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.
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I thought for a while about what I wanted to do for this week's exercise. As I started pondering arpeggios, I recalled a passage from a Jason Becker song that I heard years ago. So I found some tab for it, adjusted it to suit my preferences and learned it to my satisfaction (a couple errors here and there, but what do you expect from a day's worth of practicing!).
After going though this exercise, you will see that the lick is almost entirely made up of triad arpeggio shapes, which are covered in my triad arpeggios lesson. So now we are seeing how one can go from exercises and techniques, to profound musical statements.
Above we see the various arpeggio shapes that are contained in this lick. Notice how they are all triads. In fact, if you really take notice, you will see that these arpeggios are all in the key of D Major. Some of these shapes are repeated at different positions on the neck, as you will see once you start going through the tab. Sometimes you will be playing across 3 strings, sometimes across 5. In the triad arpeggio lesson, I have several exercises that gradually take you from 3 string to 5 string triads, so if you are familar with that lesson, then you may find this lick quite doable.
Don't be scared off by the length of this tab. There are many repeated patterns, which makes memorizing this lick quite easy actually. Just take it piece by piece. First make sure you can play the first triad cleanly (the E Minor), then go on from there to the A Major and B Minor triads. You see those shapes above in the fretboard diagrams popping up everywhere!
I have only recorded this at the fast speed (sorry - I can't keep recording 3 versions of every exercise!). I highly suggest you use the MIDI version to play along at whatever speed you are comfortable with. And also, the actual lick does not end the way I play it, but I needed to end it. You can hear the actual version here:
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