TE-201 • The Spider

[sophiehiker]

Hello!I need help with the picking.I always use alternate picking but sometimes i use twice down or twice up picking because its much easier and simple, is that bad habit or it is normal?Do i have to use alternate picking all the time in playing?I am really busted if i am wrong because it is hard to remove a bad habit...
Thank you!

When I pick it, I say silently to myself, "up, down, up, down, ...".  That helps me keep alternating.

[sophiehiker]

Justin (or anyone for that matter), when you play, is the bottom part of your picking hand resting on the guitar or is it floating off of the guitar?

I stabilize my picking hand with my pinkie resting on the pick guard.

[sophiehiker]

Hi everyone,
It's just a question i have.. i'm doing this exercise for some weeks now, but when i'm playing songs and when i pick strings individually, sometimes I miss the string or play the wrong string.. this usually when i play like the A string and then go to the B string or something like that (string skipping?). i'm just wondering if you guys know any exercise that helps hitting the right strings. Do you think the spider is a good one?

Yes, that's the purpose of the exercise.

[Ian1878]

I'm finding the alternate picking quite difficult to get into but am seeing improvement. I'm not really sure that I understand the purpose though. I wouldn't naturally do alternate picking e.g. after the third note (down stroke on the B string) I found myself wanting to simply carry on the stroke and also down stroke the 4th note on the E string. The exercise requires you to pass over the E string and hit the 4th note on the way back as an up stroke. This seems inefficient. Should I be trying to incorporate alternate picking into all my playing. If so, I don't really understand why. If not then I'm not sure what I'm trying to achieve here (other than some control and awareness of the way I am picking). I realise that I'm probably missing something here and would appreciate some guidance. Apart from that I find this a great way to get used to playing across different strings. Thanks for the site Justin. It is inspirational. Have just received the Intermediate course as a Christmas present. Happy Christmas all.

[sophiehiker]

@ian1878 - control and awareness are good reasons.  It's the most common way to play with a pick.  Wiki has an article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_picking  that discusses the pros and cons.  Merry Christmas.

[Ian1878]

@sophiehiker. Thanks. I will keep at it!

[Cheray]

Hi Justine .... I have one question. I have a problem with the little finger. I play for quite a long time and I never practiced the little finger. A lot of guitar players little finger rarely used but  now that is doesn't matter. In this exercise, we need to use the little finger but it is very difficult to me to play with him. Is it a big mistake if I play spider drill with the first three fingers and is necessary that little finger who is my true problem?


P.S. 
I said that I play for a while so I created some of their own style and technique. But browsing through your site, I watched your lesson where we learn how to properly hold the guitar and hand. I have a problem with my left hand, but I'm quite used to. Specifically, the left hand is always in a position to "play the blues" (because I prefer the blues), and sometimes is very difficult to me to play some chords and a variety of scales, so I asked you for advice on whether to hold of my own way of playing and holding hands, or to start from beginning as I do you recommend?

Thank you very much ... Cheers!


Nemanja ...

[sophiehiker]

Yes, you should use your little finger for the spider drill!  Yes, you will need to be able to hold the guitar so you can play chords and scales!

Yes, please start the beginners course and follow the recommendations.

[weirdwillie]

Hey, kinda new to this posting thing, but have a question.  Justin shows this excersise starting on the 5th fret I think.  Would it be beneficial to move it up and down the fretboard?
Thanks

[routerbooter]

Hey, kinda new to this posting thing, but have a question.  Justin shows this excersise starting on the 5th fret I think.  Would it be beneficial to move it up and down the fretboard?
Thanks

Hey Willie, welcome to the forum.  If you're just learning the spider I would keep it on the 5th fret until you're comfortable with it, and can play it at a reasonable speed (say 80bpm at 2 notes per click).  Once you can do that I think it's a good idea to move it up and down the fretboard, just as is the case with scales.  I usually start on the 5th fret then move up (or down, depending which way you look at it) until I get to the 1st fret, then down (or up) until reaching the 12th fret, then back up to the 5th.  I guess if you've reached a stage where you're purely going for an increase in speed then you might want to keep it on the same fret each time.

[weirdwillie]

Hey thanks router.  Is it harder the higher or lower you go?

[routerbooter]

I think there's a reason why Justin demonstrated it on the 5th fret.  There are differences the higher or lower you go, since the frets are either wider or thinner.  It can be a bit of a stretch towards the 1st fret, but hey, stretching is good!  Also the angle at which you fingers have to be at changes - it gets more acute towards the 12th fret and less towards the 1st.  The last point is that as you descend towards the 12th fret the strings are usually higher off the fretboard which can make the excersise slightly more difficult. 

[AM]

Should this exercise just be played as fast as you can (accurately) and keep on building speed every day or should I just do it at the same speed every day?
Currently playing 16th notes at 90bpm is this a good speed or should I be doing it faster?

