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Welcome to The Guitar Daily Workout System 11.
In the Guitar Daily Workout, the first 4 Systems provided the foundational skills that most guitarists need to be professional-level musicians: scales, arpeggios, and techniques that form the core of a guitarist’s understanding and vocabulary.
Systems 5-8 developed intermediate skills with more sophisticated scales, arpeggios, and approaches; moving the student from solid foundational techniques to a true mastery of the guitar neck.
In Systems 9-12, we will explore advanced concepts-less commonly used scales and patterns-ones often found in jazz, fusion, and more complex musical styles.
Most guitarists could have a great career just by having mastery of the concepts in the first 8 systems. Many guitarists have been very successful not even knowing all of that information. With Systems 9-12, however, you will develop skills that will allow you to understand and play more complicated music.
We will cover Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, and their Harmonized Arpeggios, as well as the Diminished scale, Whole-Tone scale, the Coltrane Pentatonic, and Barry Harris’ 6th Diminished scale. We will also delve into single-string playing and octave playing.
Keep at it and work hard and you should find a whole new world of musical vocabulary opening up to you.
As with all of these systems, application is key. However, these exercises should give you muscle memory, dexterity, ears, and understanding of the scales and arpeggios that will allow you to access music with very sophisticated musical vocabularies.
Finger Gymnastics
In System 11 Finger Gymnastics, we will be doing a series of exercises that are not pattern-based. In all of the previous systems, Finger Gymnastics was used to train for strength, syncopation, and stamina by doing non-musical but complex finger patterns. They were all useful to enable your fingers to learn complicated combinations.
In System 11, we will break from the typical Finger Gymnastics and instead improvise on random notes. It is a difficult thing for the brain to detach from musical phrases and shapes it has spent years learning. In this system, we will force our brains and fingers to play things we have never played before. This is very challenging to do.
W1-2: Weeks 1-2 Random 8th Notes.
W3-4: Weeks 3-4 4 bars Am 8th note. 4 random 8th notes.
W5-6: All above the 12th fret. 8th notes. Dm sounds 2 bars, random 2 bars
W7-8: 8th notes. G7 patterns 2 bars, random 2 bars.
W9-10: In weeks 9-10, we will mix different rhythms. We will start for 2 bars over Em, 8th notes only. Any Em sounds are good. Then 2 bars random 8th note. Then, 2 bars of Em, 8th note triplets. Followed by random triplets. Then 2 bars Em, 16th notes, random 16th notes. Then back to triplets.
W11-12: This will be the same as weeks 9-10 but in Am, 1 bar each. All ideas and phrasing allowed. 1 bar of Am ideas, 1 bar of random playing.
Arpeggios
For this system, we will approach the 7th chord arpeggios in small 4-note patterns, going through each of the chords of the harmonized scale in a single position. This will really help us to see all the arpeggios in smaller shapes, allowing us to outline chord shapes in our improvisations. This is especially useful with fast-moving chord changes.
Diminished
The diminished scale is a symmetrical scale that consists of the notes R, M2, m3, P4, A4, A5, M6, and M7. You’ll notice several things about this scale. First, it is an 8-note scale, so one of the note names is repeated (in this example, it is the 4th). You will also notice that it ascends in a series of whole steps and half steps. So the scale either ascends w,h,w,h,w,h,w,h or h,w,h,w,h,w,h,w. Since it is a symmetrical scale, it repeats itself in minor 3rds. C, Eb, F#, and Ab diminished are all the same scale. This means there are really only 3 diminished scales: C, C#, and D. All others are repeats of the same notes.
Melodic Minor
This Melodic Minor exercise will begin on each note of the melodic minor scale-the R, M2, m3, P4, P5, M6, and M7. We’ll cover each mode of the melodic minor scale. We will do this exercise in groupings of 4.
Modes
This will be a fun but difficult exercise. We will play all of the modes in a linear fashion as we did in System 9 and 10, but now we will do it with octaves. Just as in System 10, this system will cover all the modes each week. But we will play octaves using down strokes, hybrid picking, and alternate picking.
Only one more System to go!
9 окт 2024
