Ascending Finger Exercises for Electric Guitar

by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell


Finger exercises in which a guitarist works their fretting hand up the fretboard are personally very enjoyable for me. Many years ago I would frequently start every one of my solos down on the lower frets and then climb my way up the fretboard using some basic finger exercise pattern. I once naively vowed to start ALL OF MY SOLOS in this fashion so that hopefully it would become my “style.” But of course I quickly abandoned this strange and ridiculous notion.

First we will begin this article with a simple scalar/chromatic pattern. I usually start around the second fret and perform it upward until I hit the 15th fret or so.


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--2-3-2-3-5-3-2--3-4-3-4-6-4-3----
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--4-5-4-5-7-5-4--5-6-5-6-8-6-5-...-
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So you can see this is a combination of a picking exercise and a fretting hand exercise that continues its way up the neck as far as you would like to take it. This finger exercise should increase your accuracy for playing quick picking patterns on single strings. Be sure to execute it on other strings as well. And even though the exercise above is technically chromatic since it moves up in half steps, it’s still fairly musical as a finger exercise. You could use it for transitioning between different positions of the neck if you wish.

Our next ascending exercise however, falls into the “harsh” or “ugly” sounding finger exercise category, and should be restricted to bedrooms, garages, woodsheds, and other secluded areas and definitely NOT incorporated into your solos.

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--1-4-1-2-3-2-1-2-5-2-3-4-3-2---
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--3-6-3-4-5-4-3-4-7-4-5-6-5-4-...--
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See, I told you it doesn’t sound good. But it works for building dexterity and increasing precision in the fingers and for improving fretboard shifts.

Our last ascending finger exercise will be one that you can definitely use in your solos. Even though it is chromatic from its ascension in half steps, it is still musical enough to include in your single note excursions.

-5-8-5—--6-9-6---7-10-7-------
---------6-------7---------8-...--
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This exercise is basically a simple 4-note pattern that climbs the neck chromatically, and ordinarily I would use pull-offs for the 8-5s, 9-6s, and 10-7s, etc. You may find using pull-offs in those portions of the exercise easier as well. Theory wise, I believe the notes of the ascending quadruplets above make up Minor Sharp 5th triads, but I’m not exactly positive. Move this lick quickly up the fretboard but keep the notes clean. While playing, your fretting hand should be in almost constant motion. This exercise, if inserted into a solo will build plenty of tension, which you can relieve at any point by stopping the ascension and going into any guitar lick of your choice.

-end-


Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.