Technical Exercises Overview

Alright then, guys.

What Do We Mean by Technical Exercises?

By "technical exercises," we're talking about:

• Scales
• Arpeggios
• Chords

These are incredibly useful tools that you use all the time, whether you realize it or not, in your day-to-day playing.

The Importance of Technical Exercises

Now, these may not be quite as fun as the pieces to pick up initially, but once you've cracked them, there's absolutely no end to what they allow you to do. They are really, really useful creative tools that you're going to enjoy using.

However, you've got to get them down first in this kind of rudimentary format.

Looking Ahead

We will explore more creative applications later on, such as:

• Using them within songs
• Playing solos
• Improvising

But for now, I'm just going to demonstrate them as required for your grade.

Important Notes

Before I do that, there are a couple of things worthy of note:

• The demonstrations I'm going to play are what's written in your book.
• If you read the preamble before the technical exercises, you will notice that depending on your grade, you are required to play the scales in very specific keys.

For example, it might say to play exercises A and B in keys A, B, and C. We have just given you one key, so please read the information. This is really important if you're planning on taking the exam, as you need to prepare the exercises in the correct keys.

Demonstrating Fingerings

I'm going to show you the ones demonstrated in your book so you can see the fingerings I use. All you need to do to move the exercises into a different key is to take the same shape and move it to the starting note that you want to begin on.

Creative Application Hint

We'll find out later on in the more creative sections why this is going to be useful. Here's a hint: it's going to allow you to play some pretty damn awesome solos.

Riff Exercises

One further thing, I'm not going to demonstrate the riff exercise. If you're comfortable with the scales and arpeggios, the riffs are based around these shapes and exercises. Thus, it should be just one step further for you to work out what these riffs will be should you need to move them.

It's a really useful skill for you to work on independently.

Stylistic Studies

We're also going to look at the stylistic studies in a section called Stylistic Techniques. This will involve:

• Looking at the techniques within those studies
• Understanding how to use them

Alright then, here we go with the demos of the technical exercises for your grade. They're all played at the correct tempo for your gradebook.