Chromatic Exercises Part 3

This exercise is simply a varition of the exercise in 'Part 1'.

Instead of moving through the left hand fingers in a 1, 2, 3, 4 order it moves through them in a 1, 4, 2, 3, order (index, pinky, middle, ring).

When it shifts to descend the order changes to 4, 1, 3, 2.

Here is the tablature representation (click on tablature to enlarge)...

Like the title says; pretty wacky. A bit of a finger-buster to boot. Gets your hand moving in ways it is not used to though and may inspire some alternative sonic reasoning.

Chromatic Exercises Part 2

Where the first chromatic exercise we covered was all single string style this one is a mix of single string and melodic.

I tried to keep it melodic where possible and single string when necessary.


The scale here simply moves chromatically from the lowest note on the 'jo (low D) to the highest (high C).

Here it is in all its glory (click on tablature to enlarge)...

You can also move back down by reversing the order of notes.

Chromatic Exercises Part 1

Thought I would share a few warm up exercises I have found helpful. The ones covered in ths series of posts all fall under the 'chromatic' umbrella. The term chromatic refers to a tonality in which all of the 12 tones (every single note) is included.

The first exercise is simple to memorize and uses all four left hand fingers equally.

All you do is begin on the 2nd fret of the 4th string and progress through your 4 fingers fret by fret (2nd fret, 3rd fret, 4th fret, 5th fret).

Then do the same thing on the 3rd string only beginning on the 1st fret (1st fret, 2nd fret, 3rd fret, 4th fret).

Then move to the 2nd string and play the same pattern as on the 3rd string and finally play the patten on the 1st string beginning on the 2nd fret.

After that I shift position up one fret and descend. Once descended I shift up another fret and ascend and then descend and keep the pattern going.

Here is the exercise in tablature form (click on tablature to enlarge)...

You can continue all the way up the neck shifting everytime you finish an ascending or descending pattern.

I have a few other chromatic exercises so stay tuned...