Building an Ear and Finger Connection
One of the practice items that I’ve found always helps me as a player, and with my students as a teacher, is to use singing to internalize chords, scales, arpeggios and other concepts that we normally associate with the fretboard.
Some of my favorite ways to practice singing in my routine center around connecting items on the guitar with sounds in my voice, and subsequently my ears after that.
For example, I like to sing different intervals of chords that I am working on. So, if you are learning an Open C chord for instance, you could strum the chord and sing the root the note C on the 5th string. Or, you could try and sing the 3rd, the E on the 2nd fret of the 4th string. Lastly, you could sing the 5th, the Open G-String.
This will help your ears get a grasp of the sound of any chord shape that you are learning, which will help you hear when you are making a mistake in the practice room and your teacher isn’t around to correct you, as well as further ingrain the sound of any chord in your ears so you know exactly what any chord should sound like before you play it.
For scales and arpeggios, I like to use two main approaches to singing and practicing. The first is singing along with my guitar. So, I could be playing a C Major Scale, and then I would be singing each note along with my guitar. To further my knowledge of this scale, I could also say the name of each note in the scale out loud as I sing along with my guitar.
The second way I like to practice singing with scales, is to hold a root note, or even a chord, on the guitar. Then, I would sing the corresponding scale over top of that note or chord. So, if I wanted to practice the C Major Scale, I would play a C on the guitar and sing the scale over that root note. Or, I would strum a C Chord on the guitar, and then sing the scale over that chord voicing.
I would then repeat both of these approaches with any arpeggio I was working on as well, playing a root or chord on the guitar and then singing the related arpeggio over top of those notes or shapes.
These are two great ways to connect theoretical knowledge, ear training and practical, fretboard knowledge in your guitar practice routine. Allowing you to improve your chops and knowledge, as well as bring your ears up to speed at the same time.
What do you think about singing along with your guitar in the practice room? Do you have any specific exercises that you like to do to connect your ears and guitar? Share them in the comments section below.
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