Tag: fretboard knowledge

Day 15. 1234, 1243, 1324, 1342

Finally I managed to start doing different combinations of 1234s. At first I thought about taking 6 combinations and practicing only them today, but then my fingers started to get tired and I switched to other routines to continue the practice and ended up with 4 variations for today.

1234 on the 5th fret

I definitely need to come up with another name for this part because there are not only 1234s, but some other stuff happening here now.

1234

I started with 1234 at 320 bpm. I failed at that speed yesterday so I kept it to become more consistent at it. But I still ended up making lots of mistakes so I will continue practicing at this pace tomorrow as well.

1243

Before recording the video I tried to play these a few times. It turned out that this combination is quite natural for my fingers so I set up the metronome at 200 bpm right away and considering it was the first time ever to play this combination it went pretty well.

I had the opposite issue with my pinky. At 1234 it flied away form the strings before needed to be placed on the string. Here it stayed on the strings after being played with. I’m gonna be working on that.

1324

Here comes more tricky one. From now on I needed to think more about finger placement order and it led to quite a lot mistakes during the routine. Still first time though so I’m not gonna be very upset about it and just continue to work on my precision tomorrow. Did it at 200 bpm too.

1342

There was some problems with letting my ring and pinky fingers off the strings after being played with. So when I was supposed to play with my middle finger, sometimes the string was muted. So… again, lots of work here to be done 🙂 But still kind of did it at 200 bpm as well.

Fretboard knowledge

You know the drill. First attempt of the day – 1:43.

Last attempt of the day – 1:40.

I managed to set my new record off-camera which was 1:36. I’m getting closer to my goal which is to do it below 1:30.

Chord transitions

Not much to say here. I sped up each pair of chord a bit to face the new challenge.

C/D transition

Nailed it at 100 bpm.

Am/C transition

Did it at 160 bpm.

E/D transition

Practiced at 140 bpm.

Summary

Let’s just say I’m glad to start working on different variations of 1234s for now.

Week 2. Summary

This week I worked mostly at my 1234s technique. I tried to keep my fingers on the strings to keep my pinky from moving too far away from them. Beyond that I watched the 5th module and did some strumming exercises. This is my week 2 summary video.

Fretboard knowledge

All strings at once â€“ 2:26 → 1:44

1234

On the 5th fret (with all my fingers on the strings) – 80 bpm → 240 bpm
On the 5th fret (without paying attention to the fingers) – 300 bpm → 320 bpm

Chord transitions

C/D – 80 bpm → 90 bpm
Am/C – 120 bpm → 140 bpm
E/D – 100 bpm → 120 bpm

Strumming

Whole PDF at once – 80 bpm → 180 bpm

Day 14. Improving everything

It’s the last day of the week so I tried to do my best in everything I practiced this week. How did it go out? Let’s see…

1234 on the 5th fret

I started with 240 bpm again to seal my alternate picking skills. It felt natural and was not hard at all.

After other routines I decided to check if this week somehow changed the way I did 1234s before. So I did the same exercise at 300 bpm to find it out.

I felt no challenge at 300 bpm so then I tried to do it again at 320 bpm. There are a lot of messed up moments in this video, but still I’m sure tomorrow I will do it flawlessly at that speed.

Chord transitions

Last time I practiced these two days ago. Today I tried to increase speed of each of them a little.

C/D transition

Despite the fact that a part of my palm became very tired after the exercise and some chords wasn’t clean enough at the end, I see this as a win and look forward to increase the speed even more. But I really need to do something with my thumb and my palm being too tensed and becoming tired after I intensively play just for a few minutes. I did it at 90 bpm this time.

Am/C transition

It’s the easiest one of all three, so I nailed it easily at 140 bpm.

E/D transition

The D chord didn’t always sound clean, so I will work on this transition more, but despite that I played these transitions at 120 bpm.

Strumming

I missed this one yesterday – it’s so much fun! So I started at 140 bpm again to make sure I can still manage this speed.

Then I started increasing the speed. At first to 160 bpm.

Then even more – to 180 bpm. It was really messed up at the beginning, but I focused and made through the whole sheet 3 times in a row without major mistakes.

Fretboard knowledge

This time my first attempt became my best one yet – 1:44.

