Boring music exercises.

This is the thread where we complain about our favorite boring exercises. Currently I am trying to learn the guitar fretboard by playing all of the E frets, then every F, F#, G... etc :(. I love the guitar, but I really prefer the piano's interface, how I can instantly find all the C# keys just by looking at the keyboard. I'm hoping to develop that kind of 'sight' for the guitar, and so far, I think it's working. I won't really know until next week, because my guitar skills develop slowly. What boring exercises do lainons prefer? What instruments are you learning? What do you think of my graph?

>>3136 if you're at the level of literally learning the positions of the notes dont expect to become mozart any time soon.

>>3136 also, don't bother developing a "sight" for the guitar's fingerboard, since you're not supposed to be looking at it while playing anyways. if you learn to play without looking you'll eventually know the positions of all the notes based on looking anyways. sort of like typing; if you were to cover the letters you would still be able to point to the correct key.

>>3137 Well I know some basic music theory. Major and minor keys, building chords, changing keys, etc. I just get lost on the 5th-2nd strings of the guitar. At the moment it is not at all clear to me where the notes are on these strings, and I think learning that will help me with improvisation and learning from sheet music.

>>3138 Also, I put "sight" in scare quotes because I do not literally mean "to look at the fretboard." I think "feel" is a better choice of words in hindsight.

>>3136 I am in same boots.

>>3141 Have you done your boring exercises today? Theyre good for you.

>>3136 >that pic if running scales and mode work isn't interesting or fun or mindblowingly cool to you, you're not doing nearly enough of the right kind of drugs

call me a glitterboy, but I'm convinced these boring practice regimes are bullsoykaf and the best way to get good at an instrument is to just play it constantly. Maybe practicing sales and learning theory and soykaf will be useful if you really want to be the best ever, or play jazz / classical. But you don't need much to be passable, just play as much as possible whatever you want and you can't help but get better, even if it takes a little longer imo it's worth it because it's actually fun, you know like music is supposed to be.

>>3136 >Currently I am trying to learn the guitar fretboard by playing all of the E frets, then every F, F#, G... etc heres how i did it should cut down on the amount of raw memorization leaves you with a much more natural, fluid understanding of the fretboard, as >>3138 said: >don't bother developing a "sight" for the guitar's fingerboard, since you're not supposed to be looking at it while playing anyways so what we want to establish is a visual way, and ultimately a physical/muscle memory for how to access these different instances of each note. first what i did was memorize the lowest two strings from open, to 11th fret. anything past that fret is obviously redundant because of how octaves work. now ''this'' is a much more manageable task, and can basically be done in a single sitting. now for the "shortcut" because of how octaves work, any shape, note, position etc... can be transformed up or down by moving up/down 12 frets. but this is a difficult interval to jump to physically, and playing the first 7 notes of a scale and then sliding up 12 frets and doing the same pattern again is a soykaf way to smoothly play a two octave scale. so what do? well, my idea was to try and combine fret movement, along with string changes, to shorten the physical size of the position change, and thus take the position i know the notes to, and shift me to a new set of strings where all the notes will be the same for each finger in the pattern. the really obvious one is the octave shape that a lot of guitarists will use when playing punk music: >up (notewise) two frets >up (notewise) two strings this is a comfy shape thats easy to shift positions to, or even play simultaneously. so now, since we know note names on the lowest two strings, we can take a sequence of notes that we know down on E and A, and take that same pattern, move it up two frets and two strings, and now were at the same notes, an octave up. physically its the same pattern, and the position change can easily be accomplished on the way up via a simple "slide" ex (pic related) >on low E: play G, A, B >on low A: play C, D, E, then slide your pinky up to F# >this leaves your first finger free, and it will almost naturally land on the G octave on the next string up (D string in this case) >if you wish to repeat this pattern/access these notes in the next octave, you simply do the same exact finger pattern >you now "know" the note names of this new position/string set automatically the odd interval relationship between the G and B strings muddies the waters a bit, but still only changes it by one extra fret ie from D string to B string as well as G string to e string, octaves are: >up three frets >up two strings so to put it into practice, assuming you take the time to memorize the lowest two strings note names, you can then transform this knowledge into "knowledge" (rather, physical muscle memory, which is ''much'' more useful for improv and composition) of the entire rest of the fretboard. when looking for what note one is playing up on the D string, you merely look two frets back down on the E string, and you have your answer. because its the same pattern on all those strings, with a firm knowledge of the E and A string notes, you know D and G as well now too at a quick glance (and w such a shortcut in your lexicon now, these strings will eventually come to you just as naturally). from this point, you can then know the B and e strings too by then going up ''another'' 3 frets/two strings if you go watch ''any'' talented guitar (or any stringed instrument) player now that you know this, youll probably notice that they do indeed move their hands diagonally. very rarely do they simply go straight up and down in one position. similarly, if you watch good sight readers, youll see the same thing. this is because, when sight reading, you can ''never'' look at your fretboard. in lieu of that, your best bet is to figure out what note your playing with each finger on a particular string pair, then automatically move up to this next position when you go up to the next octave, leaving you with the same exact fingers to play the same notes in the different octave. simplifies sight reading on guitar immensely. obviously this is useful for improv and composition as well for the same reasons, as you now know the notes youre playing, no matter ''where'' you are on the board also, bear in mind that there are other string/fret combos that yield an octave as well, that you can utilize. i showed you the above one because it is the simplest and most useful ime ex >up one string >up seven frets or >up three strings >down three frets etc (just be mindful of that odd interval in between the G and B strings. but this only ever shifts it by one fret) TL;DR <memorize notes on E and A string in first octave <memorize string/fret changes that produce octaves <move diagonally to allow your same fingers to produce the same notes