A short instructional YouTube lesson by Lauren Bateman teaching a "spider" finger-dexterity exercise. The lesson uses a one-finger-per-fret method (assigning each fretting finger to its own fret) and practices both picking and fretting hands. Picking-hand drill: use a pick to perform three down-picks per string moving from the top (low E) to the bottom (high E) and then reverse. Fretting-hand drill: place index/middle/ring on the 5th/6th/7th frets (or 7th/8th/9th if 5–7 is too wide) and play the pattern 5-6-7 on each string down and back up. Emphasis: go slow, focus on finger placement; next video adds the pinky.
Questions this video answers
Lauren Bateman; uploaded May 6, 2020.
Start on the 5th, 6th, and 7th frets (alternative: 7th, 8th, and 9th frets if 5–7 is too wide).
Three down-picks per string, moving in order: low E, A, D, G, B, high E, then reverse back B, G, D, A, low E.
Index finger → 5th fret; middle finger → 6th fret; ring finger → 7th fret.
Chapters
Hello, guitar enthusiasts. Welcome back to my finger dexterity series. In this video, we're going to go over a spider exercise. So this exercise is great for people who are new to the guitar and are working on developing dexterity in their fretting hand. So let's first talk about the exercise. In this exercise and all the following exercises, we're going to talk about the one finger per fret method. So what we're going to do is we're going to assign each finger to its own unique fret. And for most learners, I start them on the fifth, sixth, and seventh frets of the guitar. Now, if this is too much of a stretch for you, you can always start at the seventh, eighth, and ninth frets as well. So let me zoom in on the fretboard of the guitar so that you guys can see exactly what I'm doing with this exercise. Before we even talk about what we're going to be doing with the fretting hand. First, let's talk about what we're going to do with our picking hand. And I have a pick in my picking hand. Pick. And all we're going to do is nothing with our fretting hand. And we're going to do three down picks with our picking hand. Starting at the top string, I'm going to go in and zoom in on my picking hand so that you guys can see what I'm doing. So you'll see here that I am on the top string. And all I want you to do is three down picks.
Down, down, down.
All you're going to do. So you're going to start at this top string.
Down, down, down.
Move to the fifth string.
Down, down, down.
Move to the fourth string.
Third string.
Down, down, down.
Move to the second string.
Down, down, down.
Bottom string.
Down, down, down.
Once we get down there, we're just going to move it backwards. So we're going to come back up to the second string.
Down, down, down.
Then we're going to move up to the G string.
Down, down, down.
Then we're going to move up to the D string. Down, down, down, up to the A string. Down, down, down, up to the E string. So essentially, all we're doing on the picking hand is we're moving from the top string to the bot.
Demonstrate really fast. It's going to be E, A, D, G, B, E, B, G, D, A, and then E. Now, a really cool exercise that you can just do with your picking hand is, you can see I didn't have to look at the strings in the beginning. You're going to have to look at the strings. But don't worry about that. Eventually you can practice just doing that exercise alone and try not to look at the strings. Next, let's go in for a close up on the fretting hand to match what we just did with our picking hand. Okay, so here we are zoomed in on the fretboard. Like I said, I'm going to use the fifth, sixth and seventh frets. But if this is too much of a stretch for you, feel free to use the seventh, eighth and ninth frets. So each finger is going to have its own fret. So the first fret is going to. Our first finger is going to own the fifth fret. The second finger is going to own the sixth fret. Third finger is going to own the seventh fret. And all we're going to do is is pick.
One fret per pick. So it's 5, 6, 7. And then we're going to move down to the fifth string. 5, 6, 7, move down 5, 6, 7, all the way down, 5, 6, 7. And just like with our picking hand, we're going to come back up second fret or second string, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. So all together, it's this.
Now, the great thing about this exercise is we're working both on our picking hand and both on our fretting hand. And what you want to do, don't worry about speed for now. Just work on going slow and trying not to keep your fingers from flying off the fret board. That's something else you can work on, but basically just go slow one fret at a time. And once you get that down pat, you can move on to the next lesson Video where we're going to get the pinky involved.
