Guitar Techniques - Minimum Movement Guitar Exercise - Guitar Lesson [TE-004]

Hey and you're doing Justin here today
I'm going to share with you an awesome
little exercise called minimum movement
it's a small idea with big consequences
this one we're going to be using the G
Major scale doesn't really matter what
scale use it's just a good one because
it's using all of your fingers but you
could choose another scale if you like
and the idea here really it's all just
about learning to control your fingers
I'm going to talk about it a little bit
more after I've given you the close-up
and the proper example of it but let's
get to our close-up and check out
actually how to do this exercise let me
start by playing you the G Major scale
the way I most commonly see it with I
ask a student to play me the scale so it
might look something like this okay now
let me play it another way and see if
you can spot the difference so the
difference is that my fingers are under
control I call it flying fingers when
people's fingers you know particularly
little fingers there a lot of people
they really want to fly right off the
neck as soon as they finish playing the
nut way off goes a little finger so what
you want to do with this exercise is
play the G Major scale really slowly and
try not to let any finger move more than
a millimeter or two from the fingerboard
right doesn't sound like that difficult
a thing but when you try it you're going
to find it is so first note now let's
just put the little finger down there we
go our first finger is actually already
kind of in place now second fingers just
got to move over there
custom shirts on minimum
there we go little finger now don't let
it move up there we go
first finger over now and it's just
really slowly trying to get the fingers
because you are going to find I'm almost
certain that some of the fingers want to
lift right up off the fingerboard
particularly like here moving that third
finger over little finger wants to go
way but you've got to try and keep it
under control there the whole way
especially here again that could really
feel my little finger wanting to lift up
that what we've actually I let them they
all had a bit of a run there so just
really trying to get those fingers so
they're hardly moving at all and you
really want to go slow with this youth
isn't absolutely no point in trying to
do it fast and you're going to find when
you try and do this exercise yourself
it's actually a lot more difficult than
it looks a little thing you just had a
little bit of a wander as well it's
difficult you know especially that's
there as well when you're changing
fingers behind little finger when it's
already off like now it wants to lift up
we do you have to really concentrate to
make sure up there it goes again
you stay down you little ramen and again
it was jumping a little bit but that's
the exercise so this exercise is all
about controlling your fingers the
speeding is really really not important
here it's not at all so doing it fast
will just spoil the exercise there'll be
no point in doing it you really want to
be doing slow careful controlled
movements and making sure that you're in
control of all of your fingers all the
time most people struggle with a little
finger particularly that factors they'll
just play and as soon as they finish
playing the note it jumps right off the
fingerboard and that's really normal but
you just have to do it slowly enough to
go right okay now I'm gonna move over to
my first thing you're now little finger
you just stay there and just concentrate
on that little finger making sure it
doesn't lift off concentrate concentrate
and try and you will find that you can
control it you can do it even if it
feels like you can't originally you can
definitely control your fingers properly
you just have to practice doing it and
learn how to make sure that there's no
kind of instinctive muscle reactions
thrown out by your brain while you're
playing you want to be in control of
every little movement that they make now
what you're going to find it's really
interesting is this has
big effect on your playing all over
without having to practice individual
things so if you work on this using the
G major scale as I'm suggesting you'll
find that it just naturally kind of
infects your blue scale and the licks
that you're playing in songs that you're
working on your fingers will naturally
be a lot more under control and you'll
find them flying off a little bit more
if you do find it particularly for a you
know what a particular tune or a riff
that you're learning where your fingers
are flying about a bit then you might
want to spend a little bit of time with
that one riff or that one lick or
whatever it is that you're struggling
with but generally you're going to find
that this one exercise five minutes a
day this one is a really big deal it's a
great thing to have in your practice
routine good little warm-up thing as
well because it's not not very strenuous
and not very fast so you can just really
get you know get your brain into the
zone there so really unbelievably great
exercises it was a real game-changer for
me that we made a huge impact on my
technique generally so I hope it does
the same for you save for plenty more
lessons and sounds very soon you take
care of yourselves bye-bye