Guitar finger drills?

[ShivaLeadGuitarest]

Ive been playing Guitar for a while, but recently have been trying to improve and clean my technique up (im trying to get soem studio time for my band and want to sound as clean as i can. all that garbled stuff is....yeah)

Are their any good drills that i can do to improve my stretches and dexterity? i have a small hand, so wide stretches and large intervals really mess with me.

at the same time, any good drills to improve clean sweeping, legato (and trem picking too), shifting and tapping? I mute pretty well, but i am still not where i want it too be.

i have slowed down and practiced with a metronome, which cleaned each note up (but can still get better) but the muting is still an issue. tips?

 

[Chris_Broderick]

Ive been playing Guitar for a while, but recently have been trying to improve and clean my technique up (im trying to get soem studio time for my band and want to sound as clean as i can. all that garbled stuff is....yeah)

Are their any good drills that i can do to improve my stretches and dexterity? i have a small hand, so wide stretches and large intervals really mess with me.

at the same time, any good drills to improve clean sweeping, legato (and trem picking too), shifting and tapping? I mute pretty well, but i am still not where i want it too be.

i have slowed down and practiced with a metronome, which cleaned each note up (but can still get better) but the muting is still an issue. tips?

There are tons of exercises out there that you could improve those areas of your playing with, but I would just recommend 2 things:

1: simply look at where your technique is lacking and devise exercises based on that.

2: never practice anything with the idea of mastering or conquering it. Allow that exercise the ability to do its job and correct your technique. Be relaxed with this stuff and don't push it to the point where you feel you have to try to make the exercise work.

 

[ShivaLeadGuitarest]

Ok thanks chris. I have another discovery though. When i was practicing my sweeps, i noticed that i tilt my pick a little bit. To me this seems easier to go from alternate picking to sweeping. Yet when a friend of mine showed my how did sweepng, he held his pick perpendicular to the strings. Not only did it sound better this way, he could also go smoother and faster with it. is their any advantage to haveing a angled picking hand vs a perpenducular picking hand? I have slowed everyhtign i do way down looking and analyzing what is happening every time i move. I have also looked at videos of my favorite guitarsest (you, loomis, batio, laiho, cooley) to see how they do their technique. I noticed that Batio's picking is always angled, allowing for amazing and clean speed. Yet when i do it, it sounds realy muddy. Yet i watched alexi do it and his sweeping is all perpendicular, and still amazingly fast and clean. Any thoguths and feelings? There is no close up of your picking hand, or i would look that up too