Here are some little left hand exercises I've been working on and which demonstrate my problems in technique.

The first video is playing the top 5 notes of G major 2nd position in a repeating pattern and I have some real trouble synchronizing the two hands. I don't think it appears in this video but I noticed the other night that at faster speeds I'm actually pulling off rather than lifting, creating extraneous notes.

Last week I was out of town working one of my jobs, and I'll be in a hotel this week as well. I had my wife with me so I had to find a way to very quietly do some guitar exercises.

As a result I decided to do finger permutations on the 1st string from the 5th fret without using the pick. This has proved to be a very valuable exercise because it's causing me to work out some finger catches when playing. For example, I can play 4321 at an incredible speed, but 1234 is at best 66% of that top speed for some reason. Apparently my pull-offs are stronger than my hammer-ons or something.

Another thing I decided to do after a couple of days of this was practice moving the pick around in my right hand. So I go from holding the pick in a proper position, sometimes even picking the notes, to placing it in the nook of my second finger and using my hand to mute the 1st string, then alter the string mute, and finally bring the pick back into picking position. I also have practiced palming the pick with my thumb to free up all four fingers, and I'm starting to practice placing it into the nook of my 1st finger so I can switch to T234 picking from holding the pick if needed.

In your first video, the exercise you play, try starting on an upstroke instead of a downstroke.

The synchronization will come over time. Focus on the first not of the group...the note that lands on the metronome click. Put your focus on that note.

Thanks for the tip, uderoche. I'll try starting on the upstroke.

I've got a question about emphasizing the metronome notes. I tend to really emphasize certain notes when playing, and I think that's fine at some times but not at others. For example when I play 7s I tend to emphasize the 1, 3, and 5 which creates a percussion that I'd think would be undesirable in many circumstances.

As a result I've been concentrating on controlling my picking so the note dynamics are as uniform as possible. These two approaches seem to be in direct conflict, so I assume it would be good to do both.

What are your thoughts on that?

Good question. Ideally, your ultimate goal would be the ability to accent any note you want at any time and vary the dynamics at will. This takes days, weeks, months, years, of practice.

You should isolate each and work on them independently and then together. Start by emphasizing the first note of each beat.

Good tip, thanks. I'm sure that would take considerable time. In my head just now I imagined the sound of emphasizing the second note of each beat. I can imagine the sound but it sounds so odd I know it would take time to master. First note of each beat is a reasonable first goal.

I tried that exercise beginning with the upstroke on the first string and it was much easier to play. I'm sure that's because on the third note I'm playing an upstroke instead of a downstroke, making the second string easier to hit even though it needs a downstroke. I guess the other way is playing outside the strings which is more difficult to get right.

All right, guys. I'm still alive. I've been working a project at my main job that required my working about 80 hours a week for the past couple of months, and I've finally wrapped it up.

It's time for me to get back on track with my practicing.

Great Welcome back Farelli

Thanks, Ray. Good to still see you here.

I thought you'd give like a lot people do unfortunately, so im happy to see you comming back.

I hope to see soon a new video formyou i started some weeks ago with the neo-classical pikcing exercises as well ;). I POsted them somewhere here on the forum somewhere. I made a video from the 0-1-4 exercise but im doing the 0-1-2-4, 0-1-3-4 as well but its not worth post a video yet on that that exercise. But they are very cool to do. I remember you wrote once you like them a lot :)

Yes, there is something about the sound of that exercise that I really like. I've really been opening up my musical taste lately and my goals have been calling me back. Screaming at me, actually. :)

Last night I've been doing some theory homework (on paper) on harmonizing the C major scale up to 13ths. That was actually a very cool exercise and this morning I'm doing it again with better, more clean notes so I have a good series of pages on it in my notebook.

Lately for my left hand exercises I've been focusing on trills and finger flexing. I perform the permutations 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-3, 2-4, and 3-4.

As my arm gets tired I cycle back through the ones I find easier to give my arm a rest. Then I'll sometimes work on scalpel or sarod picking while I rest my fretting hand.

I also do the trill exercise on my steering wheel while driving (I drive with my right hand while doing this).

Another exercise I've been doing is the 4th finger flexing the Pebber shows in one of his trills videos, but this also inspired me to create one of my own that is really helping me get finger control in just a few days.

Hopefully this weekend I'll make a few videos to show where I am.

Here are the Left Hand Exercises I've been working on.

Here are some examples of what I've been working on in the car:

Great vids again Farelli. Cool to see youre so enthousiast like a couple others here on the forum.

And now, for something completely different: left hand exercises.

First video is shot from a cell phone to show my thumb position behind the neck. Interestingly it has a better quality image than the ones from the PC. Lame Dell notebook.

The good news is I figured out how to make sure the video and audio stay synched. :

Here's a slow motion video of me trying to play faster four-finger trills and runs.

I did it in slow motion to show a problem I'm having with my fourth finger, where I raise it as I place my second finger down. This makes it impossible for me to cleanly play sixteenth notes above about 48 beats per minute.

I'm finding that I have to completely retrain myself using four-finger trills to specifically avoid raising that finger at all when I place down the second and third. It is proving very difficult.

There's no audio in the video due to the speed change. It's at half speed.

Have a look: