Lessons learned: 1. Practise with a metronome while imagining that you’re recording - this will make you try really hard to play as clean as possible. It puts the brain into ultra-focused mode 2. Record your practise sessions and listen back to them - you will be surprised by how bad you sound. This will force you to get better. 3. Limit your practise time. There’s no point beating yourself up and failing to play a part cleanly over and over again. Play the best you can and tomorrow will be better. 4. Pay attention to the timing. Listen to the metronome and focus on playing exactly on the beat. 5. You need to focus REALLY HARD when practising. Watching TV while playing is not an option. 6. Focus on playing “fluidly” - try to achieve equal note lengths at all times 7. You must “feel the beat” with your brain/body. It’s not a good tactic to just listen to the metronome and completely focus on it, letting it keep time for you. Having the metronome play only the 2nd and 4th beat is a great way to become more responsible for keeping time 8. Begin each practise session at a slow, achievable tempo 9. At higher tempos, you really need to be comfortable with playing the part, so that you can focus on proper timing
Good advice for pretty much any musician practicing anything lol, if I had adhered to this more closely during my years of playing piano and drums I would easily be twice as fluent and comfortable in my playing :/ Nothing to do now but start up again and pay closer attention to my technique.
@@gojilla3820 february is 28 days unless it's a leap year then it's 29, so at worst you're going to be getting three less days of practice and at best you'll get 1 less day of practice
I've been playing guitar for about 20 years. I did the spider exercise when I first started playing, but had not done it since, until I saw this video. I felt my technique was lacking compared to where it used to be. So, I decided to do this. Thank you for the suggestion and reminder. I'm about 10 days in. I do it as I am sitting through my morning meetings, for about 30 minutes, then 10-15 minutes throughout the day, and again 15-30 minutes before bed. Results are outstanding. Very good thing to do. Can't wait to see where I am at in another 20 days.
Thanks! I'm brand new to guitar but wanted to try this exercise for better hand independence and stretching as I have very, very small hands. Seeing someone who's played guitar for a while struggle and seeing that it takes time has really helped as I struggle massively with feeling like I'm not progressing.
You will notice how your fingers become more flexible with time. I started playing classical guitar when I was 6 years old. That guitar is still big today and I don't know how I managed to get my hands around it. But I did. And you will too. Just give yourself some time and when a practice becomes boring, take a break and instead do whatever you want to do, try to learn a random chord, or learn chords for a song you like. As long as you're enjoying yourself, your brain will remember it. Also, take a mobile phone and record yourself. Do a video of your excercises like here. That will create a bit of pressure, or stage fright, if you will, but it will focus you better and later you can rewatch your video and check everything you need to work on. Maybe left hand, maybe right hand, maybe wrist movement, sitting position... You'll get there!
You'd be surprised how much reach is about flexible tendons, not the length of your fingers! I have seriously tiny hands too. I agree spiders are really hard for us at first, just placing our fingers on the frets takes active effort. I had to start higher up the neck, around the 12th fret. I think it makes a big difference doing hand, wrist and finger stretches and warmups/cooldowns before and after any practice. Most classical pianists, cellists etc are taught to stretch before they even touch their instrument. They have a lot of good resources about it on the Internet. 🙂 I like listening to music on the bus and doing finger independence exercises to the beat, lol. 90s/00s house has a great tempo for hand workouts. 😂
Another thing that can help with getting discouraged is not comparing yourself with others I've found. There are plenty of wonderful guitarists on social media that I am nowhere near the level of and it used to leave me discouraged but as I keep playing more and more things just click in my head. I have my 7 year old daughter practicing these exercises and she has super duper tiny hands. It's a struggle for her as well but I see her improvement every day! Practice hard! :)
I used a similar method and it does indeed work. The great thing is that I noticed an improvement on day 2. The payoff is almost instantaneous, so the effect is that you are encouraged by progress almost immediately. The exercise works. It can be a pain in the ass but stick with it. The next day you're going to love playing again, at least it was that way for me. The day I spend practicing it often sounds like crap, but the weird thing is the following day I seem like a different guitar player than I was the day before. Its amazing how the brain fixes mechanics while the body is at rest. And it gets even better as you progress.
Improvement in what, the exercise? If the intention is "finger independence", then you would maybe be interested in knowing that your fingers always move independently, regardless of if you do this exercise. This is from a person who has played both Yngwie malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Francisco tarrega and Augustine Barrios.. Now I also play piano. It's a waste of time to perform "special" exercises" to do something that your fingers can do perfectly well without this exercise. So, if you want waste time doing a movement you will maybe never encounter in actual guitar playing, then continue doing it. If not, just study techniques and music of composers that you want to learn. This exercise is based off on of the classical guitar technique workbooks, equivelant to hanon or Czerny for the piano. IMO complete waste of time.
@@alvodin6197 A movement you will never use in guitar playing? That's such a hilariously stupid thing to say. Every chromatic run in a solo ever uses this exercise.. and 99 percent of licks use pieces of this exercise. It's easier to use your middle and ring finger than it is to use your pinky and ring finger. Objectively. Nothing about playing guitar is "natural movement". Its ALL practice.
@@alvodin6197 Well, i struggled with left and right coordination until i learned that exercise. Im 51 years old and started playing at age 14. Yes, all those years between and i got through sets by hamstringing myself because couldnt figure it out. Even instructors could not get me to fix it. Until 2 years ago i spoke with an instructor who identified by problem and taught me a very simple exercise. Its about timing, not trying to sound like a famous guitar player. I tried that when i was younger. It didnt work for me . This exercise did. I can say that I wasted 30 years trying to sound like EVH. My playing suffered the same timing/LHand RHand problem. The exercise shown to me impacted my playing overnight. I practiced it a half hour per day and i am 100xs better a guitar player, amd it took only about two to three weeks.
My hats off to you sir. It's take some serious bravery to put yourself out there like this especially with how people can be on the internet today. We should eat a little humble pie while watching this.
The internet is waaay better than it used to be :D It's cool for average players like me to see how much progress really can be made, without the clickbait fakery :)
I have been playin guitar for 9 years on and off, and I still play like 3 months . Now I am doing some serious training and hope to improve myself this remaining year
Yes, quality is much more important than quantity when practicing. And: If you are absolutely on the beat, you stop hearing the click. It feels really weird at first, but when you feel the beat internally, it won't throw you off. Rhythmic precision is highly underrated by many if not most.
Thank you. It’s something I really need to do. I hate it because it’s mindless and boring but it’s essential for building skills. The lesson you gave us something That all beginner an intermediary players can relate to. Thanks again
Np man, I guess if we want to get good, we have to feel the burn :D Unfortunately I feel that practice cannot be mindless (to be effective), it really takes effort / focus, that's why we avoid it... Share the results with us if you try something like this :)
I get what you mean! Bring mindfulness into it. There's actually lots going on. It's always a really interesting process for me to find where the bottlenecks are and experiment with what brings more efficiency. I play drums, but I guess the same applies to everything.
One way to look at ANY exercise is that it's anything but mindless. If you're practicing it without putting full concentration and mind into it, it will not serve as anything other than what you describe it as, with very slow results. When I was trying for high competition in shooting in my hey days, I often went through a thousand rounds of ammo daily. One series after another, for hours at the time. But while it was boring for those who stayed mediocre at it, there was so many things to work at to make it more perfect the next time. After each series, everything was quickly analyzed, processed, adjustments were made to find the perfect position and rhythm. It's absolutely the same with music. If you see this as mindless exercise, then you are not doing yourself any favor. So many things go together to form a perfection, and to be able to go to the next step and the step after, you should strive for perfection with EVERY pick, every movement, every note. It's anything BUT mindless.
Tbh having a sort of "mindless" exercise such as this lets you just focus on your finger placement technique rather than any music theory or wondering what to play or how to play it. When you want to jam or play a song, do it! When you're just sitting and watching a show and want to keep your hands busy, do this!
This exercise is very helpful to me, i included this to my daily exercises before playing anything, I've been doing this for almost 2 years now. Whenever i didn't do this exercise when i pick up a guitar i feel that something is missing. Im telling you, stick with this exercise and try different variations of it. In just 3 months my finger dexterity skyrocket using these. Now i have 13 fingerstyle song under my repertoire and i can say that this really help me.
I was having fretting hand discomfort and I started playing the chromatic 1 2 3 4 with my thumb off the back of the neck and after a few days it helped with the tension. It’s weird and I don’t know why I started but it helped me.
