MOVING UP AND DOWN THE NECK ON ONE STRING

This exercise is designed to let you move up and down the neck on one string, while avoiding stretches. That means you're always in a four-fret span position, one finger per fret. Use your pinky to shift, and observe the tablature carefully. (Although there are certainly some effective alternate fingerings, I suggest you use the tablature exactly as written until mastered. Moving around with this approach can help loosen up your left hand, which should be relaxed at all times. After a while you may start getting ideas for variations, changing my note pattern, fingerings, or both. It's really just a foundation for getting used to moving around this way.)

The version without accidentals will fit musically in some situations where the chromatic notes sound awkward or wrong to your ear. Unfortunately, it's harder to play! The accidentals were used so the pinky could be the consistent shifting finger, and you could play it all on one string. The diatonic one (meaning no accidentals in the key of C, no chromatic notes outside the key) requires you to use the B string sometimes, and shift either with ring, middle, or pinky. If you use the four-fret span fingering principle (one finger per fret) the fingerings should be obvious. It will take some practice to get used to the shifts.

(MORE)

CAN YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TECHNIQUE?

You often hear a player being derided for being too technical, and not soulful enough. I'd like to put my thoughts about this here. Many times I've been the person making this kind of complaint about one player or another-- I can picture a few musicians right now that I'd put in this camp (I won't mention any names-- I always get in trouble when I do that!)

WARNING-- STRAUB ANALOGY COMING UP

Playing music is like being able to walk. Your ability to put one leg in front of the other and get from point A to point B is your technique. Your brain decides where you will walk to-- point B, and how you will get there, is up to your brain. These are your musical ideas, and they include whatever you are feeling, or thinking about. Because I see it this way, I question the notion that a musician can have "too much technique." Blaming good technique for what a player chooses to play is like blaming your legs for the fact that you walked into a puddle.

Technique is the ability to execute the musical ideas in your brain. If you memorize a lot of patterns, and play them over and over until they are very fast, you will be able to play with fluidity. Most people are impressed by fluid playing, but the content of your ideas is important also. For much of my playing life, I have worked on my ideas more than on my technique. More recently I have concentrated more on technique, and I've also tried to integrate the two, with excellent results. The goal is to develop your ideas, and develop the technique to execute them. If you can play everything you have in your mind, then you don't need to work on your technique. If you only have two or three musical ideas to play, you should be working on developing more ideas. The best way to do this is by studying other musicians, looking for ideas you can steal from them.

I try to work up technique exercises that have interesting musical ideas. This way I am developing in both areas at once-- as you should also. Whenever possible, the exercises I post will be good for your technique and for your ideas.

(MORE)

PERPETUAL MOTION ETUDES

All contents copyright Karl Straub 2008.
www.karlstraubmusic.com/perpetual motion etudes 1-10.cpr.mp3
These are eighth-note studies that can be repeated as an endless loop, hence the use of the term "perpetual motion." i recommend playing them individually, ten times in a row without a break, once you can do that with no mistakes. until you can play an etude without error, you should break it into smaller pieces, practicing each piece in sets of ten until you eventually work up to playing the entire study multiple times with good sound and no mistakes.

These etudes can improve your technique in several ways. As a bonus, i have incorporated stylistic elements from a variety of idioms, including country, jazz, flatpicking, rhythm and blues, western swing, rockabilly, etc. the player using these etudes can develop musical vocabulary along with technique, extending his/her ability to improvise solos and fills.

HOW THESE ETUDES CAN IMPROVE YOUR TECHNIQUE

these studies are designed to develop your technique in the same way that repetitive physical exercise develops muscles. playing a musical instrument is challenging because it requires efficient use of physical and mental capacity. the sheer number of things to be learned, along with the repetitive practice required for mastery, can quickly lead to an overwhelming amount of time spent each day. even the most dedicated practicer will find it difficult to maintain a consistent practice schedule.
these studies are designed to get a variety of results even when only limited practice time is available. they develop technique in both right and left hands, as well as giving the player insights into issues such as playing in closed (up the neck) positions as well as open, playing in a various keys, position shifting, fingering, and alternate picking- all essential for advanced guitar playing.

THESE ETUDES CAN TAKE YOUR PLAYING TO "THE NEXT LEVEL," AND ARE ALSO USEFUL AS WARMUP EXERCISES.

my original goal in creating these etudes was to give myself a large amount of challenging material i could play repetitively, as a way of warming up my technique in a short time. they are excellent warmups for the player who has already achieved some basic facility with alternate picking, position playing, etc.
for the player who needs help with facility, any of these etudes on its own can help in the following ways.

