5 Exercises That Will Boost Your Technique And Practice

The exercises that really improve your playing are usually not only developing one thing. You can be a lot more efficient by improving your guitar technique and also learn something about the fretboard, music theory, or rhythm when you practice. In this video, I am going to give you 5 examples of exercises like that so that you can start making your practice more efficient.

Some of these exercises are made so that you can work on them as a part of a technique practice routine to develop your skills, but others are more exploring what is there and some of the later ones I found that even if you go through them once slowly they really open up things for you and give you new ways of playing and exploring things.

For some great music and insane guitar check out:

7 Pentatonic Tricks That Will Make You Play Better Jazz Solos
You might be getting Pentatonic scales wrong, and it is a really great and powerful Jazz sound even when you are using a very basic version of it. In this video, I am going to talk about how to come up with great pentatonic scale jazz licks and go over 7 ways to use pentatonic scales over chords  I will start really simple and go pretty far out.

Content:
0:00 Intro
0:27 How to use the exercises
0:46 #1 - Alt Picking exercises & Diatonic Chords
1:33 Amazing Bluegrass alternate picking
2:38 #2 - Economy Picking and Phrasing Triads
3:55 #3 - Music Theory and Drop2 Voicings in all keys
5:07 #4 - Fretboard Overview - Extreme visualization
6:04 #5 - Position Workout with Chords and Arpeggios
8:16 Check out some Pentatonic Tricks for your solos
8:22 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page

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My name is Jens Larsen, Danish Jazz Guitarist, and Educator. The videos on this channel will help you explore and enjoy Jazz. Some of it is how to play jazz guitar, but other videos are more on Music Theory like Jazz Chords or advice on how to practice and learn Jazz, on guitar or any other instrument.

The videos are mostly jazz guitar lessons, but also music theory, analysis of songs and videos on jazz guitars.

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[JensLarsen]

What is your favourite technique or scale exercise?
Content:
0:00 Intro
0:27 How to use the exercises
0:46 #1 - Alt Picking exercises & Diatonic Chords
1:33 Amazing Bluegrass alternate picking
2:38 #2 - Economy Picking and Phrasing Triads
3:55 #3 - Music Theory and Drop2 Voicings in all keys
5:07 #4 - Fretboard Overview - Extreme visualization
6:04 #5 - Position Workout with Chords and Arpeggios
8:16 Check out some Pentatonic Tricks for your solos
8:22 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page

[jumemowery]

Thanks Jens!!!! Two things amaze me: how much I've learned and how much more there is to learn.

[traindiesel]

for an extremely self-centered silver lining, this quarantine can do wonders for one's chops :)

[Dang...]

Another brilliant lesson Jens. Thank you so much.

[woland]

Possibly the best technique related video ever. The alternate picking - 4 tone arpeggios - is a winner for me. Made me realized how much I tend to play in one position - and how it affects the overall choice of notes and feel of solo. Then second favorite is descendiing triad picking.

[Bumlosis]

Thanks for this! Great material to work on this weekend. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Pat Martino numerous times at Chris’s Jazz Cafe in Philly. I typically watch his right hand the entire set; another example of a player who has mastered his picking technique.

[zanemartin]

That tone above the 12th fret, gorgeous

[DESIENASHOES]

this was a super nice lesson/ almost everything you do need to know :-)

[TheMegansdad]

Challenging comprehensive thinking lesson . Thank you Jens.

[benkatof]

The integration of skills here is so cool - looks like smarter practice!

Also, love the nod to bluegrass. Strangely, I found jazz through bluegrass, thanks to David Grisman's concoction of musical styles.

[adhoc]

Don't know about you guys but I'm still workin' thru this... this is a ton of stuff. It took me 3 tries of working through the first example before I realised just how much I could get out of this. This is one of those lessons one will come back to again and again. I'm goin' to spend a month on this. How about a few links to Molly Tuttle and Andy Wood?

[Jamsville]

Wow, you jam packed a lot of stuff in to this video! My favorite one of the exercises was actually the first one. I need to do that more. This week I’ve been working a bit on doing the same thing but with spread triads, after watching a video Rick Beato posted on them. What I found is really hard is playing through the diatonic chords in the cycle of 4ths, so you start on a different string every other time.
So much stuff to work on!

[RCSmiths]

Higher technique is definitely important to more styles like Jazz! Awesome work as always!

[kevinpatrick]

Thanks again Jens for your GENIUS!!! I must admit back in the day I was into Theory, but got more into improvising and letting my ears guide me as opposed to the scientific aspect of music. But you've opened my eyes once again to the necessity of knowing the notes, where they fit, and the relationship between them. This lesson is greatly appreciated.👍

[dudeabides]

Ok so this question is not going to be anything about the things in this video, but it would be awesome, if you could answer!
When working something out by ear, let's say a melody. What is the 'correct' or maybe easiest way to work it out? For me for example, I relate every note to the root note (chord) that is still in my head from when the piece started(usually). But I heard Pat metheny say, that he thinks of every note 'against' the specific chord in that bar. Which means, let's assume we are playing a 1 6 2 5 in C and the chord change would be inbetween the melody playing a C to D
which essentially means, that we were playing a C against the Cmaj7 chord and then the D against Am7. But My head won't think of the D as being played against Amin7, it will still think as the D played against a cmaj7, espacially if the am7 is an inversion.
another thing, when a melody is being olayed, do you think of the melody in intervalls? because I can only do that on the first note. When the melody for examp. does C F G, I can hear the the 4th but then hearing the whole tone from F to G is just impossible, I can only hear against the root note.
This is where I don't really understand how I am supposed to think of the melody, when playing by ear. I always go back to my intuition.

this ended up being quiet long, but it has been on my mind for so long now.

[cu]

This is fantastic! I think I'll become a much better player by practicing this every day. Thank you so much for this video! I think especially the one not per string arpeggios will help me, because I have been struggling with my picking when moving between strings

[rbarrell]

Thanks for an interesting anduseful vidoe Jens, and also for the PDF. If I might just add, this is the first of your videos I've seen in a while, and the quality has really improved (the content has always been great though... :) )

[robertdouglas]

Happy for you, wish I had the courage to change my strings soon.

[robertdouglas]

I am no one special, glad yo help folk out.

[karangautam]

jens larsen i enjoy your content a lot ...can you plz make a video on how to start jazz ..from a intermediate guitarist who wants to get to jazz ..i find myself in a sea of information with no boat to ride on...