Technique I - Pentatonic Scales, Three Notes Per String
As with other aspects of my playing, I often find it helpful to practice using a set of rules or constraints. These rules force me to visual the fretboard in unexpected ways and help me break out of well-worn habits. This exercise involves the following rules:
Using three notes per string, play a C major pentatonic scale starting on the lowest available note in the scale found on the guitar (the low E string).
When you switch strings, repeat the last note of the previous string (C-D-E, switch strings, E-G-A).
When you get to the first string, add one note and come back down through the scale, still playing three notes per string. To continue this pattern all the way up and down the fretboard you could generalize the rule as follows: when you exhaust the strings of the guitar in one direction, add one more note on that string in the direction you want to travel along the fretboard.
Obviously such an exercise does as much to help develop one’s knowledge of the fretboard as it does technique but it is worth mentioning that, for me, this exercise helps my left hand technique by forcing me to span large intervals on one string. I play this using an ‘economy’ picking motion which makes the three notes per string pattern easier to execute. To develop this kind of picking, practice the exercise at a variety of speeds and with a variety of accent patterns. While you can accomplish the exercise in its entirety with only the rules listed above, you can find the exercise notated in full here. You can watch me play it here.