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Lesson 11 - Trills workout
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When a guitar player wants to execute a fast smooth legato run a lot of things enter into action like precision, clarity and smoothness to mention but a few. But without the stamina and strength the fretting hand won’t respond and will let you down! So today we’ll go through some essential exercises to tackle just that.
The first 3 exercises are basic trills using the 1st finger as a pivot and trilling with the remaining fingers. Remember that a trill means hammer ons and pull offs in succession. Keep the thumb lightly touching at the back parallel with the 2nd finger. Be sure it’s not pressing hard as that would tense your arm which in return slows your fingers dramatically. The exercises are written in 16th notes value and long only 1 bar but be sure to spend a full minute on each finger pairing. This goes for all the 12 exercises!
Exercises 4 to 7 use wider stretches so they’re quite tough. Now you need to pay attention you don’t injure yourself. It’s good to know that the stretched trill is the most strenuous exercise your arm/hand can go through so beware. If you feel any pain what’s so ever STOP immediately. The myth ‘no pain no gain’ is an out of bounds term were guitar playing is concerned. Trust me out there! Having said that if you can handle them be sure to use the appropriate fingers I indicated.
Exercises 8 to 10 change the pivot finger. This time you’ll have trills off the 2nd and 3rd fingers. Remember that you cannot lift at any time the finger you’re trilling from. Needless to say the 3rd to the 4th is the toughest but if you can handle that then you’re on your way to the ‘legato stardom’ soon.
Exercises 11 and 12 are like small licks/motifs that can be used in a solo idea especially ex 12 which uses diatonic notes that can be transposed anywhere you wish. Be sure to move all the 12 exercise on all strings so that you get the feel of every string’s tension and thickness apart from moving your fretting hand everywhere. Pick only the first note of every motif you execute. Best sound to play with is a distorted tone. Reason for this is so that you’ll know exactly how much strength you need to apply to hammer/pull off. Keep in mind that when a distorted tone is being played there’ll be lots of string noise and stuff happening that if not controlled will alter your tone and eventually create unwanted feedback. So don’t practice these exercises with a clean tone if your aim is rock/metal guitar. Learning to control unwanted sound is the secret of great lead guitar playing! Keep that in mind.
So get all these exercise under your wing and be sure to get a clean solid hammer and pull off. After all that’s what we’re after here. Next lesson we’ll take this technique to its core i.e. legato lines and runs. That should be great! But do prepare yourself first...
Remember to practice perfectly every time you… practice!
Jean
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