Hi All,

This is my first vídeo that i upload here on the fórum.

Lessons:
5.21 till 5.25
5.51, 5.53, 5.55, 5.59
7.11

I,ve been practicing these exercises for one week now. The thrills with finger 4 and the spider exercise 5.23 are the most difficult for me. The vídeo is 11 min and most be quite boring when i do these exercises i do them longer in time with small rests when my arm or fingers getting very tired.



I,m very curious what the specialists think about this.

Cheers Ray

Thanks Pebber for sure i will continue with the exercises and start to do the other spiders and ladders as well. As much as possible everyday. Besides of that i started with the theory exercises as well.

Greetz

Ray

Hi Folks,

After another week of practicing on the left hand i thought lets make a video to see if there is any progress. If there's anyone with some comments or tips they are always welcome.



p.s. If it sounds a bit strange to people, i'm still in a different tunning sorry for that.

Greetz Ray

Hi All,

Today i made again (probably bit too long) video show if I made any progres with the exercises. I have done the same thrill exercises, almost all 4 finger spiders and some 2 finger ladder exercises. To avoid to have a video of an hour I keep the time of the exercise short. But this week I have done it for avarage at least 2 hours a day in the weekend the double for sure.

For the theory part I wrote this week 13 times Major Scale Worksheet 1A, 9 times Major Scale Worksheet 1B and 5 times Name the Notes Worksheet. Well I can say that i can write the circle of 4ths and 5ths quit fast completely.
As with the most cases if you want to remember something write it down hehehe.



grtz Ray

Looking great ! ray :) those 13 24 spiders are killer lol keep up the great work !

Should everybody be posting vids in this thread or am I supposed to open a new one?
Anyway.. I'm not able to post any links. I get the message "Your posts contains to many links. A maximum of 0 links is allowed."

Why does this occur?

I made this thread because of the same doubts you have. It´s up to you what you want IMHO.

Regarding posting links make sure you choose video einfugen. And if you copy the link from youtube delete the S
so your link should start with HTTP and NOT HTTPS

good luck

grtz Ray

Ok, then I'll post it here.. I think the https part screwed me over.
Just a very short overview of some trills, ladders and spiders. Of course I do the excercises in more variations and much longer usually.

Thank you in advance for your feedback and sorry for the, hopefully acceptable, quality.

For comments about your technique i leave that to the guru´s here. I just started a couple of weeks ago with these execises at the moment im trying to get grip on a pick.
But doing this daily is surely helping i expierenced this fopr myself as many others here.

grtz

I'm wondering how many people are doing all these exercises for years here online. I have been doing this now for 2.5 months and i'm amazed by the progress i made. I have put all my free time in it now for this period and it's getting more fun and fun. Even my wife is telling me i play "better" offcourse i still suck this is a progress that takes years i guess. I was actually creating some "music"and knowing what i was doing because i knew and "understood" the scale.
But seeing and feeling progress is very important to continue with this.

3 years and still going back to them. Its about connecting those little brain neurons to do something they aint used to doing

2 years solid i would say at least but you need these everyday.

I think that once you master in your own mind anything the progress really slows down. Then someone plays something and you notice how sloppy things get in complacency. I didn't pick up the guitar for two weeks (bad times) and man was I in for a surprise! Mr sloppy was born in that instant. I had to remedy this by playing all night and I finally stopped at 6 am. What I did was I wrote riffs and songs with a hefty amount of technique just to check the temperature. I'm glad that the warming up of playing helped and the muscle memory returned. For a moment though I thought, what is going on did I have a stroke or something or did I eat some neurokillers in food or what? So I do recommend that even if you can't practice everyday, that you pick up your guitar and play something. It keeps the instrument familiar and the coming back to it is not like thinking I've lost it all. Well I got it back but I heard an older trumpet player that had to switch to bass, he couldn't handle the trumpet anymore! It blows!

I made finally a new video i had to make a extra one because the thills weren't visible. So here 2 links of me after 11 weeks of practicing left hand exercises.





I think with thrills i should try to move my finger less and keep them more floating above the strings.

grtz

Ray

Hello Ray I have a couple of things I want to say to you so I will do bullet points

-1.) Welcome to the forums.

-2.) Congratulations for having the courage to make videos....starting down this path beleive it or not
takes a lot of courage. (Also I like your big mitts, guitar is made for people like you!)