And after a few tries I started to think a lot about beating my time and this anxiety was so great that I kept messing up again and again and didn’t manage to beat my record. Anyway, that’s 1:54 attempt.

Summary

These reports increase in size every day and it takes a lot more time to upload all the videos to YouTube. Maybe I need to rethink what I record and how much I record. Anyway, the week was a very busy one. So I’m happy I found time to do these posts every day.

Day 13. 1234 improvement

I literally got no time today, so my practice started at 00:30. I was to do 1234s for a couple of minutes and report this routine but ended up playing for about 40-50 minutes 😀

1234 on the 5th fret

I started with the speed I ended up with the previous day – 200 bpm. It felt way more natural for my left hand than before. To make something different I decided to set the metronome at half a speed I wanted to play at.

Then the speed was increased to 220 bpm.

Then to 240 bpm. Two speed increases per day – wow!

I reached the speed at which it’s almost necessary to use alternate picking. So at the end of the routine I decided to repeat 1234s at the same 240 bpm but using that technique. I didn’t use alternate picking for a while so my attempt turn out quite rough, but I’m sure tomorrow I’ll do this as it was meant to be played.

Fretboard knowledge

As always, I recorded my first attempt. I was 2:16

This time I managed to go under 1:50! 1:49 is now my new personal record. And I got it on camera this time 🙂

Summary

These last few days were very eventful, I didn’t have much time at all. That’s really great that my enthusiasm keeps me doing these posts even after midnight – that’s how I’m positive about doing this challenge!

Day 12. More routines

Chord transitions

I forgot about these routines which are pretty useful. Last time it was Am/E chords transitions and it was very easy. Today the trickier ones come to place.

For now the trickier chord for me to change to it C. It’s about the index finger which become situated too close to the bottom of the fretboard. It’s not as convenient regarding the way I hold the neck while I play. Will ask about it in the week 2 summary.

C/D transition

It appeared to be the hardest one for me, so I gradually went down to 80 bpm and practiced at that speed.

After other exercises I returned to this chord transition and did it once more at 90 bpm.

Am/C transition

It was the easiest one today, because basically you just need to move the ring finger and slide middle one a bit. So here it goes at 120 bpm.

E/D transition

It went quite well, I set the metronome to 100 bpm and did it for a minute as I was supposed to.

Strumming

I started with my previous best speed – 120 bpm.

Then I tried to do what I failed to do yesterday – go through the whole sheet at 140 bpm multiple times in a row without any errors. And I nailed it this time!

1234 on the 5th fret

Again, yesterday I failed at 180 bpm, today I managed to do it the right way.

And then I proceeded to 200 bpm. Should practice more to decrease the number of errors, but it was decent for sure.

Fretboard knowledge

As always I filmed the first attempt, which ended in 2:15.

Then I practiced a few times and got my new record there – 1:52! Unfortunately I didn’t repeat it on camera. This attempt was in 1:55.

Summary

I’m happy with my results today. I’m starting to formulate what I will ask in the week 2 summary to increase my technique and dexterity and some other stuff.

Day 11. Lack of focus

The day was quite eventful and I got tired by the time I had time to play. So today I haven’t proceeded to much, mostly just repeated my yesterday results.

1234 on the 5th fret

I started with 180 bpm like the metronome was set yesterday, but the number of mistakes was huge.

After other routines I tried to repeat this one again and it was a bit better this time.

Strumming

Yesterday I managed to sort of play the whole sheet of strumming PDF at 120 bpm while counting out loud. So for starters I did it again today.

It wasn’t perfectly fine, but I decided to increase the speed to 140 bpm to test myself.

And I started to fail at the second half of the sheet. So after several attempts the decision was made to set the metronome back to 120 bpm.

Fretboard knowledge

I continued to did this a few times every day to increase my speed. As always I recorded my first attempt of the day, then practiced a few times and tried to beat my last record. The first try went quite well – 2:21.

And the goal was achieved, I beat my previous record by 6 seconds. Now it’s 2:07.

Summary

I’m glad that even after so much activities during the day I still wanted to practice. Maybe the enthusiasm wasn’t as great as it was before, but this daily upload thing keeps me tight. Hopefully tomorrow I will practice in the morning when I’m full of energy and will to do it.

Day 10. Strumming

1234 on the 5th fret

I continued progressing in speed. At start I tried to set the metronome at 160 bpm and it worked out.