Thanks for sharing your progress. My problem with practice often is: I start, I suck, I skip it. It's very reassuring to see others struggling as well but pushing through!!
Best thing you can do is start slow and try to be consistent, and challenge yourself. When you feel like you're not good enough, the only direction you have to go is up!
Try to tell yourself "whoopsie gotta try that again" instead of I suck. Part of learning to practice is learning to be kind enough to yourself that you don't mind trying again
I love the dedication and willingness to accept weaknesses and slow it down and start again. Ive been playing for 20+ years and have started all these exercises again recently too .
Very good! It's easier for me to keep tempo if I don't look at my hands. Sounds weird but I watch myself in a mirror! It broke my habit of looking directly at my hands while still monitoring my technique. Also blindfold exercise is good. The power being used by the eyes and visual cortex will usually provide a greater benefit if it was being bypassed to the ears and fingers, if that makes sense.
Definitely. I experimented with keeping my eyes closed during these practice sessions - it was very overwhelming for me. There's an article I read at the time, it's makes sense: douglasniedt.com/Tech_Tip_Practice_With_Your_Eyes_Closed.html
@@downcode Indeed... For me, he is the Man...;-) "Michael Chapdelaine is the only guitarist ever to win First Prize in the world’s top competitions in both the Classical and Fingerstyle genres; the Guitar Foundation of America International Classical Guitar Competition and the National Fingerstyle Championship at the Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival at Winfield." Even though there are many good guitarists, he has all the capabilities and virtues that I personally appreciate. High level both Arranger and Performer, disciplined and rigorous musician with Master Technique, not a showing off person, no easy complacency or BS...;-) I follow him from many years and he is one of the best for me...
Amazing, great job and true technique. Out of all the fancy guitar lessons TH-cam vids you simplified it and made it streamlined to the new or beginning including intermediate guitarist. The basic to intermediate practice techniques will work and definitely improve guitar playing no matter how repetitive and monotonous it feels like when practicing. Great job, excellent dedication to practice and one of the best videos I’ve seen to inspire new and returning guitarists to practice.
Been playing off and on (never seriously) for almost 21 years. Saw the video about the spider walk thing while I was looking up something for a video game. Decided to try the technique while waiting for said game to install. I'm on day 3 & I already feel like I'm improving! It's incredible how much you can pick up from watching videos like yours.
I play fast drums, 200 bpm double time, punk beats. I had to use very much the same technique as you to get to speed… And learned very much the same things along the way..🤘… Now days, I will set metronome at 100 BPM’s and have it only play the first note… If I play 200 BPM’s over the 100, the beep lands on the (1) note every other measure…. It’s been a great exercise..
Another way of staying on beat is counting the beats out loud 1 2 3 4 and tapping your foot, the human brain is naturally quite good at keeping time when interacting with your voice and body instead of just focusing on your hands. It's something drummers do a lot when learning to play with a click
Haha you do the same thing I do when I get pissed and can't get a part or scale down, the mad mute strum. You did an awesome job remember it takes 10,000 hours to be a master of something. Also limiting yourself to that one exercise is limiting your potential, I do the spider for no more than 10 minutes. Then I move to diagonal fingers, it's kind of like sweep picking type arpeggio's. Then I focus on picking techniques down picking, alternate picking and economy picking. By the time its all said and done I burn about 20-30 minutes prior to what I was going to learn for that day.
The worst part is I keep coming across newer exercises and add those on top of what I currently do. I have recently stopped and opted to use practice sets of exercises to improve speed, agility, and accuracy. Because like with anything, the human body adapts quickly, and the mind gets bored. Then you effort wanes keep that in mind.
Not that I'm a shredder or something like that, but it really helps to keep metronome on half notes (like you did 2/4), because fast bpms make you nervous and rushing even if you can play this fast. If you really need that precision, than it helps just to internalize metronome beats as half notes (basically, accent only every other beat)
Great job. Though my improvement in this exercise has been painfully slow (and nowhere near as much as yours), it has resulted in real, noticeable improvements in my playing generally.
Great video. I would suggest to further your progress: close your eyes and focus on what you hear and feel. We lose so much to our vision and its only because of our dependency. Take that step and stick with it.
Been playing guitar for 20 or so years, never really done any exercises like this, just learned to play what I like. But 1 quick try has taught me that I'm pretty decent on the run ups, but on the way down I'm terrible! Especially finger 4 to 3!
as someone who doesn't play any instrument this video actually gave me a pretty good insight as to what the challenges in learning guitar playing as a skill are. I used to have a (way too cheap) guitar as a kid that I tried to learn some melodies on and at some point tried to find Metallica songs I could try parts of, but lost interest rather quickly. I have very little in terms of knowledge on music theory, so I guess if I ever start learning guitar for real I'll have a learning curve to overcome before I can get to actually playing a song, but at least I know to expect it now :)
Even the cheapest guitars are great nowdays! Also there is a LOT of guitar content on YT now, and it's waaaaAAAaaAAaaay easier to get information & learn today. Good luck :))
For the timing problem, a great method is doing an accent in the first of every 4 notes, that way you can focus on the first one which goes on the beat
if you want to practice a technique similar to this but also train your ears and mind do this with scales, play 3/4/5/6 note sequences up and down a scale instead of just playing up and down it all in one go, you will start to pick up other scales alot easier and if your always looking to become better at improvisation it helps a ton
I TOTALLY hear you about the work thing man been playing roughly the same amount of years and took years off against my will because of constant overtime and having two kids but I've been at it solid now for a few years only plan on improving from here and good job btw this exercise definitely does help with speed and timing/overall accuracy and dexterity.
Thank you. I just started to do a spider exercise yesterday before finding your video. The video gave me a practice framework and many appreciated practice tips, but the most valuable takeaway is your attitude. After tuning my guitar before practice, I'm going to do an attitude adjustment to get myself in tune. Good luck with your playing.
hey man, thanks for sharing. im about ready to start doing drills myself and it was helpful to hear the SOUND of the spider exercise. but also it was really cool to see you go through this each day and wow 200 was fast!!! the notes were all really helpful and interesting as you went along.
@@downcode For 8 days, it was still fantastic work! Even though it isn't perfect the difference is very noticeable. Really enjoyed seeing your technique improve over time. Lots of respect for you slowing back down later once you noticed you got ahead of the beat.
Good job and excellent discipline. One of us quit guitar for five years at one point so making the commitment to get back in real playing shape is both hard and admirable.
Very HELPFUL video ,I’m in the same position as you playing guitar the same amount of years but had a 5-7 years gap between and few days before i decided to picking up the guitar again ,accidentally fell in a video of YT Channel "Bernth"that really motivated me to go back playing.. So i started spider exercise 2 days ago ..
Nice man, stick to it and put in the work/hours. I'm trying to conquer alternate picking, putting in 3-4hrs a day, and twiddling my hands when commuting or doing whatever mundane activities. It's really starting to pay off finally :)
I was once mildly interested in speed reading. One of the tricks you could use to speed read was to try and read way faster than you can actually keep up with (like, have words going by on a screen) then lower it down to a speed that used to seem fast and it becomes WAY easier. In my experience, this seems to work with guitar too.
hey brother! awesome video! not criticizing at all, but wanted to give a tip to save yourself later down the line - at around 3:15-3:19 mark I noticed that angle between your wrist and forearm. good rule of thumb is to consciously try to keep the wrist as straight as possible with the forearm to avoid unnecessary strain because it can lead to some serious wrist injuries. Cheers :)
Hey man, you're completely right, I have noticed that during this period and tried to fix it (you can see the more "natural" hand positions later on in the video). But definitely something to keep in mind ! Cheers o/
@@downcode you know what it is? We’re convicted of out own guilt. Your practice video reminds your viewers what they should be doing, the boring stuff like finger isolation exercises, spider routines and using a metronome! I should video myself practicing! Dan the Man. Sidney, BC.
Thanks for posting this. You would make a great instructor. Your written comments along the way help me learn to focus and adjust my timing--and to be patient! (I also started playing young, then stopped for a while too long).
I have a lot of respect for you for how long you practiced each session. I get bored and give up pretty consistently after about 20 minutes and walk away to do something else. Your results really punctuate the difference your dedication made.
