Left Hand Stretch Exercise

Hi, everybody, and happy new year. I have the gracious permission of Chris Newman to share some exercises I learned from him at a guitar camp a few years ago. The first one is designed to improve the left-hand stretch, and takes advantage of the way the frets get farther apart as you go down the neck.

This exercise can get painful quickly, but will improve your stretch if you make it a regular part of your practice for a month or two. This helps with jazzy chords, and the occasional 1st-position lead break where you have to reach up for a note or two on the skinny E string.

Stretch Exercise

The fellow who taught this exercise to me is a great flatpicker and teacher with several recordings released. You should check him out at his website, oldbridgemusic.com.

I hope you guys are getting some good picking in. I should be done with the Salt Creek rhythm tracks very soon.