Exercises — build real technique

Technique path: Drills (short wake-ups) · Exercises (this gym) · style pages below · full picking lessons on Alternate · Economy · Sweep

Once your hands are awake (the Drills), these longer exercises build even fretting, a locked right hand, and the coordination that turns a four-minute drill into real playing. They are the daily gym for guitarists — the same role Piano · Exercises plays next door.

Each card below has written pedagogy, TAB (high e on top — see Foundations · TAB), and Play buttons. One model sounds at a time; Play becomes Stop on the same button. Tempo follows the metronome in the practice bar.

Golden rules: (1) Slow first — only speed up when it is clean. (2) Metronome on — start near 60. (3) One skill a day — left hand, pick, fingerstyle, or lead — not all at once. (4) Stay relaxed — shake out tension; never play through pain.

Sources (two-check): Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1 (chromatic, downstrokes, first-position reading) · Berklee guitar-lab habit of locking the right hand to a click · Carcassi / Sor / Giuliani for pima and planted arpeggios · conventional rock power-chord and minor-pentatonic box-1 shapes. Jazz and CAGED stay out. Short wake-ups live on Drills. Style gyms: By style. Scale and mode maps: Scales and Modes.

Suggested order

Work through one family at a time. The lab at the bottom is for quick replay once you know what you are practising.

Chromatic 1-2-3-4 and across all strings.
Spider · Stretch 1–4 · Hammer-on / pull-off cell.
Alternate picking · String cross · Palm-mute eighths.
Hands together — eighths plus changing fretted note, then boom-chick through a change.
Pick one style gym: Folk · Classical · Rock · Metal · Solo.
Scale and mode maps live on Scales and Modes — not on this hub.
Pair one card with a short study from Method books.
When the gym is honest but stale: Break rut — one loop cell.

Beginner

Chromatic · boom-chick on G · open-string names. Capo off. Stay near 60.

Intermediate

Spider · i–m or palm mute · E5–G5–A5 or Travis seed. Click at 70–80 when even.

Advanced

Independence or gallop · box 1 with a rest · one first-piece map. Silence counts.

Left hand

One finger per fret: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 pinky. Unused fingers hover over their home fret. Even volume beats speed — same primer as Drills · Hands.

Chromatic 1-2-3-4

On one string: frets 1–2–3–4, then the next string. Reverse walks 4–3–2–1. This is the standard Hal Leonard / Berklee left-hand warmup.

e|-----------------
B|-----------------
G|-----------------
D|-----------------
A|-----------------
E|-1-2-3-4---------   then A, D, G, B, e

Even volume on every note. If one finger is louder, slow down until they match.

Chromatic across strings

Continue the 1-2-3-4 pattern across all six strings without stopping. Low E through high e, then reverse all the way back. The job is a smooth hand shift at each string change.

E|-1-2-3-4-
A|-1-2-3-4-
D|-1-2-3-4-
G|-1-2-3-4-
B|-1-2-3-4-
e|-1-2-3-4-   then reverse

Do not rebuild the hand at each string — slide the whole shape as a unit.

Spider

Finger 1 on high e fret 1, 2 on B fret 2, 3 on G fret 3, 4 on D fret 4 — then reverse back up. Adjacent strings, one finger per fret. Classical coordination primer.

e|-1---------------
B|---2-------------
G|-----3-----------
D|-------4---------
A|-----------------
E|-----------------

Keep the wrist quiet; the fingers do the travelling.

Stretch 1–4 ladder

Index on fret 1, pinky on fret 4 of the same string. Walk the pair across several strings. No buzz, no collapsed wrist. Move to frets 5–8 when 1–4 feels honest.

e|-1-----4---------
B|-1-----4---------
G|-1-----4---------
D|-1-----4---------   1 and 4 together

Thumb stays behind the neck — reach comes from the wrist, not from collapsing the palm.

Hammer-on / pull-off cell

Pick G string fret 5, hammer 7, pull back to 5. Only the first note is picked. This is the legato seed before lead phrasing — unpicked notes must match the picked one in volume.

G|-5h7p5-|   pick, hammer, pull

Deeper: Solo drills · hammer-on and pull-off.

Left-hand variants

Same finger discipline, many shapes. Pick a pattern, string, and starting fret — then Play.

Pattern Start string Start fret

Right hand · pick

The click owns the right hand. Lock down-up to the metronome before you chase speed. Stamina and syncopated mute: Rock exercises. Gallop and muted chug: Metal exercises.

Alternate picking

One open string, down-up-down-up locked to the click. Same pitch every time — the drill is the right hand, not the left.

E|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-   ↓ ↑ ↓ ↑

Keep the pick stroke small. If the forearm tenses, loosen the grip. Full path: Alternate picking · Alternate lab. After alternate is honest: Economy picking.

String cross

Low E → D → high e and back. Crossing without catching the wrong string. The gap between strings is the drill.

e|-----------0---0-
D|-----0-----------0-
E|-0-------------------

Same motion as Drills · string cross, at exercise length.