I think practicing too much can make you worse. You need to let your muscles rest. I notice when i rest for a few minutes, and i try again, i get fastwr and accurate. Skipping a day also helps. I think its like the gym...for ur hands..you NEED rest days and rest between sets.
This got me to pick up the guitar for the first time in 8 years. Really felt like I was done because the break was so long but thanks for giving me the motivation!!
I have an electric guitar that i have played on and off for about 5 months... Nothing serious some anime riffs here and there and chunks of game music, but i stumbled upon your vid and when you said the exercise was boring i agreed, but i knew my own skill won't allow to make it all that much engaging either. But then i had a genius idea... If i could make the exercise less dull than playing with a metronome, then i could play for hours. And i did. Most of my spotify playlist consist in EDM/Rock/Metal music that naturally build up and have a fixed tempo aside from the drop. I have a Lekato which is a portable amplifier for headphones that's also a Bluetooth device so. I had spotify + my own guitar and since songs are metronomic in nature i just did all kinds of spider walks. ascending, descending, skipping, chromatic. If the bpm was too high then i just waited and made it slower for myself. For the most part it sounded awful but i was landing every beat (which was really cool) but when i happened to also land on the same key/note OHHHHH man the raw endorphins from that fueled me for another 30 min hahah so i ended up doing like a 2 hour of spider walks + chromatic jamming and i had a blast. Had to subscribe after that as your video gave me the motivation to take guitar seriously for once Thanks a lot and i will for sure try to build this into a routine to enhance my skills
Haha interesting approach, but I couldn't stand the dissonance. You can practice to drum beats that people have uploaded to YT, that's pretty cool as well :)
Great exercise metronome playing: Feel the click on second 8th note or on the 4th 16th note from example. You can also use gap click, where the metronem leaves beats empty
I do exercises like this. I get pretty fast and clean with them. The problem I have is what does it give me? I can do the exercises cleaner and faster but I rarely see how it impacts my playing.
its just building your foundation for other stuff. think of it like going to the gym. you do isolated body movements and get stronger, but it doesn’t necessarily make you better at fighting or using those muscles in complex movements. TLDR: it makes the harder stuff easier to do
Depends on what your goal is, I wanted to improve my technique overall, so I could record guitar parts more quickly and in less takes. It served me well.
It builds your finger strength and marries your left and right hand together. If you play each note on the tips of your fingers, your hand will develop the muscle memory to retain correct positioning when you play. I can play a few Satriani songs and this simple exercise was vital for me to do that.
thank you so much for sharing this! i recently started learning the guitar and i want to be able to play my next song effortless before its release on may 24th. this was encouraging!
Some of us have very short little fingers, mine is 3cm shorter than my ring finger and it makes the spider very hard indeed, not impossible, but extremely difficult, as having one’s little finger on constrains the third forcing it close to the second and off the fret. I found it helpful to start with three fingers only in order to strengthen my ring or third finger before moving to four, also to work on separating or stretching second and third. I notice than many pro guitarists have little fingers nearly as long as the others. I am thoroughly envious as it must be an advantage.
There are epic guitar players who are even missing fingers. They can't do some stuff, but they're still awesome in their own way. If you work around your weaknesses you can develop a unique playing / writing style. Try looking at things this way, that's what helped me out :)
That's a good plan developing ring finger strength first. I have short pinkies too, with small hands to boot lol. I'll give this tip a try. (As people often say though, Segovia himself had stubby fingers. You can see from his hand casts that his pinkie barely came to his ring finger knuckle. So all's not lost for us. 🙂)
@@e.s.r5809 thanks. I have quite long fingers otherwise, but my pinkie is way below the top joint of my ring finger, perhaps 1cm worse than Segovia. I would love even an extra 1cm. I see from photos of him playing that he had to bend his middle two fingers backwards from the back of the hand in order compensate for his somewhat short pinkie. A good exercise for ring finger is dim arpeggios: one note per string, so I will just give the notes F, B F, G#, D, G#, one finger per fret, then you shift up one fret and return to the 6th string, shift up one fret and go back up… and so on, as far up fretboard as you can get, then you come back down again, stepping down one fret at each reversal. Or, you can just stay in first and second position alternating between them, which really does not let your ring finger off. The idea is to play legato at all speeds. Just a week or two of doing that as a warm up helped me a lot.
Are you doing it backwards too? I watched most of the video, but didn't see it going backwards, as in going pinky, ring, middle, index when you come back up. Highly recommend doing this variation as well. It's much harder, and may help you improve your overall control.
Hmm, I'll give it a try, thanks. There's an awful lot of these exercises that you can do. When I was younger I used to do Petrucci's Rock Discipline warmups... that was pretty crazy, but I didn't see much real world use of it.
Definitely yes, the control was way better, also the overall awareness about the tone & timing was improved. I will do another month of this challenge this Feb, but maybe focus on the picking hand (alternate picking) this time.
Good stuff. The point is to start very slow with your hand relaxed and barely putting pressure on the frets, speed it up while still maintaining the same level of relaxation.
It's ok, I expected more TBH but it is what it is. Doing the exercises revealed a lot of other flaws in my playing that I had to correct. Yup, playing the old stuff from the time you were pushing yourself is hard... you have to practice really hard again to reach that level... I hate that as well :)
I'm only six minutes into the video and this was posted over a year ago, but something that really helps keep on beat is tapping your foot to the beat. I was taught to do this when I was in band but I have also just personally found, coming back into playing an instrument, that it helps have control over playing on beat.
@downcode-backstage If you tap with the front of the foot instead of the heel it may be a little less comfortable but it makes a lot less noise although maybe your mics are awesome idk🤷♂️
This video made me quit guitar I have been playing for almost 10 years In the last 5 years I wanted to do 3 things things I wanted to do: -practice every day(even for 15 min) -learn guitar theory -generally get better at guitar Things I managed to do: -practice almost every day (I say almost because sometimes when I practice I fail again and again and again I would say that that isnt practice that a waste of time) -fail to learn the basics of music theory after trying 25 times on different sources of information (I would learn it and then forget it after a week even when I try to use and practice theory) -get worse at playing guitar (I dont know how or why but even when i practiced and played what I loved playing I only kept getting worse and worse to the point I couldnt learn to play new songs) I will probably try again in a month but for now Im done because my mental health is slowly turning into shit Edit: I played again today I couldn't help myself and it was ok I just didn't practice I played some stuff I wrote a year ago (its fun to play because its simple af) Ty all for the support and usually I would say I quit for that day but I had a mental breakdown so I thought I was gona quit forever :)
Relax and return to the basics. Leave goals aside and just enjoy playing. Give yourself some time just enjoying playing for the sake of it, then slowly start setting small goals, like "learn about sus2 chords this week/month". Always remember to have fun.
Practice in 10min slots: 10min in the morning, 10min in the afternoon, preferably total of 20+mins a day. Do not multitask for best results, only think about the guitar and your fingers. Borrow a book or find a single credible website and learn bit by bit from that one source. Maybe paste a note somewhere that you always look at to make sure you remind yourself and not forget. Then change that note after a week for a new one. Write down your progress every week. It really helps you to stay motivated and wary of how your progress is going, even if a little. Personally, its a rocky beginning at first but gradually it became easier and easier. Treat adversity as challenges and take breaks when necessary. Do it sooner then a month, otherwise you’ll fall out of learning the instrument, good luck.
Man, if I could only put into words the amount of frustration that I experienced when practicing guitar... For years & years I tried different techniques, which made me worse at first, and took months to get back to the level I was at previously. Spent countless hours reading the forums, talking to other guitar players etc. etc... On top of that, I broke my left hand in high school, it didn't heal the best, and that was fucking torturing me for years. All in all - a very, VERY frustrating experience. The exact same pain I felt during my Engineering studies, during my programming career, during my skateboarding practice... and what I kind of confirmed for myself is that we get better through pain & frustration. It is a "universal principle" I guess, so it's better to embrace it & push trough. Also - you don't have to be one of the best players, you can still create quality work, and that's where creativity comes into play - which is also very hard to develop & channel... Life is a struggle I guess haha, don't quit :)
I was looking for a video to watch while having lunch and I clicked on this video just to see a few minutes and go away, but I watch it in its entirety, from the begging to the end. why is this so cool to see?
