Guitar Antics.com

Here’s a cool harmonic minor and diminished lick. I’ll be uploading the PDF shortly.

Here’s a short picking exercise in 6/8 time using a combination of power chords and major and minor chords.

Download the tab 123009 – Picking Exercise in 6/8

Here’s a scale sequence for students trying to learn how to vary their speed. It uses all modes of the G major scale.
Download the pdf 122909-Scale Sequence.

I hope you’re practicing material in a variety of time signatures? The time signature at the beginning of a piece tells you how many beats per measure there should be (top number), and which type of note gets one beat (bottom number). Here’s an easy exercise in 7/8 time. As you’re counting the beats, make sure to only say “Sev” for seven or you will be adding a beat with seven being two syllables.

092909 – Eric Peterson – 7_8 Exercise

Here’s a neat voice leading exercise in E minor, use alternate picking and practice it at various speeds.

Voice Leading Exercise in E minor

Here’s one of my favorite scale sequences using the Eb Locrian mode.

Paganini has many violin etudes and caprices that translate well to the guitar, here is one my favorites.

Download Paganini Caprice No. 16- by Eric Peterson

Eric Peterson - Paganini Caprice No. 16

Combine Your Scales

After you’ve learned your scales you need to start combining them. Here’s one of my favorite patterns combining the 3-note per string versions of Ionian, Dorian and Phrygian in the key of G. This pattern works well ascending and descending and is a great way to cover longer distances. Use alternate picking and apply the same to the other 3-note per string scales.

Download the PDF for this exercise. 062009-Combining Scales

I love to create picking exercises to keep my right hand sharp. One of my biggest influences for precise picking was Steve Morse. Check his stuff out sometime!

This is an alternate picking exercise (down, up) with voice leading. Voice leading is a technique where you keep notes in common within the same voice, ie. bass, middle, or treble which makes chords transition smoothly.

Arranging Alternate Instruments for Guitar

Transcribing violin is a great exercise for your note reading, fingerboard awareness, and arrangement skills. This particular snippet from Jakob Dont ‘s(1815-1888) Op.35 Caprice No. 2 is a very effective warm up exercise due to the varied fingerings and combinations.
Please see my video playing it as well as the link to the PDF.

dont-op35-no21