-3.)Regarding finger floating and whether not to float them...it really depends on several considerations that pertain
to what you are playing and what you are trying to accomplish by playing it.

For major minor scale playing???

your major scale can as a starting point be looked at as a a six lane highway (because you have six strings on your guitar)

and the individual cars on the highway can be viewed as all falling into one of three types

|--0--|--0--|-----|--0--|

|--0--|-----|--0--|--0--|

|--0--|-----|--0--|-----|--0--|


Obviosly once your left hand becomes moree loose and pliable you can expand the scale concept to more wide car shapes

But until you get to that point that you are moving beyond these three shapes of the scale, any and all finger foating
should 100% limited to either the middle or ring finger (mind you these two fingers share tendon so the floating of one during scale play should be mutually exclusive to the floating off the other)

The whole point I am getting at here is that for any kind of "fast" scale playing that is based on left hand contouring to the above three shapes...your left hand should at any given point in time, look almost like you are holding down some kinda three finger chord...(where the only floating is more or less limited to a mutually exclusive relationship btw the middle and ring finger)

Note that for Strictly "strength building" purposes, the less floating you got going on, the stronger AND more balanced your left hand becomes ( I think of left hand like a little table with four legs that is standing on fret board, It stand to reason that the less legs it has standing on the fretboard, the more wobbly it gets)

Hi NicholasJacquet,

Thanks for your encouraging words and warm welcome. I'm here now for almost 3 months and i enjoy it very very much, I havent learn any new songs in this period and 90% of my playing time I spend only on these exercises. Well I see it is benefitial but im far far away from what i where i would like to be :). Although it aint songs that we play here in front of the cam it gives me the nervs a bit hehehe. I want to do it perfect offcourse than the minds is focussing on that and you loose track of your timing.

I dont need to play super fast, this is not my goal. That fast playing like Yngie or Steve Vai etc is not what im aiming for for. But playing a scale 140 bpm in 16th is not that extreem fast but impossible for me. I love that sound from a scale that looks like it's flowing by like a waterfall (sorry for the weird words here).
For me it is very important to have more control while i'm playing so im not struggeling across the fretboard. The playing need to be fluent like your fingers are dancing across the fretboard in the rythem of the music and the fingers touch the strings only on the right tones.

Anyhow thans again for the comments I hope to have much more awesome lessons here.

grtz Ray

P.s. Mitts i tried to translate it but i'm not sure what that means, hands maybe?

mitts are a gloves with no fingers in, but yes you are correct hands..

Hi All,

I have been doing a lot Ladder exercises last 2 weeks and made a new video on it which i like to share. If i look back to older videos i posted here i surely see some progress which is really cool. Thanks to Pebber and Ursin who help me a lot!

I dont know if anybody is following this thread but as Pebber said many times "its only you against you" i thought let make another video after 2 weeks playing these ladders. This time with metronome @ 85 BPM.


Grtz Ray

I did them mostly with alternate this week my goal will be the double and triple etc.

Thanks for the advise Pebber.


grtz Ray

Hey Ray -

You're making really great progress, man. Keep it up! Very inspiring.

I am just starting these exercises myself. You'll see some videos from me soon as well. Maybe we can push each other. :D

I've been playing guitar more than 20 years and these exercises are very tough for me, especially with the third and fourth fingers, even though my fourth finger is actually very strong. But I've never taught myself to move them independently, so I have to fix those bad habits.

I think you are already very far ahead of most people who learn to play a guitar, so please keep going. It will really benefit you. :)

Hi Farelli

First of all my apologizes for relpying so late i missed this post completely. Second thanks for your nice words it motivates me a lot. I have litterly put almost all my time in PB's exercisesin the last 6 months. My weekly practice time is about 22 hours a week some more some less (i keep track on it in a xls doc.). I havent learned real new songs in that period and only once in a while i played some music the rest i have put into ladders, Spiders, thrills CAGED and picking exercises etc.

I think if you practice the Spiders and Ladders a lot you will fix your issue regarding 3rd and 4th finger. Spiders 30 min and ladders an hour for example each day will help im sure of that. Make videos is a col way to see your own progression and get some advise here from the real gurus.
I hope to see soon a video from you soon and we could mitvate eachother and help eachother like this that sounds very cool to me.

At themoment i dont have my acoustic guitar with me but just bought a week aago an awsome Gibson LP. Wow what a difference of playing is that compared to acoustic guitar.

Grtz Ray