Absolutely brother. Finger strength and dexterity will help your playing more than all the theory in the world. Sometimes we skip playing things that sound good because our fingers can't do it. Another good thing to practice is spacial awareness. Knowing where all the strings are without looking
Its the Best excercise! Practice an every possible scale at the fingerboard and in different speeds. Special Tipp: The slower and more exact u practice, the better u can play it faster as well! I Mean literally Slow motion for about 5minutes.... I will feel probably like when u make ur first fingermoves on the Board! If the itches and stitches are too heavy or nervous system feels like overload keep on the excercise as long as Possible! If its too much try it again later that slow! That is the Trick for every Speed play if done well! I can promisse that! Meanwhile Keep focusing to get in the right Position with straight back and dropped shoulders, so that the Arms and Hands are mostly in a relaxed state. To improve more u can also add the hammerings and pulloff technique for even more Power in the Fingertipps! Have Fun and Keep sleek like water!
Very cool! I am currently attempting to recover my playing skills after a 36 year hiatus. Not sure I ever practiced this back in the day, though I knew about it. After seeing your results I will definitely try this now! Thank you and congrats!
4:44 I feel this. I feel like in my subjective experience, it is because i am anticipating what comes next and trying to get to the 'end' as if my brain wants to let go of the tension it is holding. because your actions and thoughts are 'too' demanding. I think this is a trainable skill, to be able to hold that line before eventually crumbling, and get better and better at it pushing the time of collapse and over anticipation further away, staying 'present' for longer, keeping your confidence aswell because you are fighting off the natural response of potentially getting it wrong or not being on beat, the juggle is real. Going to give this a go! Thankyou for posting.
Week 1 and 62 years old. I almost cannot place 4 fingers on adjacent frets. But I also know from experience it IS possible to achieve what seems to be impossible with consistent and correct practice. This exercise will be part of my routine, so thanks for sharing!
Practice every day. If you find this exercise too difficult, try playing something else for a while and come back to it after a couple of months, it will work out :)
While this can be super effective, I'd suggest praciting licks that can be used in musical context. This kind of practicing is a form of medieval torture. Music should sound good, even when you practice. Because that way it makes us stick with the practicing, and the licks can be used in musical context elsewhere. Chromatic licks have their use in jazz, but usually people don't use it like that, but instead whip themselves in some kind of medieval guitar punishment ritual
@@downcode Sure and discipline is good but most exercises (even very physically difficult ones with extreme stretches and string skipping etc.) can be made to have musical context. This however not due to it's nature. I guess it is effective since many people do it
Personally, my guitar playing got slingshot and elevated in a short space of time because I tried to learn and practice Discipline by King Crimson. I then tried Three of a Perfect Pair when i had that going good, and soon after started learning Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part III Intro. I can proudly say I can cleanly play the first 12 seconds at decent speed. In about 3 months my left hand technique is surprising, I feel like I can learn any riff or motion and play clean decently quick. My only problem now is finding the drive to learn more songs
Haha yeah those riffs are pretty similar to the exercise in the video. Larks' Tongues intro is sick... I don't know where would I begin if I wanted to learn it :D
@@downcode there's clips of people playing it, one on acoustic is especially good, there's a downloadable pdf tab, the riff is based on similar patterns as larks part 1 (which i need to learn) and playing one note before moving on to another string each time, at consistent speed and cleanness, also using a different fret finger on each note. It's actually very fluid and looks easy when done right. Learning up to and including Roberts 16th Note pattern In Discipline prior and during learning larks part 3 seems like a useful combo
I know your pain, I've been "playing" off and on, more off, for the past 35 years. There are times where Ill practice or just play what I know often for a while, but not religiously. I did see a video on this technique, didn't know it was called spider, I think of Dave Mustaines spiderchord trick. Anywho, I tried this just a few months ago and my fingers definitely had issues switching string individually. Felt like a noob, but even after a few 10 min practices I got better, just didn't keep on keepin on. Ill have to get back to it. Thanks for the vid and even if you only get 10 mins a day. everyone can, keep it up, even days you don't want to. I can attest that had I done just 10 mins a day by now Id be much much better. Learn from my mistake, you'll be thankful to yourself in the end!!
Lessons learned:
1. Practise with a metronome while imagining that you’re recording - this will make you try really hard to play as clean as possible. It puts the brain into ultra-focused mode
2. Record your practise sessions and listen back to them - you will be surprised by how bad you sound. This will force you to get better.
3. Limit your practise time. There’s no point beating yourself up and failing to play a part cleanly over and over again. Play the best you can and tomorrow will be better.
4. Pay attention to the timing. Listen to the metronome and focus on playing exactly on the beat.
5. You need to focus REALLY HARD when practising. Watching TV while playing is not an option.
6. Focus on playing “fluidly” - try to achieve equal note lengths at all times
7. You must “feel the beat” with your brain/body. It’s not a good tactic to just listen to the metronome and completely focus on it, letting it keep time for you. Having the metronome play only the 2nd and 4th beat is a great way to become more responsible for keeping time
8. Begin each practise session at a slow, achievable tempo
9. At higher tempos, you really need to be comfortable with playing the part, so that you can focus on proper timing
Good advice for pretty much any musician practicing anything lol, if I had adhered to this more closely during my years of playing piano and drums I would easily be twice as fluent and comfortable in my playing :/ Nothing to do now but start up again and pay closer attention to my technique.
Lesson learned: if you’re going to do something everyday for a month, do it in February.
I think it flew over my head? New Year’s resolution?
its cus feb has less days than the other months
i think
@@gojilla3820 february is 28 days unless it's a leap year then it's 29, so at worst you're going to be getting three less days of practice and at best you'll get 1 less day of practice
guitar rule: play a cool chord after you finish training the exercise
Guitar rule: after playing the chord, let it ring out, and, if you feel it necessary, play it again fast and then kill the strings
@@TylerSmith-om1cr that's literally me man
@@TylerSmith-om1cr bro same 💀 I do both of these lmao
Absolutely written in stone
Damn, i do the same.😅😂
The training this provides for the picking hand is underrated.
Yup, there are some good alternate picking movements there.
Are you meant to go up down up down up down?
@@fishstix03 no ur supposed to go down up down up down up
@@fishstix03 That's what she said. (And, yes).
@@AMurderOfLobs 😂
I've been playing guitar for about 20 years. I did the spider exercise when I first started playing, but had not done it since, until I saw this video. I felt my technique was lacking compared to where it used to be. So, I decided to do this. Thank you for the suggestion and reminder. I'm about 10 days in. I do it as I am sitting through my morning meetings, for about 30 minutes, then 10-15 minutes throughout the day, and again 15-30 minutes before bed. Results are outstanding. Very good thing to do. Can't wait to see where I am at in another 20 days.
Hmm practice during meetings, good suggestion... I'll just aim the camera a little higher :D
@@downcode hahaha!
Hey hope you're still up to it! If not take it as a friendly reminder and encouragement to do so! Let us know your results here soon. :)
Well dont forget to let the people know your honest opinion on how much of a difference it actually makes after your 20 days
@@LucidRacing Results are great so far. Speed in normal playing has increased and I’m playing more runs including my pinky, than I ever have before.
I did not expect this video to be as engrossing as it was. It also really made me want to practice!
I'm very surprised that this many people are watching it, a video that I made primarily for myself xD
Don´t bother watching the video. Result: He became Spiderman.
Thanks! I'm brand new to guitar but wanted to try this exercise for better hand independence and stretching as I have very, very small hands. Seeing someone who's played guitar for a while struggle and seeing that it takes time has really helped as I struggle massively with feeling like I'm not progressing.
Small hands don't limit you much. The example that always comes to my mind is Michael Romero from Symphony X :D
Short scale guitar.
You will notice how your fingers become more flexible with time. I started playing classical guitar when I was 6 years old. That guitar is still big today and I don't know how I managed to get my hands around it. But I did. And you will too. Just give yourself some time and when a practice becomes boring, take a break and instead do whatever you want to do, try to learn a random chord, or learn chords for a song you like. As long as you're enjoying yourself, your brain will remember it.
Also, take a mobile phone and record yourself. Do a video of your excercises like here. That will create a bit of pressure, or stage fright, if you will, but it will focus you better and later you can rewatch your video and check everything you need to work on. Maybe left hand, maybe right hand, maybe wrist movement, sitting position...
You'll get there!
You'd be surprised how much reach is about flexible tendons, not the length of your fingers! I have seriously tiny hands too. I agree spiders are really hard for us at first, just placing our fingers on the frets takes active effort. I had to start higher up the neck, around the 12th fret.
