STRETCHING TO A NOTE

by simon73 (Jan 03, 2008)

Thought I do a very quick lesson on extending (stretching) to get more out of your playing. Personally, I very rarely use it and tend to only use a stretch to reach a root note or another note

All the lessons are played in standard tuning.

If for any reason you are struggling with the speed or find it to hard I suggest that you learn it slow. Each lesson is play in E minor unless other wise stated. If you feel any aches or feeling like your wrist is about to fall off then stop you can go back to playing it later.

I want you to try the following if you never been use to stretching your little finger. It is only an excersies not a scale (could be wrong) but it will help with accuracy and building up strength in your hand and little finger. Try using a pick, using pull off and hammer on this will help builds up the strength and is common for you speed kings players


When trying stretches for the first time I tend to try and keep my thumb inline with the first finger you may have other techniques that work but I don’t want you to change them so long as you are happy. You will need to relax to get the maximum speed and start slow not like you think you can play fast as I have seen people put on loads of distortion with effects and sound great but when you try it on clean sound it sounds (sh..) rubbish and accuracy is a must

excersies 1


Next is a good warm up I love doing this sort of thing makes it quite good and gets hands warm up and also try it at different tempos as well. But remember that you are stretching your little finger to the 9 frets and the third finger is on the 7 frets. Have fun!

excersies 2


So let get on with the study

I have selected the scale E minor to play the first example in I have left you the notation as well which might be of help to those who know about that side of music and also left the tab.

Example one



The next example you will have to play 14, 12 and 9 on the G string this will be hard and will test you but I would suggest that you use 4, 3 and 1 fingers for this type it will get you ready for the change over

Example Two



Example Three I call this one Speed Kings.

This is hard for anyone mainly due to that single note but will be of great help with facilitate speed and will present a different kind of problem but still using the E minor scale have fun with it and don’t give up as it will sound totally great



If you can do all this then try and make your own up or mix some of the work I have done. Also arpeggios sound great fast as well. I have try to make each lesson accurate as I can and some notations might have a few mistakes in (I hope not) but above all enjoy and have fun with my lesson