I really don’t think this is getting enough coverage. There’s some major flooding happening in Nashville.

Please consider donating to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts.

Thanks to the Huffington Post for the above picture. The original article is here.

This is a sad time. However, I have been thinking a lot about why this death is more sad than that of anyone else. Death is a very natural thing. We all feel loss when someone close to us passes, but for the majority, if not all, of people reading this, none were close to Michael Jackson personally. Those of us in the 30-50 year-old range feel a great loss because a significant part of our childhood was just ripped away. We have never known a time when Michael Jackson wasn’t alive and in our faces. His music has been the soundtrack to many parts of our own lives. We are mourning the loss of our own innocence today, just like many of our parents and grandparents felt when Elvis died. I think this is something that every generation has to endure in order to truly grow up.

I also think growing up sorta sucks.

A Chromatic Scale is one that includes all half-steps between the starting and ending note.  Chromatic scales technically lack a key because they play every half-step.  This is the equivalent of starting on a particular piano key, and playing every white and black key as you go up or down.

Typically, the notes are written with sharps while ascending, and flats while descending, but my notation software was not smart enough for that, so please forgive me.

This exercise is designed to be practiced similarly to last week’s lesson.  Start somewhere around 40bpm to 60pm, and go up in intervals of 5bpm.  Notice that the descending fingering is different than the ascending.  I believe this is the best way to play a chromatic scale and continue fluidly.

Play around with the pattern some.  This particular one starts on B and ends on B, but you can move the pattern anywhere on the neck and still play it.  Move it around and come up with your own exercise.

Finally, if you find yourself having trouble with this one, practice the four-fret exercise from the daily workout.

You can download the Chromatic Scale exercise here.

I’m going to be updating weekly with my current guitar practice routines, just in case anyone is interested in trying these out.  Right now, I have just finished tabbing out my daily exercise.  This includes some scales that I play every day, plus a little bit of extra stuff that I’m working on currently.  This routine changes all the time, and I’ll repost it occasionally when it has been updated.

The practice routine currently includes a four-fret exercise for finger dexterity, the blues minor scale, the harmonic minor scale, and a set of triplet arpeggios in a I III V vii ii III progression.  This workout is meant to be played several times in a practice session, starting at a low BPM (such as 40 or 60), and then bringing the BPM up 5 to 10 each time it is played.  Once you have reached the maximum speed at which you can play the workout, try to edge the metronome up 1 or 2 BPM at a time until you cannot play the part anymore.  This will allow you to push just a little further, and that’s where the speed increase comes from!

You can find a PDF of the lesson here.

Have fun, and good shredding!