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If you scout around the web and leaf through guitar books you'll come across a gazillion possible exercises - but given the limited time we have what do people find the most useful exercise(s) for guitar? Here's mine for a starter:
Scales played staccato (left hand fingers just above the string hammering down hard and then releasing). Also doubling and tripling each note. Use all rh finger combinations. This has really helped with coordination and minimizing finger movement.
RE: Single most useful exercise? (in reply to hamia)
But also right hand or picking hand should be learned staccato as well. Infact I would emphasize this over the left hand staccato, for building rhythmic speed, accuracy, tone etc. If you can do staccato on the open string fast, w/out involving the fret hand, you will train the fingers to alternate quick and efficent, planting earlier than needed for a good sound and volume. Both tremolo (free strokes) and picado (rest strokes) are good for this. Staccato is a nice musical tool, that helps you develop technique.
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Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Single most useful exercise? (in reply to Guest)
Stacatto is great, but for the left hand, the two biggies are slurs and chromatic exercises. Then after that scales in thirds, sixes, or octaves. These things are easily worth the time spent on them.
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