Then after other routines I felt like I could do it faster, so I set the metronome to 180 bpm and got a quite decent result.

Strumming

I watched the strumming module and started to play given sheet one line at a time to figure it out.

Then I was ready to connect it all together and try to play and count at the same time. It was reeeeally tricky, especially at higher paces. Here are my attempts at 90 bpm:

And here is where things became hard to play – 120bpm. My first tries:

Then I practiced a bit off-camera and decided to record some more successful ones:

Fretboard knowledge

I practice it just a few times per day but still gradually get better 🙂 Today I managed to do it in 2:28 the first try (no notes played before).

And after several attempts here is my new record – 2:13.

Summary

It was a busy day, I have only like one and a half out in the morning to play the guitar and film it. My every day uploads keep me in great mental shape, I think. There is no reasons for me to skip my guitar practice. And I will do everything to keep it that way!

Day 9. Getting used to it

1234 on the 5th fret

I started my practice with this exercise for 8 minutes at 120 bpm. There is so much I had to think about to do everything right… So I decided to stop using alternate picking for now just to get rid of thinking about it when I try to put my fingers on the strings the right way.

I got more used to the new way I play the notes although it’s not convenient at all for now 🙂

After another 5-7 minutes at that pace I felt more confident and tried to increase the speed to 140 bpm. It’s kind of worked out.

Fretboard knowledge

Every day I will repeat this exercise as a warm-up. Just for a couple of times.

The very first attempt today ended up at 2:37, which is almost like my previous best time (2:26). Considering it’s the first try, it’s quite decent.

I did two more tries off-camera, increased my result a bit and recorded the final attempt with my new best time – 2:20.

Summary

I’m slowly but surely become better in using the correct technique. I want as hell to proceed deeper into the course but feel that these basics needed to be covered first to correct errors as close to the beginning as possible.

Day 8. Technique correction

Economy of motion

Here we go again… During the fretboard knowledge routine I noticed that I pull strings up instead of down. As I figured out from the comments to my week 1 report, the main pick movement on beats 1 and 3 should be downwards. Not to mention situations when you only play one note at a time – the pick should move downwards. So I started over with the first exercise of the course on economy of motion.

Fretboard knowledge

I started the training today with playing all notes on all strings a few times. Didn’t increase my record, but the main idea is to make it consistently fast from the beginning of exercise, not only after 10-20 attempts. The best time I got today is 2:36. It happened off-camera, so the video contains one of another tries.

1234 on the 5th fret

Technique correction

In the feedback for my first weekly report I learnt that my finger technique is not that great. Mostly because of my pinky – it flies away all the time when I play notes with other fingers. So I decided to start over to fix it.

The way I practiced was to keep all fingers on the strings all the time. If they are all on the strings, no one flies away. Sounds pretty easy, huh?

The exercise

It was really hard for me to make my fingers do what I wanted them to do. Somehow when I was moving upwards it felt almost natural, but moving down… When I tried releasing my ring finger from a string to move it to the next one either my pinky released too or the ring finger hardly moved. So I started at 80 bpm to try and make some progress.

Not gonna lie, I wasn’t too good at this, but I decided to increase the speed a bit just to make it less boring. And I pretty much nailed it.

Summary

It’s kinda sad to start over, but it’s good to fix those mistakes at the beginning, so guess I’ll stick with 1234 routine for a while now to do it properly. Hopefully in a few days I’ll be able to do it the right way at a solid pace.

Week 1. Summary

I went through modules 1-4 and tried to maximize the results in each practice routine. I record the video with details, and my results are below.

Fretboard Knowledge

E string – 0:47 → 0:23
A string – 1:02 → 0:24
D string – 1:29 → 0:25
G string – 1:17 → 0:26
B string – 1:16 → 0:25
e string – 0:40 → 0:26

All strings at once – 4:42 → 2:26

1234

On the 5th fret – 200 bpm for 3 min → 300 bpm for 5 min
Across the neck – 240 bpm for 5 min → 270 bpm for 5 min

Different variations of 1234

1324 – 100 bpm for 5 min
4321 – 120 bpm for 5 min
1243 – 100 bpm for 5 min
1423 – 100 bpm for 5 min

Am/E chords transition

Consistently – 180 bpm for 2 min
Maximum – 240 bpm for 1 min