I think it makes a big difference doing hand, wrist and finger stretches and warmups/cooldowns before and after any practice. Most classical pianists, cellists etc are taught to stretch before they even touch their instrument. They have a lot of good resources about it on the Internet. 🙂
I like listening to music on the bus and doing finger independence exercises to the beat, lol. 90s/00s house has a great tempo for hand workouts. 😂
Another thing that can help with getting discouraged is not comparing yourself with others I've found. There are plenty of wonderful guitarists on social media that I am nowhere near the level of and it used to leave me discouraged but as I keep playing more and more things just click in my head. I have my 7 year old daughter practicing these exercises and she has super duper tiny hands. It's a struggle for her as well but I see her improvement every day! Practice hard! :)
I used a similar method and it does indeed work. The great thing is that I noticed an improvement on day 2. The payoff is almost instantaneous, so the effect is that you are encouraged by progress almost immediately.
The exercise works. It can be a pain in the ass but stick with it. The next day you're going to love playing again, at least it was that way for me. The day I spend practicing it often sounds like crap, but the weird thing is the following day I seem like a different guitar player than I was the day before. Its amazing how the brain fixes mechanics while the body is at rest. And it gets even better as you progress.
Improvement in what, the exercise? If the intention is "finger independence", then you would maybe be interested in knowing that your fingers always move independently, regardless of if you do this exercise. This is from a person who has played both Yngwie malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Francisco tarrega and Augustine Barrios.. Now I also play piano. It's a waste of time to perform "special" exercises" to do something that your fingers can do perfectly well without this exercise. So, if you want waste time doing a movement you will maybe never encounter in actual guitar playing, then continue doing it. If not, just study techniques and music of composers that you want to learn. This exercise is based off on of the classical guitar technique workbooks, equivelant to hanon or Czerny for the piano. IMO complete waste of time.
@@alvodin6197 pfffft try playing mary had a little lamb then you can talk
@@alvodin6197
A movement you will never use in guitar playing? That's such a hilariously stupid thing to say.
Every chromatic run in a solo ever uses this exercise.. and 99 percent of licks use pieces of this exercise.
It's easier to use your middle and ring finger than it is to use your pinky and ring finger. Objectively. Nothing about playing guitar is "natural movement".
Its ALL practice.
How long you practice a day?
@@alvodin6197 Well, i struggled with left and right coordination until i learned that exercise. Im 51 years old and started playing at age 14. Yes, all those years between and i got through sets by hamstringing myself because couldnt figure it out. Even instructors could not get me to fix it. Until 2 years ago i spoke with an instructor who identified by problem and taught me a very simple exercise. Its about timing, not trying to sound like a famous guitar player. I tried that when i was younger. It didnt work for me . This exercise did. I can say that I wasted 30 years trying to sound like EVH. My playing suffered the same timing/LHand RHand problem.
The exercise shown to me impacted my playing overnight. I practiced it a half hour per day and i am 100xs better a guitar player, amd it took only about two to three weeks.
My hats off to you sir. It's take some serious bravery to put yourself out there like this especially with how people can be on the internet today. We should eat a little humble pie while watching this.
The internet is waaay better than it used to be :D
It's cool for average players like me to see how much progress really can be made, without the clickbait fakery :)
I have been playin guitar for 9 years on and off, and I still play like 3 months . Now I am doing some serious training and hope to improve myself this remaining year
@@outdatedmind9871 Let's go :)
Yes, quality is much more important than quantity when practicing. And: If you are absolutely on the beat, you stop hearing the click. It feels really weird at first, but when you feel the beat internally, it won't throw you off. Rhythmic precision is highly underrated by many if not most.
Some of the most boring exercises give the best results.
I think the important thing is structure.
Great stuff!
Thank you. It’s something I really need to do. I hate it because it’s mindless and boring but it’s essential for building skills. The lesson you gave us something That all beginner an intermediary players can relate to. Thanks again
Np man, I guess if we want to get good, we have to feel the burn :D
Unfortunately I feel that practice cannot be mindless (to be effective), it really takes effort / focus, that's why we avoid it...
Share the results with us if you try something like this :)
I get what you mean! Bring mindfulness into it. There's actually lots going on. It's always a really interesting process for me to find where the bottlenecks are and experiment with what brings more efficiency. I play drums, but I guess the same applies to everything.
One way to look at ANY exercise is that it's anything but mindless. If you're practicing it without putting full concentration and mind into it, it will not serve as anything other than what you describe it as, with very slow results.
When I was trying for high competition in shooting in my hey days, I often went through a thousand rounds of ammo daily. One series after another, for hours at the time.
But while it was boring for those who stayed mediocre at it, there was so many things to work at to make it more perfect the next time. After each series, everything was quickly analyzed, processed, adjustments were made to find the perfect position and rhythm.
It's absolutely the same with music. If you see this as mindless exercise, then you are not doing yourself any favor. So many things go together to form a perfection, and to be able to go to the next step and the step after, you should strive for perfection with EVERY pick, every movement, every note.
It's anything BUT mindless.
Tbh having a sort of "mindless" exercise such as this lets you just focus on your finger placement technique rather than any music theory or wondering what to play or how to play it. When you want to jam or play a song, do it! When you're just sitting and watching a show and want to keep your hands busy, do this!
This exercise is very helpful to me, i included this to my daily exercises before playing anything, I've been doing this for almost 2 years now. Whenever i didn't do this exercise when i pick up a guitar i feel that something is missing. Im telling you, stick with this exercise and try different variations of it. In just 3 months my finger dexterity skyrocket using these. Now i have 13 fingerstyle song under my repertoire and i can say that this really help me.
I was having fretting hand discomfort and I started playing the chromatic 1 2 3 4 with my thumb off the back of the neck and after a few days it helped with the tension. It’s weird and I don’t know why I started but it helped me.
Please suggest us some tough exercise🙏
Thanks for sharing your progress. My problem with practice often is: I start, I suck, I skip it. It's very reassuring to see others struggling as well but pushing through!!
Progress is struggle :) I'm struggling through another 1-month challenge right now ...
See it the other was practice the best you can for x time reps whatever. Doesn't matter if you succeed, matters you do it.
See it the other was practice the best you can for x time reps whatever. Doesn't matter if you succeed, matters you do it.
Best thing you can do is start slow and try to be consistent, and challenge yourself. When you feel like you're not good enough, the only direction you have to go is up!
Try to tell yourself "whoopsie gotta try that again" instead of I suck. Part of learning to practice is learning to be kind enough to yourself that you don't mind trying again
I love the dedication and willingness to accept weaknesses and slow it down and start again. Ive been playing for 20+ years and have started all these exercises again recently too .
Nice man.. yeah it sucks but I can say my playing is getting better and better, I practice almost every day now.
Very good! It's easier for me to keep tempo if I don't look at my hands. Sounds weird but I watch myself in a mirror! It broke my habit of looking directly at my hands while still monitoring my technique. Also blindfold exercise is good. The power being used by the eyes and visual cortex will usually provide a greater benefit if it was being bypassed to the ears and fingers, if that makes sense.
Definitely. I experimented with keeping my eyes closed during these practice sessions - it was very overwhelming for me. There's an article I read at the time, it's makes sense: douglasniedt.com/Tech_Tip_Practice_With_Your_Eyes_Closed.html
@@downcode Definitely, it works for me and a good example of it is Michael Chapdelaine.
@@danielibnz Damn, first time hearing of the guy... he rips! His intuitive awareness of his guitar is beyond amazing...
@@downcode Indeed... For me, he is the Man...;-)
"Michael Chapdelaine is the only guitarist ever to win First Prize in the world’s top competitions in both the Classical and Fingerstyle genres; the Guitar Foundation of America International Classical Guitar Competition and the National Fingerstyle Championship at the Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival at Winfield."
Even though there are many good guitarists, he has all the capabilities and virtues that I personally appreciate.
High level both Arranger and Performer, disciplined and rigorous musician with Master Technique, not a showing off person, no easy complacency or BS...;-)
I follow him from many years and he is one of the best for me...
Amazing, great job and true technique. Out of all the fancy guitar lessons TH-cam vids you simplified it and made it streamlined to the new or beginning including intermediate guitarist. The basic to intermediate practice techniques will work and definitely improve guitar playing no matter how repetitive and monotonous it feels like when practicing. Great job, excellent dedication to practice and one of the best videos I’ve seen to inspire new and returning guitarists to practice.
