Chris Evans - Major Scale Exercises Intermediates SI Lesson

Introduction

This is exactly the same lesson as for the beginners exercises, the challenge is purely to play it all faster, as an intermediate player I like to find as many of these kind of exercises as possible, I find they help me mainly with my timing, but also with picking techniques. They help keep your fingers in shape and you still need to concentrate on various aspects of your playing.

This originally was going to be just one lesson and one post aimed at the beginner, however, the original 220BPM video`s may have made the exercises seem a little too difficult for the beginner which is why I decided to split this lesson into two, and aim one purely at beginners and one at intermediates

I`ll not waffle too much and get straight into the exercises :)

Exercise 1

One scale pattern ascending and descending, starting in the Key of C
The key progression is as follow C, D, E, F, D, E, C
Tabs are not really required, if you follow the patterns it is straightforward enough

Video 1 : Major_part_1_Main.mpg ( 9.32MB ) Played at 220BPM, sounds fast, but its not too bad once you get into it, you may want to loop the backing to double the length of the exercise

Slow Video : Slow_Video_1.mpg ( 7.9MB ) Here I`m playing just the C scale for demo purposes.

Backing track at 220BPM: Major_workout_audio_main_backing_220bpm.mp3 ( 755.44K )

Exercise 2

Video 2 : Major_part_3.mpg ( 9.54MB )

Slow Video : Slow_Video_2.mpg ( 9.44MB )

Same backing track as exercise 1.

Using the pattern in excercise 1 for ascending run then this pattern:

For the descending run, I tend to use this exercise for alternate picking and legato and turning it into a three note per string exercise.

Exercise 3 (the reverse)

Same pattern shapes as exercise 2 but reversed, so we are now ascending with the three note per string pattern and descending with exercise ones pattern.

Video 3 : Major_part_3.mpg ( 9.54MB )

Slow video : Slow_video_3.mpg ( 9.12MB )

Same backing speed as first two exercises.