Originally, I thought I could keep up with my Exercise of the Week lesson, but I just don't have the time to be doing that on a weekly basis. So here is a toned down version - the Exercise of the Month. You can expect to see quite a wide variety of exercises here that will help you in many areas of your playing.

As some of you may have noticed, there was no monthly exercise in May. I was pretty much on vacation the whole month (pictures from my vacation: http://www.pbase.com/bhuether/recent_travels). I wasn't about to let June slip away without an exercise to get you practicing and thinking!

To get the most appreciation for this exercise, you should take some time to go through my diatonic scales lesson. In that lesson, I show 3-note-per-string patterns for all the scale modes. 3-note-per-string patterns have several benefits. For one thing, they lend themselves to symmetrical picking patterns. Furthermore, they allow you to cover more ground on the fretboard, compared with the "boxy" scale patterns that so many books like to show.

When you become comfortable enough with these scale patterns, you start realizing how you can modify them to come up with creative ways of expression. In this exercise, for instance, you are discarding a certain note on each string, thereby arriving at a 2-note-per-string pattern. The result is similar to 7th and other extended arpeggios, but has a unique quality unto itself.

Here we see a 3-note-per-string Dorian shape - namely, D Dorian in the key of C. But of course, in a sense, all the modes are contained in one another. I have highlighted the G note to illustrate this point. By starting on the G, we are using the Mixolydian mode. This Mixolydian shape then provides the basis of this exercise.

As I said above, in this exercise, we are in essence destroying the 3-note-per-string symmetry, and playing just 2 notes per string. The tablature illustrates this. Also note, that during the descending part of the riff, we are not necessarily playing the same 2 notes on a given string that we played during the ascending part. This furthermore gives the riff a unique, harmonic quality. For experimentation, come up with your own, similar riffs using the other modes. The possibilities are nearly endless!

Like I always say, you should play the riff however you want - picking, legato, both. I played the riff solely with legato - the only role my picking hand played was to reach behind my fretting hand and mute the strings. This technique allows for incredibly fluid playing.

The tab shows the exercise as strictly eighth notes. I entered it that way simply to illustrate the riff. When you play it, experiment with whatever rhythm works for you! I recorded each clip with a metronome click to demonstrate just one possibility. The point of this exercise is not for you to play it just like I do. The point is to walk away with a newfound sense of appreciation for what can be done with scales!