Beyond Bedroom Guitar - Take your guitar playing to a new level

Lets try a little experiment. I want you to pick up your guitar and play a simple single note line below.
such as a blues scale over three strings.

Now I want you to start to speed up each time you repeat the
phrase.

- Get faster, and faster, and faster.
- Keep trying to play it even faster.
- Faster still dont worry if you start to make mistakes. Go
faster.
- As fast as you possibly can.

Now stop.

Notice how tense your arms, hands fingers possibly even your
shoulders are. Shake them all out and relax.

Now lets go the other way. Lets start at an ordinary speed

- Then get slower
- And slower
- And slower
- And tortoise speed
- And an ant with 3 legs speed
- At a snail speed

Now stop.

Notice where the tension is now. Is it in your right hand? Is
it in your wrist? Alternatively, are you really relaxed?

A couple more things to try:

Same phrase. This time I want you to keep the tempo the same - make sure its
comfortable but not too slow.

- Now play it louder (more pressure required from the plectrum
or plucking fingers)
- And louder still
- And even louder (dont go cheating by turning your amp up to
10 or 11 if youve got one of those spinal tap amps!)
- And louder still dont break any strings.

Now Stop.

Notice how your left fingers feel. Are they tensing up? Did you notice that as you played louder your left hand fingers pressed harder on the frets?

Ok last one...

Same riff. Same speed, but this time

- Try to play quieter volume (less pick required)
- And even quieter
- Even more
- Quiet as a church mouse
- Can you hear a pin drop?

Now stop.

Notice whats happened to your hands. Did your left hand press less and less hard on the strings almost to the point of the frets buzzing? Did you drop the plectrum (this always used to
happen to me!)

The point of this exercise is to show you where you get tense when playing. Just being aware that it's happening makes a difference. For those of you who are having problems playing fast and fluid - this exercise highlights the one of the most fundamental causes of trouble; increased tension when trying to play fast.

The full version of the book contains further exercises that show you how to change your current responses when playing fast or slow, now that you are more aware of what they are.