Guitar Technique: Minimum Movement Exercise (Guitar Lesson TE-004)

Hey, how ya doing?
Justin here today.

I'm gonna share with you
an awesome little exercise

called "Minimum Movement".

It's a small idea with big consequences, this one.

Uh, we're gonna be using the G major scale.

Doesn't really matter what scale you use.

This is just a good one because
it's using all of your fingers.

Um, but you could use
another scale if you like.

Um, and the idea here really, it's all just
about learning to control your fingers.

I'm gonna talk about it a little bit
more after I've given you the close up

and the proper example of it.

But, uh, let's get to our close up

and, uh, check out actually
how to do this exercise.

Let me start by playing
you the G major scale

the one way I most commonly see it
if I ask a student to play me the scale.

So, it might look something like this.

'playing'

Okay? Now let me play it another way

and see if you can spot the difference

'playing'

Looks pretty different, doesn't it?

'playing'

So the difference is
that my fingers are under control.

I call it "Flying Fingers" when
people's fingers, you know

particularly little fingers,
for a lot of people they really

want to fly right off the neck
as soon as they finish playing the note.

Whee! Off goes little finger.

So, what you want to do with this exercise is

play the G major scale really slowly
and try not to let any finger move more
than a millimeter or two from the fingerboard.

Right? Doesn't sound like that difficult a thing
but when you try it you're gonna find it is.

So, first note. Now, let's just
put the little finger down.

There we go, now first finger's
actually already kind of in place.

Now second finger has just got
to move over there, there we go.

Little finger, now don't let it
move up, there we go.

First finger over now,
and it's just really

slowly trying to get the fingers

cause you are gonna find
I'm almost certain that

some of the fingers
want to lift right up off the fingerboard.

Particularly like here,
moving that third finger over.

Little finger wants to go "Hey!"

But you gotta try and keep
it under control there.

The whole way, especially
here agian, that- th-

could really feel my little finger
wanting to lift up there.

Wo- wait- actually, I let them
all have a bit of a run there.

So we're just really trying
to get those fingers

so they're hardly moving at all,
and you really want to go slow with this.

There's absolutely no point in trying to do it fast.

And you're gonna find when you
try and do this exercise yourself

it's actually a lot more difficult than it looks.

Oh, little finger just had a little bit of a wander as well.

It's difficult! You know, especially there as well.

When you're changing
fingers behind little finger when it's already off.

Like now, it wants to lift up,
and you have to really

concentrate to make sure

oh, there it goes again

You stay down,
you little rumin.

Again, it was jumping
a little bit.

But that's the exercise.

So this exercise is all about
controlling your fingers.

The speed thing is really-really
not important here

It's not at all

So doing it fast will
just spoil the excercise

And there'd be no point in doing it

You really wanna be doing slow, careful,
controlled movements

And making sure that
you're in control of all of your fingers

All the time. Most people struggle
with the little finger particularly

The fact is that it'll just play
and as soon as I finish playing the note

it jumps right
off the fingerboard

and that's really normal
but you'll just have to do it

slowly enough to get it right.
Okay, now I'm gonna move over

to my 1st finger now, little finger
you'll just stay there and just concentrate

on that little finger, making sure
it doesn't lift off.

Concentrate 'n' concentrate
and try, and you will find

that you can control it!
You can do it!

Even if it feels like
you can't originally,

you can definitely
control your fingers properly.

You just have to practice doing it
and learn how to make sure that

there's no kinda instinctive
muscle reactions thrown out

by your brain while you're playing.
You wanna be in control of

every little movement that they make.
Now, what you gonna find, it's really

interesting is this has a big effect
on your playing all over.

Without having to practice individual
things, so if you'd work on this

using the G major scale, as
I'm suggesting, you'll find that

it's just naturally kind of infects
your blues scale and the licks

that you're playing and songs
that you're working on.

Your fingers will naturally be
a lot more under control and

you'll find them flying off a
little bit more, if you do find it,

particularly, for a, you know,
well, a particular tune or

a riff that you're learning when
your fingers are flying about a bit,

then, you might wanna spend
little bit of time with that

one riff, or that one lick,
or whatever it is, that you're

struggling with, but generally
you're gonna find that this

one exercise, 5 minutes a day
this one, is a really big deal.

It's a great thing to have
in your practice routine.

Good little warm-up thing as well,
because it's not very strenous and

not very fast, so you can just
really get you know, get your brain

into the zone there, so
really, unbelievably great

exercise is it. It was a
real game-changer for me

to, made a huge impact on my
technique generally, so

I hope it does the
same for you.

See you for plenty more
lessons and songs very soon,

You take care of yourselves!
Bye-bye!