RIGHT HAND TECHNIQUE

i recommend playing these studies with alternate picking, i.e. a consistent alternation of down and upstrokes. because all the etudes are eighth notes exclusively, you can begin a measure with a down pick, play the next note with an up pick, and continue alternating with each pick stroke. alternate picking takes a lot of concentration, and a lot of practice! when i first tried to learn it, it took a huge amount of work. at the time, i was a fairly lazy and unfocused musician, and learning alternate picking was by by far the greatest challenge i'd ever had as a player. trust me when i say it's worth the effort-- although alternate picking isn't the only good picking method, i believe it's the most versatile and neglecting to learn it will slow down your development enormously.
even if alternate picking is the only thing you get out of these etudes, it will be worth the time.
play with movement primarily in your wrist --- try to keep a loose wrist, and avoid arm movement as this can create stiffness and keep you from developing. make sure your wrist is ALWAYS RELAXED.

the etudes can be played with each note picked, for a great alternate picking workout. some of them include recommended pulloffs and hammer-ons for some notes. i put these slurs in where i thought they made the line sound better, but ultimately the etudes can be played with or without the slurs-- they're good for your technique either way. if the slurs make it hard for you to play an exercise, leave them out, or practice the slurs by themselves until they become easier.

LEFT HAND TECHNIQUE

some of these etudes can be played all in one position, i.e. in a four-fret span where each left hand finger is responsible for the notes on one of the four frets. others require shifting position one or more times. occasionally one finger has to shift or stretch "out of position," which means you are mostly in a four-fret span but notes not in the position require a momentary adjustment. i used to stretch rather than shift, believing that keeping my hand in position as much as possible made it easier to keep track of where i was on the fingerboard. eventually i came to prefer shifting my whole hand in a relaxed way to reach a note outside of the position. try both methods and find the one that works for you.

try to keep left hand fingers coming down straight onto the fingerboard as much as possible. my college teacher Gerry Kunkel always hounded us to keep our fingers "up on the tips," and i advise that as well.

TECHNICAL TIPS FOR THESE ETUDES
1. first bar-- first position, with open strings.this means index 1st fret, middle 2nd, ring 3rd. shift to second position for the pulloff from pinky to index finger. use the open G string to give yourself time to move the pinky and index, getting them ready for the pulloff. use next open note to shift back to first position.
2. four fret span, fifth position (this means the fifth fret is index finger, sixth fret is middle, seventh is ring, and eighth is pinky. ) no stretching or shifting needed, but you have to use the pinky for two notes in a row on different strings. try the rolling technique-- rather than lift the pinky and moving to the E string, keep it on the tip for the B string note, then "roll" it onto its side to get the E string note. this rolling techique takes getting used to, but helps keep passages like this smooth.
3.second position. use index for second fret, middle for third, and ring for fourth.
4.first bar is 9th position. second bar is tenth position. make this shift by moving index over while ring finger is on G11(G string, 11th fret. ) once you've made the shift, keep hand relaxed. shift back for repeats by moving index back to 9th fret. the key to this kind of shifting is to relax your hand while you do it.
5. begin with ring finger, shift (during open string) to index on E3. stay in this position (3rd) for first bar. second bar shifts to first position, with index on first fret, etc.
6.entire line is 3rd position, except last three notes which are in 2nd position.
7.entire line in second position, index second fret and ring fourth fret. middle finger used for only one note-- low E3.
8.2nd position, nothing tricky.
9. first bar is second position--index 2nd, ring 4th, until D3, played with ring. you're now in first position-- index on 1st, etc. second hammer-on should hammer to index on 2nd fret--now you're back in second position.
10.all first position. this is a pinky workout. try not to let your pinky pop high off the string and back into your hand when it's not being used.

NOTE ON MY RECORDING: I played these etudes pretty mechanically, in the hope they would be easier to hear that way. Keep in mind that most of them really come alive with accents and phrasing derived from fiddle tunes, or more modern kinds of "country swing," hillbilly boogie, rockabilly, etc. It seems to me that much of those more modern fifties and sixties styles of phrasing are descendents of the fiddle tune kind of phrasing, but I'm going to have to think about that for a while, and try to figure out how to present some examples at some point.

(MORE)