SongTrellis
Music and Musical Know-how For You

Author:  Charles Schoonmaker Posted:  12/4/02; 5:03:43 PM Msg#:  3183 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next:  3182/3184 Reads:  1472

A few months ago on this site I asked for help with a shooting pain problem in my left hand.  I play nylon classical and someone on the site suggested I do exercises designed to strengthen and loosen the left hand.

I couldn't find any I liked so I composed my own and have had no pain problem since.  The following two brief compositions are meant as exercises only and tho they contain minimal 'music', I refuse to bore or be bored so I dressed them as best I could..

As any guitarist knows,  having the chord notation is crucial but since these are exercises,  I must also include a notation that indicates specific fingering / fretting patterns.  Accordingly,  each composition will be notated first with the standard   Am7,  D7#5, Gma7,  etc type notation then folllowed by a sentence string using the format   022100  (E),  X02220 (A),   X57576 (D7#5)  etc.

The X indicates a string not played,  0 is an open string,  the numbers indicate the fret above the nut...the nut being 0.

Begin # 1 :

G,  G#dim#5,  Am7,  D7,  G7-9,  Ebmi7b5,  Am7,   B7#5,  Em,  Ema7-9,  Em7,  A7,  A7#5,  Dma7,  B7,  B7#5,  Ema7,  Abdim,  F#m7,  Bbdim,   B7 sus,  B7,  E6.........(now the fretting).

35543X,  4X345X,  57555X,  X57575,  3XX435,  X6767X,  57555X,   X24243,  022000,  021002,  020000,   X02020,  X02021,  X00222,   X24242, X24243,  X79897,  XX3434, .. X9.11.9.10. 9,   XX5656,  797977,  797877,  079999.

OK,  that's for the lefthand and do what you please with your righthand.   I rarely strum.  I'm a finger plucker and love to jazz a chord with all fingers.  Have at it.

This is # 1,  it starts in G and ends in E...not cool,  but if anyone can stand it,  I'll post #2 tomorrow nite.  It contains more 'music' and comes full circle tonally. 

Please tell me if you find any glaring mistakes in my notations.  Thanks,  Chas    

• Re: Warm-up exercises for Guitarist's Left-hand, Charles Schoonmaker, 12/5/02; 2:31:08 PM
  • Re: Warm-up exercises for Guitarist's Left-hand, Charles Schoonmaker, 12/5/02; 3:33:19 PM

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