Guitar Technique – Articulation
June Moris April 10, 2009 - 10:12 pm .
Walking the fretboard.
There are a ton of books full of exercises on guitar technique but the technique itself doesn’t involve that many things. It always comes down to a few basic principles that should be put into practice at all times.
It’s all about what the fingers, the hands and the arms should do. How to hold them while they play and how to hold them while they’re not playing. How to move and how to keep them relaxed. Being relaxed is always part of playing.
In this article I will talk about the left hand only. I will teach you to literally walk the fretboard with your fingers. While one or two fingers are on the fretboard the other fingers float right above it. Relaxed. The wrist should never ever be locked. Playing fingers should use minimal pressure to prevent the wrist from being locked.
Prevent sloppyness.
One basic principle deals with playing accurate. On the path of learning and improvement at one time speed comes along. We can’t wait to play fast but as the music gets more complicated every note being played still needs to be heard clear, bright and crisp no matter how quiet or how loud
we play.
Otherwise as soon as the tempo increases the music will sound sloppy and messy and will no longer be enjoyable for the listener. To prevent sloppiness and inaccurate playing one needs to articulate every single note that’s being played.
Articulating must be learned from the very beginning because it is part of and will determine the playing technique. Whomever does not articulate plays with a minor technique which must be adjusted later on which is quite annoying and time consuming.
Pentatonic Minor Scale.
To explain the principle I will describe an exercise which uses the pentatonic scale in position 1.
For those who do not understand the picture above the image represents 6 frets of the fretboard.
The top line is the highest string number, the bottom line is the lowest string. The left side is the top side of the neck. The dots represent the notes of the pentatonic scale.
The lowest note-the left dot on string 6- is the root note of the scale. The next note will be the note on the right on string 6. The third note of the scale is the first dot on the left of string 5. Note 4 is the
dot on the right. The last note of the scale is the dot on the left of string 4. The next dot is again the root note etc.
Exercise on Articulation.
For now you will play the scale ascending only. The exercise is played extremely slow and you will understand why. Because it is difficult and impossible to do it right if you start playing fast already.
Every note has the same duration and all notes have the same dynamics.
Keep the pressure to a minimum. Just enough to play every note firmly. Too little pressure leads to uneven dynamics and insecure playing. A particular position of a scale usually covers four frets, five at the most.
A good rule of thump is that every finger has its own fret. Finger 1 or the index finger always plays the first fret of the position. While one finger is playing, every other finger floats above its fret so it will be ready to play when its turn comes.
I will give the lowest note of the scale number one, the highest note number 5.The pentatonic scale has only five notes.
Play note one on the sixth string. Keep the finger on the fret while you play note 2 on the same string.
Right AFTER you played 2 release note 1(note that when you play the second note 2 fingers are on 1 fret each) and move it to the next string(5) to play note 3.
While you do this, the finger on note 2 remains on its fret. Right after you played note 3 release note 2 and move all fingers to float above string 5. Play note 4 on string 5. Finger note 3 remains on its fret until note 4 is played. Both fingers are now on the fret board. Then release 3 and move to the next string(4) to play note 5 while again finger note 4 remains on the fret. AFTER you played note 5 release 4 and move to string 4 to play note 1-this time an octave higher-again.
Work the same way as I explained until you reach the last note on the top string which is note 2 played by the little finger.
Practise SLOW!
If this is the first time you do this exercise do it REAL SLOW so your muscles can memorize the movements of your finger. You will find out it is very difficult to do. When your fingers can walk on the fret board smoothly without having to think about each note you can start speeding up however do this with very small steps using a metronome.
As you work on the speed you must remain focused on and be aware of every move of every finger.
It will take you quite some time before you can play fast but the good thing is you will be able to play really fast and every note will be crystal clear.
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