Electric Guitar: More Chromatic-Based Finger Exercises

It's somewhat difficult to get away from chromatic-based patterns when constructing or considering finger exercises (for more info on finger exercises, see my other Associated Content article, "Ascending Finger Exercises for Electric Guitar"), because when it comes to building agility and precision in the fingers, excellent musicality and fitting patterns into proper scales is not the most important thing. So fingering patterns usually fall into the chromatic realm, which is no great surprise. In this article I will examine some simple chromatic based patterns to help your fingers get stronger and hopefully make your picking ability more precise and synchronized. Make sure you practice the licks below with a metronome, slowly at first, then gradually work up in speed.

Now for the surprise. These chromatic based exercises involve linear movement down the length of one string. And they can also produce a sort of warped kaleidoscope swirl of sound that may hypnotize people when they hear it, or make them think you're playing a video game, (they actually don't sound too bad, so you can use them briefly in your solos, but keep them short so you don't injure anyone's auditory senses) and hence they can be used for position shifts on the fretboard. That is, they are effective for making transitions between different positions of the neck.

Our first exercise involves using the index, middle and ring fingers in a simple 1-2-3 pattern that steadily moves down the neck in a descending triplet-based glissando.

-----------------------(---3---)---(----3----)---(----3----)
High E string: {-19-18-17-18-17-16-17-16-15-}

-----------------------(---3---)---(----3----)---(----3----)
high E string: {-16-15-14-15-14-13-14-13-12-}

Notice the groupings of three notes. Continue playing the same pattern down the neck as far as you like. Again, this kind of chromatic lick is a good finger exercise but it's also nice for positional changes in scales. For example, say you are improvising in A minor and you are playing in the E Phyrigian "scale" or mode at the 12th position and you would like to move down to the B Locrian mode in the &th position and start working away on some groovy licks there. Simply go into the chromatic lick above and work your way down until you hit the 7th fret, then resume burning away without bothering to stop, drop or roll. You get my drift.

Now onto another chromatic pattern that uses all four fingers. This one is very similar to the first lick except now we will be executing it on the low E string instead of the high E. Cool. Notice we are descending with our hand while moving up in pitch with the notes. Try this:

Low E string: {-9-10-11-12-|-8-9-10-11-}

Low E string: {-7-8-9-10-|-6-7-8-9--}

Continue the pattern down the neck. You can mute the low E as you pick every note if you like so that it produces a low chromatic rumbling sound. Work your hand down the entire fretboard in a steady manner and follow it with an E minor chord. Notice that when playing the two licks above, your hand will be in constant motion.

You can build upon these simple chromatic patterns to get more finger exercises. Use them for positional shifts in the middle of your improvisations and in other musical situations. To show you how easy they can be modified into different patterns, here is a final little finger twister that I came up with after only a few seconds of meditation:

E string: {-9-10-} A string: {-12-11-} E string:{-8-9-} A string: {-11-10-}

E string: {-7-8-} A string: {-10-9-} ...

Have fun creating more patterns.

Reference:

"Finger Exercises," How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Jason Earls, Pleroma Publications, 2007.