1 00:00:05,389 --> 00:00:07,500 Hey, how ya doing? Justin here today. 2 00:00:07,500 --> 00:00:09,454 I'm gonna share with you an awesome little exercise 3 00:00:09,454 --> 00:00:11,056 called "Minimum Movement". 4 00:00:11,056 --> 00:00:14,560 It's a small idea with big consequences, this one. 5 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:17,047 Uh, we're gonna be using the G major scale. 6 00:00:17,047 --> 00:00:19,143 Doesn't really matter what scale you use. 7 00:00:19,143 --> 00:00:21,898 This is just a good one because it's using all of your fingers. 8 00:00:21,898 --> 00:00:24,416 Um, but you could use another scale if you like. 9 00:00:24,416 --> 00:00:29,060 Um, and the idea here really, it's all just about learning to control your fingers. 10 00:00:29,060 --> 00:00:32,252 I'm gonna talk about it a little bit more after I've given you the close up 11 00:00:32,252 --> 00:00:33,175 and the proper example of it. 12 00:00:33,175 --> 00:00:34,260 But, uh, let's get to our close up 13 00:00:34,260 --> 00:00:38,229 and, uh, check out actually how to do this exercise. 14 00:00:38,229 --> 00:00:40,729 Let me start by playing you the G major scale 15 00:00:40,729 --> 00:00:44,372 the one way I most commonly see it if I ask a student to play me the scale. 16 00:00:44,372 --> 00:00:45,696 So, it might look something like this. 17 00:00:45,696 --> 00:00:53,376 'playing' 18 00:00:53,376 --> 00:00:55,386 Okay? Now let me play it another way 19 00:00:55,386 --> 00:00:56,689 and see if you can spot the difference 20 00:00:56,689 --> 00:01:02,649 'playing' 21 00:01:02,649 --> 00:01:03,589 Looks pretty different, doesn't it? 22 00:01:03,589 --> 00:01:14,699 'playing' 23 00:01:14,699 --> 00:01:17,252 So the difference is that my fingers are under control. 24 00:01:17,252 --> 00:01:19,811 I call it "Flying Fingers" when people's fingers, you know 25 00:01:19,811 --> 00:01:22,396 particularly little fingers, for a lot of people they really 26 00:01:22,396 --> 00:01:25,370 want to fly right off the neck as soon as they finish playing the note. 27 00:01:25,370 --> 00:01:27,219 Whee! Off goes little finger. 28 00:01:27,219 --> 00:01:29,650 So, what you want to do with this exercise is 29 00:01:29,650 --> 00:01:38,560 play the G major scale really slowly and try not to let any finger move more than a millimeter or two from the fingerboard. 30 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:42,449 Right? Doesn't sound like that difficult a thing but when you try it you're gonna find it is. 31 00:01:42,449 --> 00:01:47,252 So, first note. Now, let's just put the little finger down. 32 00:01:47,252 --> 00:01:50,856 There we go, now first finger's actually already kind of in place. 33 00:01:50,856 --> 00:01:54,559 Now second finger has just got to move over there, there we go. 34 00:01:54,559 --> 00:01:58,478 Little finger, now don't let it move up, there we go. 35 00:01:58,478 --> 00:02:00,476 First finger over now, and it's just really 36 00:02:00,476 --> 00:02:05,097 slowly trying to get the fingers 37 00:02:05,097 --> 00:02:08,010 cause you are gonna find I'm almost certain that 38 00:02:08,010 --> 00:02:14,651 some of the fingers want to lift right up off the fingerboard. 39 00:02:14,651 --> 00:02:17,316 Particularly like here, moving that third finger over. 40 00:02:17,316 --> 00:02:19,056 Little finger wants to go "Hey!" 41 00:02:19,056 --> 00:02:23,377 But you gotta try and keep it under control there. 42 00:02:23,377 --> 00:02:25,849 The whole way, especially here agian, that- th- 43 00:02:25,849 --> 00:02:30,500 could really feel my little finger wanting to lift up there. 44 00:02:30,500 --> 00:02:35,309 Wo- wait- actually, I let them all have a bit of a run there. 45 00:02:35,309 --> 00:02:38,974 So we're just really trying to get those fingers 46 00:02:38,974 --> 00:02:43,934 so they're hardly moving at all, and you really want to go slow with this. 47 00:02:43,934 --> 00:02:48,415 There's absolutely no point in trying to do it fast. 48 00:02:48,415 --> 00:02:51,564 And you're gonna find when you try and do this exercise yourself 49 00:02:51,564 --> 00:02:54,695 it's actually a lot more difficult than it looks. 