John Petrucci Chromatic Picking Exercise
January 28th, 2007
Ok, so here is an exercise I use to improve my alternate picking speed as well as my left and right hand coordination. I picked up this little exercise from John Petrucci’s instructional video Rock Discipline and just modified it a little bit to my liking. It is a chromatic pattern, but a little bit more interesting than the standard 4 note, 4 fret up and down pattern. The following should be played using alternate picking, or up/down/up/down.
E||----------------------------------| B||----------------------------------| G||--------------------------3-4-5-6-| D||------------------3-4-5-6---------| A||----------3-4-5-6-----------------| E||--3-4-5-6-------------------------| --------------------------5-6-7-8-| ------------------5-6-7-8---------| --7-6-5-4-5-6-7-8-----------------| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| --9-8-7-6-------------------------| ----------9-8-7-6-----------------| ------------------9-8-7-6---------| --------------------------9-8-7-6-| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| --5-6-7-8-7-6-5-4-----------------| ------------------7-6-5-4---------| --------------------------7-6-5-4-| ----------------------------------| ----------------------------------| --------------------------5-6-7-8-| ------------------5-6-7-8---------| ----------5-6-7-8-----------------| --5-6-7-8-------------------------| ----------------------------7-8-9-10-| -------------------7-8-9-10----------| --9-8-7-6-7-8-9-10-------------------| -------------------------------------| -------------------------------------| -------------------------------------| --11-10-9-8-------------------------------| ------------11-10-9-8---------------------| ----------------------11-10-9-8-----------| --------------------------------11-10-9-8-| ------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------| -----------------------------------| -----------------------------------| -----------------------------------| --7-8-9-10-9-8-7-6-----------------| -------------------9-8-7-6---------| ---------------------------9-8-7-6-| --------------------|| --------------------|| --------------------|| --------------------|| --------------------|| --5-----------------||
Download this tab for Guitar Pro 5
You can see with this pattern, each time you complete it you have moved up 3 frets. I usually start this pattern on the 1st fret and repeat it all the way up the neck until I cant go any further. John Petrucci does this riff at 200bpm. I can’t do it quite that fast. But remember, the key is not speed, it’s accuracy. Play it at a pace where you hit every note perfectly, and then speed it up just a little bit. Once you get comfortable with that speed, go 8 beats faster and then master that.
tagged chromatic scale, guitar exercises, guitar lessons, guitar pro tab and john petrucci
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