Cheers

[flyhead]

It's clearly explained as a stretching cum endurance exercise, so speed is detrimental to its purpose. If you wish to use the shapes as shredding practice there's nothing preventing you from doing so, but I suspect that there are more appropriate exercise patterns to use than this one.

[Died244]

I'm having problems with my fourth finger that is too short I think, when I get to the topmost string(s), I feel like I can't press hard enough to let the note sound clear... Is this part of a lack of technique or just something I develop while doing this exercise?

Secondly, I constantly hear the "bad habits" words, but I never hear what those bad habits are... Can someone tell me, so I can focus on not perfecting my bad habits?

[Toad]

Does this excercise help with picking accuracy?

[joshs]

Try and see, might be different for you...

But...

Most people will find it harder going lower, especially towards the nut. Because the stretch is bigger. Also because around the 5th fret is such a natural place to put your hand. I think that's why exercises like this usually go for the 5th fret as a starting point. Going higher will probably be more or less the same until you get high enough that your hand is having to negotiate the guitar body and the frets are getting to be smaller targets.

I love this exercise, btw. It's a huge challenge for me. I'm starting to get to the point where some days I can get through a cycle or two without blowing it at slow speeds. :-)

Oh, another cool thing to do if you start really getting it, jazz it up! Change up the timing (switch between triplets, quarter notes, eighth notes, syncopate, add swing), switch directions around arbitrarily, etc. This is some advice I got via Victor Wooten once regarding scales. Applies to any route kind of exercise.

Hey thanks router.  Is it harder the higher or lower you go?

[Toad]

My fretting hand is pretty agile already, but I guess it could always use more work.  I'm mainly concerned with my picking though.  My accuracy with hitting the right string is horrible.  Going from adjacent strings is fine, but skipping strings is a struggle.

I will work on this spider excercise and hopefully it will help with my picking.  But does anyone know any other excercise that specifically targets picking or is this the best one?

What bugs me about this excerecise (no pun intended) is the way it sounds.  It's not melodic at all to my ears.  It sounds like a scratching a chalk board!  I cringe when I hear it.

[joshs]

Toad, this exercise is way more challenging for the picking hand then fretting hand! In fact it's one of the better exercises I've seen for that.

My old instructor gave me some alternate picking exercises a while back that were great. I only remember the basics, but you can expand on them. Play these exercises with the strings open and your left hand only holding the guitar steady so you can focus on picking. Start on two adjacent strings. Then skip one string. Then two. Then try moving the pattern around (ex. Start on B E, then move to G B without breaking the rhythm). Play with a metronome and gain speed after you perfect it.

1. Easiest

v      v        v
   ^       ^        ^

2. Slight challenge, especially at high speed. Very useful

    ^        ^       ^
v        v        v


3. Random crazy one I made up to give you an idea how to expand


v  ^             v               ^
         v   ^         ^   V   

You get the point? You can make your own patterns up of course, but make sure to play the pattern exact.

[Toad]

Looks pretty good josh.  I'll do that.  Thanks. 

[Loonybin-Fizzbin]

I became to understand it fully ONLY when I changed time signatures from 4/4 to 3/4..I made up scale runs on my own, then used each run...with each signature...

[asdfplaya]

hi, love this site. but i just got one question, when i do this exercise, am i supposed to place my right hand on the neck like i would with a chord or arpeggio or should i play it like i would a solo where i would press only on every note?

[joshs]

Do you play lefty? It's better to refer to your hands as "pick hand" and "fret hand" to avoid confusion. Assuming you are (since the question doesn't make sense the other way around) Press one note at a time. You don't want the notes to continue to ring.

[CaptainFarrell]

Hey guys, been working on the Beginner's Course for a few months now but only discovered the Spider exercise a few weeks ago. I have been working on this and there definitely is an improvement 

Got a fretting hand related question.
I was watching the vid again and I noticed that Justin's fingers move absolutely independently from each other, but when I do it, aside from the obvious problems with speend and accuracy.... Here is what I wanted to ask.
let's say I press down with the little finger I have to REALLY FOCUS and play sllooooowwwwwww for the three other fingers to stay where they are. If I don't focus the other three are going up and forming something like an eagle claw Bruce Lee would be proud of 

Or if I'm pressing down with my ring finger the other three are going  up, and so on. I just can't get the fingers to say relaxed while only one finger is pressing.

I tried just now to play real slow and focus on only having movement in the finger that I need to press down with but it is SO TOUGH!  I could do it but I spend so much time trying to get my brain to only send signals to one finger and leave the other three alone haha

Will this go away eventually as I get faster? Or should I consciously focus on fixing this now at the early stages as I am practising the Spider?


Thanks!

[misterg]

Hello and welcome!

... should I consciously focus on fixing this now at the early stages as I am practising the Spider?

Yes, IMHO.

I think the spider is quite an advanced exercise, so it will be hard. Have you tried the 'Minimal movement' exercise? It's a little easier than the Spider, but still feindishly tricky to start with.

Just my 0.02p