The Massive Book of Guitar Exercises - Paperback

by Chris Connors (Author)

This book is aimed at guitarists of all levels and styles, as well as bassists. This book contains more than 1800 exercises! The exercises cover a wide range of playing skills, techniques, and finger combinations. Without the use of scales or music theory, this is strictly an exercise book that will greatly improve finger speed, strength, picking, and playing techniques. Although no scales are used in this book, the finger combinations and patterns used do appear in all scales, solos, riffs, and bass lines.

The exercises are written in tablature (tab). However, because the fingerings are the same as the fret numbers, many of the exercises are shown from the first fret. This makes the exercises much easier to learn, so they can be moved to any other fret. The majority of the exercises include alternate picking and economy picking with fingering suggestions. The exercises are then repeated with hammer-ons and pull-offs. Some guitarists rarely use economy picking and instead prefer alternate picking, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. Economy picking is included because many guitarists use it for speed. It is recommended to work on alternate picking before economy picking.

There are several ways to approach this book: you could practice an entire section over a week, a single exercise per day, or if you are an experienced player, you may want to go directly to exercises that help with a specific technique you want to improve. If some exercises or techniques are too difficult to begin with, switch to another exercise or section and return later.

Consider this book to be a guitar gym. Similar to going to the gym, you would return and repeat the same exercises or focus on a specific area you want to improve. The majority of the exercises in this book are simple to learn and can be played while doing something else, such as watching a movie or listening to music!