In this lesson, I want to talk about the importance of intervals. I also want to introduce you to your first finger exercise. An exercise I still use on a regular basis to get my hands in shape for playing. In my opinion, this finger exercise is one of the single most important finger exercises that you will ever learn. And it is an exercise that a lot of folks learn but ignore or neglect. In my humble opinion, neglecting this exercise and its many variations is one reason why so many good guitarists do not become great guitarists. Basically, if you are holding your guitar neck with your fretting hand, your thumb rests against the back of the neck, while your other four fingers are free to move about the strings. I want us to have a simple way to denote each finger on your fretting hand. So, take a few moments to note the following associations.

Index finger = i
Middle finger = m
Ring finger = r
Pinky = p

That should seem intuitive enough, right? Now, what i want you to do is to place your index finger (i) on the first fret of the low E string. And play that note by plucking the string with your thumb. Next lay your middle finger (m) on the second fret of the low E string and play that note by plucking the string with your thumb again. Next, place your ring finger (r) on the 3rd fret of the low E string and play that note with your thumb also. Finally, place your pinky (p) on the fourth fret of the low E string and play that note with your thumb. Now, repeat this exercise over and over again for a while. Don't worry if you get a lot of buzzing and percussive thumping sounds out of the notes when you play them. If that happens, it is perfectly normal. Eventually, your brain and the muscles in your hands will start to work together in harmony with one another and you will learn to accurately get your finger tips more in the center of the fret you are holding down every time. It's a lot like weight lifting. You don't start out benching 300lbs the first time you exercise. You simply have to go through the struggle of working up to being able to bench that much weight. In like manner, no one expects a beginning guitar student to get notes to ring out perfectly the first few times they pick up a guitar. Once you get used to doing this pattern on the low E string, then extend this exercise by moving down to the A string, then the D string and so on. Get used to playing this pattern forward and backwards. Let me list the string name, the number of the fret you are playing, and the finger order so you get a better sence of how this pattern works as a full exercise. To distinguish between the low E string and the high E string, I will use the letter E to denote the low E string and the letter H to denote the high E string for convenience. Just play each note from left to right then move down to the next line and continue reading from left to right. I think you will find this notation to be very simple to follow.

E1i, E2m, E3r, E4p

That was the original exercise mentioned above before we extended it. All the notes are on the E string, obviously. The number following the name of the string tells us if we are playing fret 1, 2, 3, or 4. And the letters i, m, r, and p tell us which finger we are using to fret the note in question. The extended exercise is given as:

E1i, E2m, E3r, E4p

A1i, A2m, A3r, A4p

D1i, D2m, D3r, D4p

G1i, G2m, G3r, G4p

B1i, B2m, B3r, B4p

H1i, H2m, H3r, H4p

Again, make sure you read the notes from left to right and follow each line from top to bottom in successive order. To play the exercise backwards, we would notate it like this.

H4p, H3r, H2m, H1i

B4p, B3r, B2m, B1i

G4p, G3r, G2m, G1i

D4p, D3r, D2m, D1i

A4p, A3r, A2m, A1i

E4p, E3r, E2m, E1i

So, basically, we can identify any note on the neck by the string name and the fret number. For example, A7 means the A string 7th fret. D16 means the D string 16th fret and so on. And B3p would simply mean the 3rd fret of the B string played with our pinky finger. Initially, I will take the time to notate which finger you should be using. But, when I feel you are ready to branch out on your own, I'll just state the string name with the fret number and not provide the I, m, r, p references, because it should begin to get more and more intuitive which finger you should use when moving about the neck. It should also be noted that not every guitarist uses the same fingering pattern when playing the same thing. Often times it is simply a matter of what feels most natural to the person playing. Some people try to place some right or wrong value on how to approach fretting the guitar. My rule of thumb is if it sounds good, who cares? One need only to look up old videos of Jango Reinhart playing with two fingers what most people can't play with four to realize that proper fingering is generally a subjective matter across the board. But, if you find that you just can't seem to execute a technique properly when playing, it is often a good idea to sit back and ask yourself the question, "Is there a better more natural way to finger this pattern to get it to execute more properly and accurately?" Eventually, you will break through and get the pattern to execute properly, if you take the time to ask yourself important questions like this during your practice sessions.

As promised in the last lesson, I want to spend the remainder of this lesson on the topic of intervals. An interval is the distance between two notes. For example, we say that the interval between any two adjacent frets on a single string is a half step. So, the interval between E1 and E2 is a half step. The interval between E2 and E3 is a half step. The interval between D6 and D5 is also a half step. The only difference in this last case is that we are going down a half step, where before we were going up a half step. So, if we move from a lower pitch to a higher pitch, we say we are moving up a half step. If we are going from a higher pitch to a lower pitch, we say we are moving down a half step, when moving about the neck in half steps. Now, if we move two half steps, such as moving from A3 to A5, we are moving a distance of one whole step. Okay, say "Duh"! And if we move from A3 to A6, we are moving up a step and a half. Again, say "Duh"! And of course, if we move from A3 to A7, we have moved a distance of 4 half steps, which is just 2 whole steps and so on. And all this should be very intuitive. There is nothing difficult about intervals.

Now that we know what half steps, steps, and intervals are, I want to give you a couple of challenging questions to work on for homework. Let's say you are playing the fret A5. How many half steps are there between A5 and D5? Similarly, if you were on B7, how many half steps are there between B7 and G7 and are there the same number of half steps in the interval from B7 to H7? Remember, H is just our way of notating the high E string from earlier. In order to start thinking like a guitarist, it is important to learn how to answer questions like this and develop your own method of figuring out the answer to such questions. Of course, I will answer these questions in the next lesson, but my telling you the answers without you taking the time to figure them out on your own isn't going to help you think like a real musician. And learning to think like a real guitar player will go a long way to helping you keep up even if you can not read sheet music. So, have fun with these questions and see what you can figure out on your own. You actually have everything you need in the three lessons you have been reading to develop a method to answer these questions.


Corey J. Bray