50 00:02:54,695 --> 00:02:59,897 Oh, little finger just had a little bit of a wander as well. 51 00:02:59,897 --> 00:03:03,209 It's difficult! You know, especially there as well. 52 00:03:03,209 --> 00:03:07,980 When you're changing fingers behind little finger when it's already off. 53 00:03:07,980 --> 00:03:11,255 Like now, it wants to lift up, and you have to really 54 00:03:11,255 --> 00:03:15,064 concentrate to make sure 55 00:03:15,064 --> 00:03:16,652 oh, there it goes again 56 00:03:16,652 --> 00:03:20,177 You stay down, you little rumin. 57 00:03:20,177 --> 00:03:21,481 Again, it was jumping a little bit. 58 00:03:21,481 --> 00:03:23,651 But that's the exercise. 59 00:03:23,651 --> 00:03:26,121 So this exercise is all about controlling your fingers. 60 00:03:26,121 --> 00:03:29,323 The speed thing is really-really not important here 61 00:03:29,323 --> 00:03:30,432 It's not at all 62 00:03:30,432 --> 00:03:33,222 So doing it fast will just spoil the excercise 63 00:03:33,222 --> 00:03:34,442 And there'd be no point in doing it 64 00:03:34,442 --> 00:03:39,042 You really wanna be doing slow, careful, controlled movements 65 00:03:39,042 --> 00:03:41,832 And making sure that you're in control of all of your fingers 66 00:03:41,832 --> 00:03:45,794 All the time. Most people struggle with the little finger particularly 67 00:03:45,794 --> 00:03:48,653 The fact is that it'll just play and as soon as I finish playing the note 68 00:03:48,653 --> 00:03:49,871 it jumps right off the fingerboard 69 00:03:49,871 --> 00:03:52,531 and that's really normal but you'll just have to do it 70 00:03:52,531 --> 00:03:55,983 slowly enough to get it right. Okay, now I'm gonna move over 71 00:03:55,983 --> 00:03:59,513 to my 1st finger now, little finger you'll just stay there and just concentrate 72 00:03:59,513 --> 00:04:01,860 on that little finger, making sure it doesn't lift off. 73 00:04:01,860 --> 00:04:04,517 Concentrate 'n' concentrate and try, and you will find 74 00:04:04,517 --> 00:04:07,437 that you can control it! You can do it! 75 00:04:07,437 --> 00:04:08,978 Even if it feels like you can't originally, 76 00:04:08,978 --> 00:04:11,747 you can definitely control your fingers properly. 77 00:04:11,747 --> 00:04:16,382 You just have to practice doing it and learn how to make sure that 78 00:04:16,382 --> 00:04:20,179 there's no kinda instinctive muscle reactions thrown out 79 00:04:20,179 --> 00:04:22,944 by your brain while you're playing. You wanna be in control of 80 00:04:22,944 --> 00:04:26,780 every little movement that they make. Now, what you gonna find, it's really 81 00:04:26,780 --> 00:04:29,610 interesting is this has a big effect on your playing all over. 82 00:04:29,610 --> 00:04:33,358 Without having to practice individual things, so if you'd work on this 83 00:04:33,358 --> 00:04:36,315 using the G major scale, as I'm suggesting, you'll find that 84 00:04:36,315 --> 00:04:39,658 it's just naturally kind of infects your blues scale and the licks 85 00:04:39,658 --> 00:04:41,690 that you're playing and songs that you're working on. 86 00:04:41,690 --> 00:04:44,420 Your fingers will naturally be a lot more under control and 87 00:04:44,420 --> 00:04:47,460 you'll find them flying off a little bit more, if you do find it, 88 00:04:47,488 --> 00:04:50,126 particularly, for a, you know, well, a particular tune or 89 00:04:50,126 --> 00:04:52,641 a riff that you're learning when your fingers are flying about a bit, 90 00:04:52,641 --> 00:04:54,893 then, you might wanna spend little bit of time with that 91 00:04:54,893 --> 00:04:56,961 one riff, or that one lick, or whatever it is, that you're 92 00:04:56,961 --> 00:04:59,276 struggling with, but generally you're gonna find that this 93 00:04:59,276 --> 00:05:02,912 one exercise, 5 minutes a day this one, is a really big deal. 94 00:05:02,912 --> 00:05:04,870 It's a great thing to have in your practice routine. 95 00:05:04,870 --> 00:05:08,191 Good little warm-up thing as well, because it's not very strenous and 96 00:05:08,191 --> 00:05:11,312 not very fast, so you can just really get you know, get your brain 97 00:05:11,312 --> 00:05:14,272 into the zone there, so really, unbelievably great 98 00:05:14,287 --> 00:05:16,398 exercise is it. It was a real game-changer for me 99 00:05:16,398 --> 00:05:19,628 to, made a huge impact on my technique generally, so 100 00:05:19,628 --> 00:05:21,414 I hope it does the same for you. 101 00:05:21,414 --> 00:05:23,603 See you for plenty more lessons and songs very soon, 102 00:05:23,603 --> 00:05:25,303 You take care of yourselves! Bye-bye!