This video allows people to have a real understanding of how long certain skills are developed.
At least for us "regular" people haha
Woah this progress video and the lessons you noted were really helpful!! Thank you!!
Thank you for the close up. For a newbie without the close up nothing is clear :)
Been playing off and on (never seriously) for almost 21 years. Saw the video about the spider walk thing while I was looking up something for a video game. Decided to try the technique while waiting for said game to install. I'm on day 3 & I already feel like I'm improving! It's incredible how much you can pick up from watching videos like yours.
Nice man :))
I play fast drums, 200 bpm double time, punk beats.
I had to use very much the same technique as you to get to speed…
And learned very much the same things along the way..🤘…
Now days, I will set metronome at 100 BPM’s and have it only play the first note…
If I play 200 BPM’s over the 100, the beep lands on the (1) note every other measure…. It’s been a great exercise..
Glad to hear it, I guess it works then :))
Another way of staying on beat is counting the beats out loud 1 2 3 4 and tapping your foot, the human brain is naturally quite good at keeping time when interacting with your voice and body instead of just focusing on your hands. It's something drummers do a lot when learning to play with a click
This is the most Scandinavian practice routine I've ever seen
results unclear, didnt become a spider
really? i did
Haha you do the same thing I do when I get pissed and can't get a part or scale down, the mad mute strum. You did an awesome job remember it takes 10,000 hours to be a master of something. Also limiting yourself to that one exercise is limiting your potential, I do the spider for no more than 10 minutes. Then I move to diagonal fingers, it's kind of like sweep picking type arpeggio's. Then I focus on picking techniques down picking, alternate picking and economy picking. By the time its all said and done I burn about 20-30 minutes prior to what I was going to learn for that day.
*mad mute strum* hahah you got it!
Man, after reading your comment I really need to start practicing again xD
The worst part is I keep coming across newer exercises and add those on top of what I currently do. I have recently stopped and opted to use practice sets of exercises to improve speed, agility, and accuracy. Because like with anything, the human body adapts quickly, and the mind gets bored. Then you effort wanes keep that in mind.
Not that I'm a shredder or something like that, but it really helps to keep metronome on half notes (like you did 2/4), because fast bpms make you nervous and rushing even if you can play this fast. If you really need that precision, than it helps just to internalize metronome beats as half notes (basically, accent only every other beat)
I'll give that a try again, fast metronome clicking makes me nervous as well...
Great job. Though my improvement in this exercise has been painfully slow (and nowhere near as much as yours), it has resulted in real, noticeable improvements in my playing generally.
I could hear myself in the intro. Been on and off over 15 years and want to get into it more now and improve. Good work!
Same, I've played for like 12 or 13 years but on and off so I'm not really good
Great video. I would suggest to further your progress: close your eyes and focus on what you hear and feel. We lose so much to our vision and its only because of our dependency. Take that step and stick with it.
Been playing guitar for 20 or so years, never really done any exercises like this, just learned to play what I like.
But 1 quick try has taught me that I'm pretty decent on the run ups, but on the way down I'm terrible! Especially finger 4 to 3!
as someone who doesn't play any instrument this video actually gave me a pretty good insight as to what the challenges in learning guitar playing as a skill are. I used to have a (way too cheap) guitar as a kid that I tried to learn some melodies on and at some point tried to find Metallica songs I could try parts of, but lost interest rather quickly. I have very little in terms of knowledge on music theory, so I guess if I ever start learning guitar for real I'll have a learning curve to overcome before I can get to actually playing a song, but at least I know to expect it now :)
Even the cheapest guitars are great nowdays!
Also there is a LOT of guitar content on YT now, and it's waaaaAAAaaAAaaay easier to get information & learn today. Good luck :))
For the timing problem, a great method is doing an accent in the first of every 4 notes, that way you can focus on the first one which goes on the beat
Saw that in the Petrucci dvd, works wonderful. Really makes a difference.
Great video! I love the insights and the fact that you show the importance of taking it slow in all senses of the word
if you want to practice a technique similar to this but also train your ears and mind do this with scales, play 3/4/5/6 note sequences up and down a scale instead of just playing up and down it all in one go, you will start to pick up other scales alot easier and if your always looking to become better at improvisation it helps a ton
This might be cool to try out - keep the "spider" finger movement but play scale tones, hmm...
I TOTALLY hear you about the work thing man been playing roughly the same amount of years and took years off against my will because of constant overtime and having two kids but I've been at it solid now for a few years only plan on improving from here and good job btw this exercise definitely does help with speed and timing/overall accuracy and dexterity.
Totally man, but it does take discipline. I'll be following your progress ;D
Found this at just the right time, exactly when I needed it. Thanks for this man👍🏾
This is tremendously insightful. Your patience and self awareness show through your progress my friend. Thank you for sharing, and inspiring!
Pleasure bro, keep practicing :))
Thank you. I just started to do a spider exercise yesterday before finding your video. The video gave me a practice framework and many appreciated practice tips, but the most valuable takeaway is your attitude. After tuning my guitar before practice, I'm going to do an attitude adjustment to get myself in tune. Good luck with your playing.
15:45 * puts guitar away for another 7 years * 😄
Literally... :D
@@downcode Solid effort tho!
hey man, thanks for sharing. im about ready to start doing drills myself and it was helpful to hear the SOUND of the spider exercise. but also it was really cool to see you go through this each day and wow 200 was fast!!! the notes were all really helpful and interesting as you went along.
Glad you found it useful :)
Your progress just between day 1 and day 8 is wild! Great going, makes me want to go and practice too!
Yup but if you pay attention the playing is very sloppy in terms of timing. That's why I went backwards & slowed down :)
@@downcode For 8 days, it was still fantastic work! Even though it isn't perfect the difference is very noticeable. Really enjoyed seeing your technique improve over time. Lots of respect for you slowing back down later once you noticed you got ahead of the beat.
Good job and excellent discipline. One of us quit guitar for five years at one point so making the commitment to get back in real playing shape is both hard and admirable.
Definitely hard to push yourself every day. But it 100% pays off.
Valuable lesson. Use Febraury for month chalenges
Very HELPFUL video ,I’m in the same position as you playing guitar the same amount of years but had a 5-7 years gap between and few days before i decided to picking up the guitar again ,accidentally fell in a video of YT Channel "Bernth"that really motivated me to go back playing..
So i started spider exercise 2 days ago ..
Nice man, stick to it and put in the work/hours. I'm trying to conquer alternate picking, putting in 3-4hrs a day, and twiddling my hands when commuting or doing whatever mundane activities. It's really starting to pay off finally :)
I was once mildly interested in speed reading. One of the tricks you could use to speed read was to try and read way faster than you can actually keep up with (like, have words going by on a screen) then lower it down to a speed that used to seem fast and it becomes WAY easier. In my experience, this seems to work with guitar too.
Yup, Troy Grady talks about this trick - forcing yourself to go fast in order to get familiar with how it feels... definitely helpful
This is an excellent video 4 any beginners. This is everything I wish someone wudda told me about speed n clean and fluid playing
That's great to hear, I'm really glad it helps out :))
hey brother! awesome video! not criticizing at all, but wanted to give a tip to save yourself later down the line - at around 3:15-3:19 mark I noticed that angle between your wrist and forearm. good rule of thumb is to consciously try to keep the wrist as straight as possible with the forearm to avoid unnecessary strain because it can lead to some serious wrist injuries. Cheers :)
Hey man, you're completely right, I have noticed that during this period and tried to fix it (you can see the more "natural" hand positions later on in the video). But definitely something to keep in mind ! Cheers o/
@@downcode good to hear! just wanted to look out ‘cause I had to correct that myself a while back. Awesome video though man :)
Great job mate! I can’t believe I watched the whole damned thing. Practice!
I'm very surprised that this many people are watching it, a video that I made primarily for myself xD
@@downcode you know what it is? We’re convicted of out own guilt. Your practice video reminds your viewers what they should be doing, the boring stuff like finger isolation exercises, spider routines and using a metronome!
I should video myself practicing!
Dan the Man.
Sidney, BC.
@@dannytetreault Rock on Dan :)
Damn, I'm deaf in my left ear. All I heard was a metronome.
I’m deaf in my right ear. Mono audio is your friend
Thanks for posting this. You would make a great instructor. Your written comments along the way help me learn to focus and adjust my timing--and to be patient!
