To do any kind of work we need tools. When it comes to guitarists most people think our tools of the trade are our guitar and amp. This is true and we spend many hours every week making sure our tools are in good order but we often neglect our most important tools, our hands.
New and seasoned guitarists alike need to keep their hands and fingers in good shape in order to develop and maintain dexterity. Having strong and quick fingers is essential for being able to change chords smoothly, play speedy solos, and pick and strum in perfect time. Playing guitar really is a physical activity, and like training for any physical activity, particular muscles need to be developed. If hand and finger muscles aren’t developed, they can become tired or cramped when playing guitar.
To develop strength and speed, guitarists need to do finger strengthening exercises as often as they can. A good finger strengthening exercise should always challenge the fingers and hands. This means that as muscles and skills develop, exercises should be made more and more challenging.
Aids can be used to challenge and track progress, such as a metronome or a stop-watch. Increasing the tempo on a metronome allows a guitarist to increase their playing speed. A good challenge is to set the speed of the metronome faster with each practice. Alternatively, a stop-watch can be used to time how fast a guitarist is playing through a particular pattern or exercise. Times can be recorded, and guitarists can then try to beat their best speeds.
One very important thing to be kept in mind when doing finger strengthening exercises is that sound quality should not be sacrificed for speed. While part of the challenge of finger strengthening exercises may be to play faster and faster, this should not be done at the cost of good tone and timing.
Left Hand Guitar Exercises
One of the most useful exercises for strengthening the left hand is playing variations of the chromatic scale. The basic chromatic scale below can be used as a starting point. Guitarists can play through this scale at a pace they are comfortable with. With each practice, the playing speed should be increased slightly.
e—————————————–1-2-3-4———-
B———————————1-2-3-4——————
G————————-1-2-3-4————————–
D—————–1-2-3-4———————————-
A———1-2-3-4——————————————
E-1-2-3-4————————————————–
Having played the chromatic scale, it can then be played backwards. For example:
e-4-3-2-1———————
B———4-3-2-1————-
G—————————–
D—————————–
A—————————–
E—————————– etc.
From this, alternative patterns can be introduced. Playing the chromatic scale with the below variations helps a guitarist’s hand become accustomed to stretching in different ways:
e———————————————————-
B———————————————————-
G———————————————————-
D———————————————————-
A———————————————————-
E-1-4-3-2—-4-2-3-1—-2-3-1-4—————————- etc.
Right Hand Guitar Exercises
For electric and acoustic guitarists, playing with speed and strength with the right hand means using a guitar pick well. One very useful exercise for developing right hand muscles is to play the above chromatic scale using different patterns of up-strokes and down-strokes.
A down-stroke is when a guitar pick is used to pick a string (or strum strings) in a downward motion. An up-stroke is the opposite; strings are picked from bottom to top. By changing the pattern of up-strokes and down-strokes, the right hand can be trained to move in ways that it may not be used to. This will help strengthen finger muscles as they will be used in new ways.
In the above chromatic scale, four notes are played on each string. This makes it convenient to create picking patterns based on different combinations of four up-strokes and down-strokes. For example, “down, up, down, up” is a very basic picking pattern that can be used to pick the chromatic scale. More complex patterns could be “down, down, up, down”; “up, up, up, down”, “up, down, down, up”, etc.
Once the guitarist practices the basic chromatic scale with different combinations of up-strokes and down-strokes, a greater challenge can be introduced. Using complicated patterns of up-strokes and down-strokes while playing more complicated variations of the chromatic scale with the left hand can provide a real physical and mental workout for the guitarist.
The best part about these guitar finger exercises is that they develop finger muscles, but as they become more complicated, they also train left hand and right hand fingers to play complicated patterns simultaneously. In that sense, these exercises are as much a physical activity as they are a mental activity.
So remember its your hands that do the work. Keep them in good shape and you can make any guitar sound good.
- Axel
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Yeah, I found a great leap in the way my guitar playing sounded after I started working on finger strength while I played. There are also exercises you can do with finger strengthening gizmos you buy from sports stores.
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