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Thoughts On Sight Reading

     Today, while practicing sight reading on guitar from songs from The Real Book, I had a moment of realization. The realization was based on trying approach the melody for Gershwin's "Summertime" in different playing positions. Playing positions are where we put our hands in relation to the frets up and down the guitar neck. For example: first position is where our first finger easily plays the lowest notes on the first fret, fifth is where the finger plays in relation to the fifth fret; 12th position is where the first finger plays its lowest note on the 12th fret, etc. There are also instances where the positions can be hybridized via stretches or slides, so deviations and different combinations or subsets may occur.       Regardless, sometimes I like to take melody from a jazz standard and try to play it in open or first position. Then I see how it would be played in successive positions up the neck. I did just this today with the aforementioned Gershwin tune. It is
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Slide Guitar: Warm Up Exercises

Slide is a different beast when it comes to playing guitar. Often it is played in a variety of alternate tunings, which totally throws off a lot of the shapes and patterns that standard tuning uses. In addition to being a tricky thing to do without making too much buzzing and rattling, it is also important to apply the tonality of the major, minor and pentatonic variations to slide. One trick to compensate for this is to begin to think more linearly. Here are a few exercises to help make that happen. They can be done in any tuning, standard or open. Practice sliding from an open ringing note to the 12th fret. This requires the ability to “drop in” on the already ringing open note. Be careful not to mute the open note when applying the slide and try to minimize the knocking sound as you put the slide upon the strings. Try to play cleanly and with the best intonation possible. (If notes buzz or rattle, use one of the fingers behind the slide to dampen the strings.) Once this is fairly ea
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Guitar Warm Up Exercises

I used to give little thought to stretching and warm up exercises on guitar. Rather, I would just pick up my guitar and play, with little concern for loosening things up in my hands, arms and body.  I would just play until (sometimes) my fingers, arms, neck and back would hurt. I might stretch or rub a tight muscle if necessary. But I usually didn't think too much about it. While this worked for a while, eventually I started to feel more aches, pains, tingles and tension. So I began to really see the value of stretching, warming up and doing seemingly mundane exercises repetitively on a frequent basis. Below are some things that I have picked up from various sources over 30 years of playing guitar. I try to do these on a regular basis -and I try to have my guitar students do these regularly too.  In addition to helping build better technique, doing these things often helps address areas of tension and allows one to relax more in their play
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