(I also started playing young, then stopped for a while too long).
Glad you found it usfeul :)
Personally I think I get more out of practicing with an acoustic, then switching to an electric and I’ve leveled up 5x
It is true. Electric guitar is easiest to play.
O was actually captivated, I watched it to the end. You have encouraged me to het back to practice
I have a lot of respect for you for how long you practiced each session. I get bored and give up pretty consistently after about 20 minutes and walk away to do something else. Your results really punctuate the difference your dedication made.
Thanks man, if you approach it with full focus it kind of gets interesting :|
I think practicing too much can make you worse. You need to let your muscles rest.
I notice when i rest for a few minutes, and i try again, i get fastwr and accurate.
Skipping a day also helps.
I think its like the gym...for ur hands..you NEED rest days and rest between sets.
This got me to pick up the guitar for the first time in 8 years. Really felt like I was done because the break was so long but thanks for giving me the motivation!!
Yesss !!
I would rather stick needles in my eyes...but awesome commitment, Well done
I almost thought the video was gonna be 28 days long lol. Good tips along the way, I’ll practice these spider exercises, never done them before
I have an electric guitar that i have played on and off for about 5 months... Nothing serious some anime riffs here and there and chunks of game music, but i stumbled upon your vid and when you said the exercise was boring i agreed, but i knew my own skill won't allow to make it all that much engaging either. But then i had a genius idea...
If i could make the exercise less dull than playing with a metronome, then i could play for hours. And i did.
Most of my spotify playlist consist in EDM/Rock/Metal music that naturally build up and have a fixed tempo aside from the drop.
I have a Lekato which is a portable amplifier for headphones that's also a Bluetooth device so. I had spotify + my own guitar and since songs are metronomic in nature i just did all kinds of spider walks. ascending, descending, skipping, chromatic. If the bpm was too high then i just waited and made it slower for myself. For the most part it sounded awful but i was landing every beat (which was really cool) but when i happened to also land on the same key/note OHHHHH man the raw endorphins from that fueled me for another 30 min hahah so i ended up doing like a 2 hour of spider walks + chromatic jamming and i had a blast.
Had to subscribe after that as your video gave me the motivation to take guitar seriously for once
Thanks a lot and i will for sure try to build this into a routine to enhance my skills
Haha interesting approach, but I couldn't stand the dissonance.
You can practice to drum beats that people have uploaded to YT, that's pretty cool as well :)
Great exercise metronome playing:
Feel the click on second 8th note or on the 4th 16th note from example. You can also use gap click, where the metronem leaves beats empty
Hard mode :D
Yup, but also really useful. Learned from my drum teacher. That's when you really understand the metronome
I do exercises like this. I get pretty fast and clean with them. The problem I have is what does it give me? I can do the exercises cleaner and faster but I rarely see how it impacts my playing.
Exactly my thoughts, at the end of the day you’re better off practicing regular scales and licks you can actually use in a real life scenario.
its just building your foundation for other stuff. think of it like going to the gym. you do isolated body movements and get stronger, but it doesn’t necessarily make you better at fighting or using those muscles in complex movements.
TLDR: it makes the harder stuff easier to do
Depends on what your goal is, I wanted to improve my technique overall, so I could record guitar parts more quickly and in less takes. It served me well.
It builds your finger strength and marries your left and right hand together. If you play each note on the tips of your fingers, your hand will develop the muscle memory to retain correct positioning when you play. I can play a few Satriani songs and this simple exercise was vital for me to do that.
thank you so much for sharing this! i recently started learning the guitar and i want to be able to play my next song effortless before its release on may 24th. this was encouraging!
Nice man, let me know when it's released I want to hear it :)
@@downcode gotchaaa
This is awesome! I think I might try this cuz my left hand is very sloppy
Give it a shot, let us know how it went :)
Thanks for posting this! It’s a great example of how a simple exercise, practiced daily can deliver great results. I think I’ll start this tomorrow!
It's really worth it, I'm doing it now every day ...
Some of us have very short little fingers, mine is 3cm shorter than my ring finger and it makes the spider very hard indeed, not impossible, but extremely difficult, as having one’s little finger on constrains the third forcing it close to the second and off the fret. I found it helpful to start with three fingers only in order to strengthen my ring or third finger before moving to four, also to work on separating or stretching second and third.
I notice than many pro guitarists have little fingers nearly as long as the others. I am thoroughly envious as it must be an advantage.
There are epic guitar players who are even missing fingers. They can't do some stuff, but they're still awesome in their own way. If you work around your weaknesses you can develop a unique playing / writing style. Try looking at things this way, that's what helped me out :)
That's a good plan developing ring finger strength first. I have short pinkies too, with small hands to boot lol. I'll give this tip a try.
(As people often say though, Segovia himself had stubby fingers. You can see from his hand casts that his pinkie barely came to his ring finger knuckle. So all's not lost for us. 🙂)
@@e.s.r5809 thanks. I have quite long fingers otherwise, but my pinkie is way below the top joint of my ring finger, perhaps 1cm worse than Segovia. I would love even an extra 1cm. I see from photos of him playing that he had to bend his middle two fingers backwards from the back of the hand in order compensate for his somewhat short pinkie.
A good exercise for ring finger is dim arpeggios: one note per string, so I will just give the notes F, B F, G#, D, G#, one finger per fret, then you shift up one fret and return to the 6th string, shift up one fret and go back up… and so on, as far up fretboard as you can get, then you come back down again, stepping down one fret at each reversal. Or, you can just stay in first and second position alternating between them, which really does not let your ring finger off. The idea is to play legato at all speeds. Just a week or two of doing that as a warm up helped me a lot.
Thank you for this! Im picking up guitar again and its good to see such progress
Are you doing it backwards too? I watched most of the video, but didn't see it going backwards, as in going pinky, ring, middle, index when you come back up. Highly recommend doing this variation as well. It's much harder, and may help you improve your overall control.
Hmm, I'll give it a try, thanks. There's an awful lot of these exercises that you can do. When I was younger I used to do Petrucci's Rock Discipline warmups... that was pretty crazy, but I didn't see much real world use of it.
I came expecting cheap content, but I got good content. Great tips thank you!
Did you notice substantial improvment during play time when practice was over?
Definitely yes, the control was way better, also the overall awareness about the tone & timing was improved. I will do another month of this challenge this Feb, but maybe focus on the picking hand (alternate picking) this time.
Good stuff. The point is to start very slow with your hand relaxed and barely putting pressure on the frets, speed it up while still maintaining the same level of relaxation.
How does it feel seeing that kind of improvement?
I can't even play any of the leads on any of the albums I wrote and recorded 25 years ago.
It's ok, I expected more TBH but it is what it is. Doing the exercises revealed a lot of other flaws in my playing that I had to correct.
Yup, playing the old stuff from the time you were pushing yourself is hard... you have to practice really hard again to reach that level... I hate that as well :)
Awesome work! I’m inspired to try this for the next 30 days.
I'm about to start another February challenge, so tag along :) (I'll be trying to learn a solo though)
More boring than actually doing it
What else did you expect this video to be?
Not really.
IRL i can't fast-forward to see the results.
Well played…
Stupid comment.
@@iggymcgeek730 try an augmented minor 7th arpeggio with a dropped d tuning. Pop some false harmonics in the 14th position. Much more fun . Xxx
I'm only six minutes into the video and this was posted over a year ago, but something that really helps keep on beat is tapping your foot to the beat. I was taught to do this when I was in band but I have also just personally found, coming back into playing an instrument, that it helps have control over playing on beat.
Definitely but it's maybe not a good habit if you're recording. The mics might pick that up...
@downcode-backstage If you tap with the front of the foot instead of the heel it may be a little less comfortable but it makes a lot less noise although maybe your mics are awesome idk🤷♂️
@@yg-sc2ci Sometimes though it's cool to hear those time-keeping sounds on the record, like on MJ vocal tracks... idk
@3:03 is the classic “I got frustrated with what I’m practicing so I’ll default back to a known chord”
Frustrated strum type beat 😄
great progress, fun to see it!
