Technique Fundamentals

Introduction

There are several ways that you can make technical exercises more difficult or
interesting in a way that actually generates real technical progress while bettering your
playing and/or soloing in general.

The goal is to constantly challenge your brain AND your fingers.

You can do this by focusing on the following elements (or combinations of these
elements):

1. Using different rhythms and dime divisions

2. Using different accents
3. Using different picking patterns, right-hand techniques, and legato combinations
4. Playing different groups of notes
5. Skipping notes
6. Skipping strings

The role of speed

This element of the technique is quite straightforward. Speed is the equivalent of

weight, at the gym. You don’t want to speed up until your form and your technique are
impeccable. If you try to push too soon, you simply carry along bad habits that will
eventually keep you stuck at a certain level.

In a way for technique is a condition for speed, but technique is definitely not
equivalent to the ability to play fast. Likewise, proper form at the gym is not a component
of strength, but good form is necessary to push heavier weights without injury.

👉 Practice all your exercises at a calibrated speed! That means not so slow that it
becomes too easy, but also not so fast that you cannot execute without your technique
and accuracy going out the window!
 Many students ask me how slow they should go. Here is my answer: slower than you
think, usually.

Do not underestimate slower time divisions

You will be focusing on different elements of technique when practicing slower. Slow
exercises are a great way to practice your tone, your vibrato, your bends, or your
slides. These aspects of the guitar are CRUCUIAL. Some of the most beautiful solos are
SLOW. So learn to leverage slower exercises as well.

On the other hand, the faster you go, the more your attention will shift to
articulation, accents, and picking or legato techniques. Here is the thing about
speed… It’s like money: it’s not necessary for happiness, but it sure makes things easier,
and it’s good to have it handy.

Luckily, once again, if your technique is good, speed is relatively easy to increase. Just
practice every day and slowly increase the metronome!

There is no practice without a metronome

Let me just make this clear: there is no such thing as a true technical practice
without a metronome, or later on, a drum groove or backing track.

You need to be kept accountable rhythmically and to be able to monitor your progress
so that you can push your boundaries.

You can play without a metronome! But it doesn’t count as practice ;).

The 6 levers of technique

Lever #1 - Using different rhythms and time divisions

You need to become comfortable with every time division and many combinations of
these time divisions.
 It can be difficult to go straight into a flow of 1/8th notes, triplets, or other time
divisions, without any mistakes. It is common for guitarists, specifically when they are
trying to switch between time divisions, to have a moment of adaptation to the new
rhythm, during which they are just approximating the time division, not entirely sure about
what they are doing. You do not want that… Rhythm is THE most important element of
technique. Do not underestimate it.

Do not underestimate slower time divisions!

Step 1: Practice the basic time divisions

These time divisions are:

- Half-notes (one note every two beats)

- Quarter notes (one note for every beat)
- Eighth notes (two notes per beat)
- Sixteenth notes (four notes per beat)
- Eighth-note Triplets (three notes per beat)
- Sixteenth-note triplets (six notes per beat)

👉 Example with an A minor pentatonic:

Half-notes

Quarter notes
Step 2: Practice mixing all the time divisions

When you become familiar with all the common time divisions, start mixing those
time divisions and switching between them. You can go up in 1/8th notes, down in triplets,
then up in ¼ notes and halfway up, switch to half-notes. Get creative with this, but you
need to be able to switch from and to any time divisions!

Step 3: Practice more syncopated or unusual time divisions

This will be explored in later modules. It includes:

- Dotted quarter-notes
- Quarter-note triplets
- Dotted eighth-notes
 Lever #2 - Accents

Accentuating different notes is also a great way to make useful, technical progress.

The principle is simple: you simply emphasize every note, every other note,
every three notes, four notes, etc…

Example:

Accents can quickly become quite complex, depending on the time division, note
grouping, and the number of fingers per string associated with the pattern or scale you
are practicing.

For example, 1/8th notes with accents every 3 notes can become quite tricky.
 Lever #3 - Picking patterns, legato, and right-hand techniques

For a while, I really believe that you should stick to strict, alternate picking! This is
by far the most fundamental and versatile technique and you should really focus on it until
you start adding different picking patterns or adding legato and other right-hand
techniques to the mix.

Once you are ready, however, here are some of the techniques you can explore:

● All downstrokes
● All upstrokes
● Economy picking
● Hammer-ons
● Pull offs
● Sweeping
● Chicken picking

Lever #4 - Note groupings

Here, the goal is to change the order of the notes in the scale, mode, or arpeggio that
you are practicing.

The most important is to get the logic. Number each note that you are playing for a
specific exercise starting with the first note. For example, if you are playing our chromatic
exercise, the number of each notes would be:
 If you wanted to practice groups of 3, for example, you would start with the first note,
go up 3 notes, and then back down to the second note, go up 3 notes, etc..

You can also reverse the pitch order of each group and start with the highest note of
the group when you are ascending your scale, and start with the lowest note of each
group when you are descending.
Example: chromatic exercise, reverse groups of 3

Here are a few examples in the A minor pentatonic:

Lever #5 - Note skipping

You can skip one, two, three, or as many notes as you want in the pattern you are
practicing. This can quickly become quite challenging and considerably improve your
technique, and your knowledge of the fretboard as well as give you more tools to solo.

Let me demonstrate with an example. If you decide to skip one note, this means you
will start with note #1, skip note #2 and go straight to note #3. Then you will go back to
note #2 (where you left off) and skip note #3 to go straight to note #4.

Here is an example with the pentatonic scale:

Skip one note

Lever #6 - String skipping or switching

With this lever, you will set a system taking you up a specific number of strings, every
chosen number of notes.

For example, you could go to the next string every 2 notes or every note. You can also
go up two strings every two notes, which with the A minor pentatonic would look like this:

There is no end to how far you can take this exercise! So it would make no sense for
me to give you a full list of possibilities. Be creative, disciplined, and systematic.