These guitar scale exercises, created by M. Carcassi for Classical Guitar over 180 years ago, and adapted here for electric / pick-style guitar, will help you build left hand finger strength and independence, while securing a solid and accurate right hand picking / hybrid-picking technique. All guitarists – beginners and experts alike – can benefit from incorporating exercises like these into their daily practice routine. Try them out to enjoy a relaxed, melodic way to improve your technique while incorporating a piece of guitar history into your playing.
Matteo Carcassi was an Italian guitarist / composer who wrote, among many other works, an important Guitar Method as well as a popular collection of Etudes (study pieces). Every student of the Classical guitar encounters Carcassi at some point in their lessons, and even the best of the best Classical guitarists like John Williams can recall studying his Etudes during their formative years. But these works are not beneficial for Classical guitarists alone; in fact, Carcassi was first introduced to me by one of my Berklee-trained guitar teachers, who guided me through a selection of his Etudes featured in the book “Classical Studies for Pick-Style Guitar” by William Leavitt.
In this lesson, I’ve selected and adapted the following exercises for you from Carcassi’s original “Method for the Guitar”.
Jump to PDF download of all exercises
In this first exercise (Ex. 1.), we’ll play an ascending and descending C major scale, alternating each note with a static G note held down with the pinky on the 1st (high E) string.
Follow the left hand fingering indicated in the notation, and be sure to let each scale note ring out along with the upper G note, rather than picking the left hand fingers up in between notes. For pick-style practice, play several times with each of the following right hand picking patterns:
Picking Patterns
- Alternate picking – Down, Up
- Hybrid Picking – Down, Middle
- Hybrid Picking – Down, Ring
- Hybrid Picking – Down, Ring, Down, Middle
- Original Classical Technique (Finger Picking) – Thumb, Middle
For the next two exercises we’ll move beyond ascending / descending scale practice to focus on playing nice sounding melodic patterns within the scale. The notes in Example 2 are closer to the top note, making it easier for left hand stretches and right hand reach, while Example 3 provides a wider gap for each hand to tackle.
After playing the exercises above, you should begin to grasp the value they can add in working on and preparing for some of the technical challenges of playing the guitar. In Carcassi’s own words (translated from the original):
Guitar music almost always requires several parts, which increases the difficulty of execution, unless the pupil has already acquired the habit of moving each finger of the left hand, separately and independently. The following exercises are very useful in obtaining this object. Each of them should be repeated many times.
M. Carcassi, “Method for the Guitar”
For the next two exercises, we’ll change the key to A major, and move the top note up to an A, increasing the left hand stretch, while the right hand duties remain pretty much the same. Example 4 is a descending and ascending A major scale, and Example 5 presents a melodic pattern within that scale.
After you’ve practiced all of the exercises above, you may still be wondering how you can apply these techniques and concepts to a more electric / lead-guitar oriented approach. Try the following exercises. Here, I’ve adapted Example 4 by moving it up an octave, where the frets are closer together, but we don’t have the ability to take advantage of the open strings to play certain notes (B,G,D). This presents new challenges and fingering decisions. Example 6 mimics the string patterns used in Example 4, following the same note-per-string groupings, but using the 12th fret instead of open strings.
Following the fingerings indicated in the notation below will provide a fairly significant stretch for the left hand, so practice slowly and make sure you are warmed up first. For Example 7, we’ll play the same notes, but moved to a more left hand finger-friendly fret grouping.
In addition to moving Example 4 up an octave, as in Examples 6 and 7, try playing any of the other exercises presented in this lesson up an octave. Experiment with the left hand fingering to find what works best for your hand, and notice that your left hand decisions also affect the right hand technique.
In this lesson, I hope I’ve been able to help you introduce a little bit more historical perspective into your guitar playing, while providing some effective technique-building exercises to work into your daily practice routine. Don’t you love the idea of working out with exercises written for our instrument over 180 years ago, in order to build up a formidable modern guitar technique? I know I do!
For more, be sure to review my previous lesson and download on hybrid picking pedal point from Bach’s Toccata, as well as this exercise by Mozart.
Download FREE PDF of all guitar exercises (TAB & Standard Notation):
Guitar Exercises for Finger Independence
Guitar Exercises for Finger Independence (FREE download for all newsletter subscribers!)
PDF Download, 1 Page (Standard Notation and TAB)
