TG’S GIGGING PRACTICE PLAN
It goes almost without saying that your playing skills need to be fully up to speed when playing live. When practising, you need to focus on a mix of repertoire and core skills such as rhythm playing and basic lead techniques – it’s mostly about making sure you’ve got the basics down at this stage, rather than aiming for next-level practising.
With that in mind, what follows is not so much a practice routine or a series of drills, but a broader set of exercises and concepts that’ll help you hone the relevant playing skills for playing live. Read on, plug in and get practising!
1 CHORD CHANGES
Limber up your fingers with these challenging changes
File this under ‘essential playing skills’! Whether you’re playing live, recording in the studio or just jamming songs for fun, you’re going to need to have your chord changing skills down pat. And if you’ve not played a gig for a while, well, it’s a skill that might just need a little practice. Try out our tab exercise and you’ll see progress.
CHORD CHANGES TRACK 11
These shapes are real finger-twisters! Take your time learning how to fret each chord accurately before tackling the changes. Aim to fret right on your fingertips, and not on the front of your fingers.