Palm-mute eighths

Palm on the bridge, open low E, two hits per click. Pitch stays; ring dies. Too far forward and the note is gone; too far back and nothing is muted.

E|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-   P.M.

Deeper: Rock · palm mute.

Pick variants

Change the subdivision and the string. The left hand stays out of the way — open string only.

Feel String Mute

Gallop feel is here as a subdivision. The dedicated gallop gym is Metal exercises.

Hands together

The guitar twin of piano “syncing”: each hand keeps its job while the other does something different. Master each side alone first, then combine at half tempo. See Piano · hand syncing for the keyboard version.

Eighths plus changing fretted note

Right hand keeps alternate eighths on open low E. Left hand holds a fretted note on the A string that changes every two beats: fret 2, 3, 5, 7. Count “1-and 2-and” — the fretted note lands on the numbers, eighths fill every subdivision.

RH  E|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-|   ↓ ↑
LH  A|-2-------3-------5-------7---|

If the fretted note flams the open string, slow down until they lock.

Boom-chick through G→C→D

Keep boom-chick running while the left hand moves G→C→D. The right hand must not pause for the change. Arrive on beat 1 with at least the bass note fretted.

G                 C                 D
(right hand boom-chick never stops)

Same loop as Folk exercises · G–C–D — practise here when hands-together is the goal.

Thumb bass + i–m treble

Thumb keeps a steady bass pulse on open D while i and m alternate on the high e string. Two rhythms, two registers — the classical independence seed applied hands-together.

    1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
e|----0-------0---   i / m
D|-0---0---0---0-   p

Deeper: Classical exercises · Classical drills · independence.

Method books — guitar’s daily gym

Piano has Hanon. Guitar has public-domain studies you open on IMSLP — we name the doors; we do not print the notes. Pair a card from this hub or from Classical exercises with one short study.

Sor Op. 60 nos. 1–3 — progressive lessons; melody above a simple bass. First-piece door on Classical · first pieces.
Carcassi Op. 60 nos. 1–3 — melodious etudes; No. 1 in C is the usual door for planted arpeggios.
Giuliani Op. 51 nos. 1–3 — progressive studies; same right-hand family as the classical pattern library.
Giuliani’s 120 (1812) — the pattern family for pima, not a study to copy numbered here.

Hal Leonard Book 1 and Berklee lab practice cover the pick / chromatic spine. Resources: method checklist.

Quick replay lab

Secondary convenience — pick a family and exercise to hear the model again, or jump to the full lesson card. Tempo follows the metronome.

Family Exercise

A 10-minute daily routine

2 min — wake-up: chromatic or spider (or Drills · Hands).
2 min — right hand: alternate pick or palm mute at 60. Stay loose.
3 min — one skill: pick one style gym (Folk · Classical · Rock · Metal · Solo), or one Break rut cell if the gym feels stale.
2 min — deepen: the matching drills page (Folk · Classical · Rock · Metal · Solo).
1 min — music: one loop on Play along so technique turns into a song.

Beginner

Chromatic · boom-chick on G · open-string names. Capo off. Stay near 60.

Intermediate

Spider · i–m or palm mute · E5–G5–A5 or Travis seed. Click at 70–80 when even.

Advanced

Independence or gallop · box 1 with a rest · one first-piece map. Silence counts.

Drills hub Play along Resources

Break rut

When the gym is honest but the hands still play yesterday’s shapes, loop one cell until the motion is a twitch. Break the habit. No target tempo. Full lab with note-for-note TAB, slow models (4 loops), and Play: Break rut.

Original gym cells — not transcribed licks. Jobs: cascade a scale, loop a sweep, economy in fives, selective picking, hybrid with an open string, mix three techniques, pedal doubles, octave tap, pick-jump. Two-check: Hal Leonard sequencing · Berklee right-hand-to-click. Pair with Solo drills.

Cascade threes — G major in overlapping groups of three; reverse flips inside/outside picking.
Sweep chain — Am triad at 5, then Bm at 7.
Pentatonic roll — box 1 hammers with an index roll at fret 5.
Economy fives — five-note G cell; descending starts on an upstroke.
Selective cell — hammers from nowhere plus two muted picks.
Hybrid open — muted pick + middle finger on open G, Am then C.
Triple mix — legato, alternate, and economy in one Am-box cell.
Pedal doubles — open E pedal, harmonic-minor neighbours as doubles.
Octave tap — open Em, tap twelve frets up, release.
Sweep jump — hammers free the pick to jump back; then B♭ major.

Open Break rut Solo exercises

By style

Each style has its own exercise page with a suggested order, the matching gym cards, and a practice note. Pick one per session. Short wake-ups stay on the Drills hub.

Old bookmarks like exercises.html#scales land here. Scale and mode gyms live on Scales and Modes (shape labs included). Technique cards that used to sit on this hub moved to the style pages below.