This video made me quit guitar
I have been playing for almost 10 years
In the last 5 years I wanted to do 3 things
things I wanted to do:
-practice every day(even for 15 min)
-learn guitar theory
-generally get better at guitar
Things I managed to do:
-practice almost every day (I say almost because sometimes when I practice I fail again and again and again I would say that that isnt practice that a waste of time)
-fail to learn the basics of music theory after trying 25 times on different sources of information (I would learn it and then forget it after a week even when I try to use and practice theory)
-get worse at playing guitar (I dont know how or why but even when i practiced and played what I loved playing I only kept getting worse and worse to the point I couldnt learn to play new songs)
I will probably try again in a month but for now Im done because my mental health is slowly turning into shit
Edit:
I played again today I couldn't help myself and it was ok I just didn't practice I played some stuff I wrote a year ago (its fun to play because its simple af)
Ty all for the support and usually I would say I quit for that day but I had a mental breakdown so I thought I was gona quit forever
:)
Relax and return to the basics. Leave goals aside and just enjoy playing. Give yourself some time just enjoying playing for the sake of it, then slowly start setting small goals, like "learn about sus2 chords this week/month". Always remember to have fun.
Practice in 10min slots: 10min in the morning, 10min in the afternoon, preferably total of 20+mins a day. Do not multitask for best results, only think about the guitar and your fingers.
Borrow a book or find a single credible website and learn bit by bit from that one source. Maybe paste a note somewhere that you always look at to make sure you remind yourself and not forget. Then change that note after a week for a new one.
Write down your progress every week. It really helps you to stay motivated and wary of how your progress is going, even if a little. Personally, its a rocky beginning at first but gradually it became easier and easier. Treat adversity as challenges and take breaks when necessary. Do it sooner then a month, otherwise you’ll fall out of learning the instrument, good luck.
@@fortisfina I will probably play tomorrow Im staring to get an itch to play but I needed a break. I had mental breakdown when I wrote that
Man, if I could only put into words the amount of frustration that I experienced when practicing guitar... For years & years I tried different techniques, which made me worse at first, and took months to get back to the level I was at previously. Spent countless hours reading the forums, talking to other guitar players etc. etc... On top of that, I broke my left hand in high school, it didn't heal the best, and that was fucking torturing me for years. All in all - a very, VERY frustrating experience.
The exact same pain I felt during my Engineering studies, during my programming career, during my skateboarding practice... and what I kind of confirmed for myself is that we get better through pain & frustration. It is a "universal principle" I guess, so it's better to embrace it & push trough.
Also - you don't have to be one of the best players, you can still create quality work, and that's where creativity comes into play - which is also very hard to develop & channel...
Life is a struggle I guess haha, don't quit :)
I was looking for a video to watch while having lunch and I clicked on this video just to see a few minutes and go away, but I watch it in its entirety, from the begging to the end. why is this so cool to see?
I guess everyone wants to see if it's worth the time & effort :)
I started guitar this spring and i will be incorporating this technique every day going forward. Glad this was recommended to me
Thank you for this video. When I do the spider exercise my fingers are flying all over the place. Now I know how to do it properly. Thanks again.
Watching this at double speed made it incredibly impressive.
Flight of the bumblebee "guiness records" :D
Thanks, man. You might have been the breakthrough that I've been waiting for for 12+ years.
Woah, I'm glad to help in any way possible, let us know your results :)
Absolutely brother. Finger strength and dexterity will help your playing more than all the theory in the world. Sometimes we skip playing things that sound good because our fingers can't do it.
Another good thing to practice is spacial awareness. Knowing where all the strings are without looking
Its the Best excercise!
Practice an every possible scale at the fingerboard and in different speeds.
Special Tipp: The slower and more exact u practice, the better u can play it faster as well!
I Mean literally Slow motion for about 5minutes....
I will feel probably like when u make ur first fingermoves on the Board!
If the itches and stitches are too heavy or nervous system feels like overload keep on the excercise as long as Possible!
If its too much try it again later that slow!
That is the Trick for every Speed play if done well!
I can promisse that!
Meanwhile Keep focusing to get in the right Position with straight back and dropped shoulders, so that the Arms and Hands are mostly in a relaxed state.
To improve more u can also add the hammerings and pulloff technique for even more Power in the Fingertipps!
Have Fun and Keep sleek like water!
Agreed. It's especially useful for ring/pinky coordination :)
this is exactly what i need to do too. thanks for showcasing your practice progress
Impressive progress! Keep it up and thank you for motivation! :)
This is to be the most practical video i have seen about this
Yeah I actually went ahead and did it :D
Very cool! I am currently attempting to recover my playing skills after a 36 year hiatus. Not sure I ever practiced this back in the day, though I knew about it. After seeing your results I will definitely try this now! Thank you and congrats!
Awesome man, just play every day. Consistency is key... (at least for me)
4:44 I feel this. I feel like in my subjective experience, it is because i am anticipating what comes next and trying to get to the 'end' as if my brain wants to let go of the tension it is holding. because your actions and thoughts are 'too' demanding. I think this is a trainable skill, to be able to hold that line before eventually crumbling, and get better and better at it pushing the time of collapse and over anticipation further away, staying 'present' for longer, keeping your confidence aswell because you are fighting off the natural response of potentially getting it wrong or not being on beat, the juggle is real. Going to give this a go! Thankyou for posting.
Yeah man, it's especially true if a "challenging" segment is coming :D
Watching this at work rn
Made me want to go back home and go practice !!
Very helpful and motivating
Go for it man :))
well, i feel inspired to start doing spiders myself, especially after seing such clear results.
Super, vidi se razlika prvog i zadnjeg dana. Svaka čast
Isplati se :)
At 3 :20 if you listen to entire exercise, you can hear ‘call of the tutu’ Some of notes are off. But you can hear in the pattern.
This is just the motivation I needed to start doing those exercises I stopped trying 2 years ago
Just do it 😄
Week 1 and 62 years old. I almost cannot place 4 fingers on adjacent frets. But I also know from experience it IS possible to achieve what seems to be impossible with consistent and correct practice. This exercise will be part of my routine, so thanks for sharing!
Practice every day. If you find this exercise too difficult, try playing something else for a while and come back to it after a couple of months, it will work out :)
My teacher showed this one to me as "El Diablo". GREAT exercise.
Haha it really is x)
While this can be super effective, I'd suggest praciting licks that can be used in musical context. This kind of practicing is a form of medieval torture. Music should sound good, even when you practice. Because that way it makes us stick with the practicing, and the licks can be used in musical context elsewhere. Chromatic licks have their use in jazz, but usually people don't use it like that, but instead whip themselves in some kind of medieval guitar punishment ritual
It's ok to have some discipline and do the things that seem boring :)
@@downcode Sure and discipline is good but most exercises (even very physically difficult ones with extreme stretches and string skipping etc.) can be made to have musical context. This however not due to it's nature. I guess it is effective since many people do it
@@shredd5705 It also comes to what you consider music and what kind of music you play :)
Personally, my guitar playing got slingshot and elevated in a short space of time because I tried to learn and practice Discipline by King Crimson. I then tried Three of a Perfect Pair when i had that going good, and soon after started learning Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part III Intro. I can proudly say I can cleanly play the first 12 seconds at decent speed. In about 3 months my left hand technique is surprising, I feel like I can learn any riff or motion and play clean decently quick. My only problem now is finding the drive to learn more songs
Haha yeah those riffs are pretty similar to the exercise in the video. Larks' Tongues intro is sick... I don't know where would I begin if I wanted to learn it :D
@@downcode there's clips of people playing it, one on acoustic is especially good, there's a downloadable pdf tab, the riff is based on similar patterns as larks part 1 (which i need to learn) and playing one note before moving on to another string each time, at consistent speed and cleanness, also using a different fret finger on each note. It's actually very fluid and looks easy when done right. Learning up to and including Roberts 16th Note pattern In Discipline prior and during learning larks part 3 seems like a useful combo
Gonna try this for sure.
Good job mate! love the progress!!
I know your pain, I've been "playing" off and on, more off, for the past 35 years. There are times where Ill practice or just play what I know often for a while, but not religiously. I did see a video on this technique, didn't know it was called spider, I think of Dave Mustaines spiderchord trick. Anywho, I tried this just a few months ago and my fingers definitely had issues switching string individually. Felt like a noob, but even after a few 10 min practices I got better, just didn't keep on keepin on. Ill have to get back to it. Thanks for the vid and even if you only get 10 mins a day. everyone can, keep it up, even days you don't want to. I can attest that had I done just 10 mins a day by now Id be much much better. Learn from my mistake, you'll be thankful to yourself in the end!!
Definitely man, I'm still doing this for 20m every day as warmup. It became essential.