard to actual time available to practice, and what you’re practicing to achieve. Try to find a consis-tent time of day to practice these and oth-er technical exoth-ercises. Also, it’s important always to strive for a good, clear tone with solid rhythm. Rushing the time, playing too fast, or buzzing notes will actually have a detrimental effect. Take it slow, and enjoy the process!
When using a metronome, you might want to set a base tempo for the following exer-cises, something slow like 50-60 bpm. Then, set a maximum tempo – one that is chal-lenging but still allows you to play effort-lessly with good tone and in time. Practice these examples twice: first at base tempo, then max. Gradually increase the max tem-po while keeping the base temtem-po the same.
This will require patience, but will pay off in a shorter time than you might think.
These exercises are designed to be versatile and flexible with regard to your solo impro-visational excursions. In contrast to classical or ‘through-composed’ music, where guitar-ists are called upon to execute lines that can be practiced in advance, jazz improvisations require guitarists to play any melodic con-cept that may utilize string crossing, skip-ping, slurring, adjacent string picking, etc. – all spontaneously. To that end, it’s important to practice technical material from a variety of standpoints.
One way is to develop technique by prac-ticing material broken down – or
subdivid-ed – into different combinations of attacks, all using a repeating pattern of i-m (or in-dex-middle) with the picking hand.
Examples 1-7 all deal with playing one note per string. This will help develop i-m string crossing, as well as moving the fretting hand fingers rapidly and changing positions. The first six examples explore different types of triads up and down the fretboard, picking one string at a time. Feel free to explore dif-ferent fingerings when playing these, but re-member to articulate them as single notes.
To that end, you might try changing fingers instead of using barres. For example, in the first and last measure of Example 2, try fin-gering low to high: 1-3-4-1-2-1 (descending would be 1-2-1-4-3-1). By swapping the first and second fingers – instead of using a first finger barre as with a chord – you’ll keep the articulation consistent. The sus4 and sus2 examples are tricky, but will really help with shifting positions. These exercises are notated in F, but of course they are movable through all keys. Ex. 7 moves up and down the root and fifth of F (or any tonal center).
Now let’s practice examples with two notes per string. Ex. 8-10 feature pentatonic scales subdivided into two notes per string;
major, minor, and dominant are notated.
Example 8 shows how you can work through five different positions – or
inver-sions – up the fretboard using the major pentatonic scale. I recommend doing the same thing with minor, dominant, and any other pentatonic scale you use in improv (there are many!) In addition to a great tech-nical workout, this will help you navigate the fretboard. Of course, you can also prac-tice rhythmic variations, as with the triplet patterns in Ex. 11. Remember to avoid the temptation to play these fast (and thus, slop-py)! Keep it slow and steady, and if you get bored, try jamming or improvising on this material in a creative way, or just move on to something else and come back to it later.
Ex. 12-14 move through different 7th chord arpeggios subdivided into two notes per string. After working through these three arpeggios, try working on other common 7th chords including m7(b5), o7, 7sus4, m(maj7), 7(#5), 7(b5), maj7(#5), 6, and m6.
Example 15 illustrates a major scale pat-tern using three notes per string. This is a common pattern, and can easily be adapted for all seven-note diatonic scales or modes.
Ex. 16 offers a variation on the previous ex-ample. Feel free to experiment with articu-lation as well, i.e. use HO/PO techniques in addition to picking every note.
Example 17 is a common four note per string pattern utilizing all four fingers of the
fretting hand. This example shows an as-cending fingering pattern of 1-2-3-4, and a descending pattern of 4-3-2-1, but you can elaborate on these with any four-finger/
note combination, e.g. 1-3-2-4, 4-2-3-1 or 1-3-4-2, 2-4-3-1.
You can also explore playing diatonic scales in a four note per string pattern such as the F major scale in Ex. 18. This will really help your shifting technique, and try shifting with both the first and fourth fingers when mov-ing across the positions on a smov-ingle strmov-ing.
Finally in Ex. 19, we have an extended chro-matic scale pattern, using five notes per string. This will present a challenge for the picking hand as well as the fretting hand. I recommend shifting with the fourth finger ascending, and with the first finger descend-ing, i.e. 1-2-3-4-4 up, and 4-3-2-1-1 down.
Sean McGowan is a jazz and acoustic guitar-ist based in Denver, CO, where he directs the Guitar Program at the University of Colorado Denver.
www.seanmcgowanguitar.com
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