Excercise length

Playing Technique
#1

What is a good excercise lenght???
At this moment i am working on yngwie’s sixes. Each month i take an other scale to practice in. (F# is this months scale☺)
So i take this excercise, play it up on the first string, down on the next etc. When i reach the last note i start repeating the same pattern, but switch strings every time. This way i play all the scale horizontal, and vertical.

Is this a good way to practice excercises like this??

I start very slow (20 bpm one pattern/beat) and can go up to about 80. At this point i cannot play the excercise in one take. And have a lot more tension in my right arm.

Funny thing is, that, when i play this excercise at 100bpm, there is less tension at my right arm. Changing strings is trickier, but with some practice i’m sure i get there.
At this speed, my left forearm tensions up after some time, and the timing is a bit off sometimes.

1 Like
#2

I also used to practice an exercise in all possible variations, the problem is you could spend a million hours doing this and never move on to the next thing! Also it may get you used to playing in unrealistic situations: in real life playing you never use the same technique for 1h straight.

I am now trying to change things a bit and write etudes that contain a few techniques in them. I posted one example based mostly on 6s in the “Repertoire suggestions” thread if you are interested.

1 Like
#3

Thanks, i’ll look into this!!