Any specific exercises you all used to improve these?

Finger strength... bend top e 24th fret. and hold it and let it ring then eventually add vibrato to that.... once u do it on electric buy a cheap acoustic with thick gauge strings n do the same on the acoustic

Don't really see the point of buying an acoustic just for that purpose....I know about all the trills and Satriani exercises etc...I just want to hear about exercises other than the commonly known ones found everywhere...I'm already good with the bent vibrato stuff..

A good exercise is to do first finger 1st fret 2nd finger 2nd fret 3rd finger 3rd fret 4th finger 4th fret and just go up and down every string for a while it's a good way to start training your fingers

http://www.intimateaudio.com/psycho_licks.satriani.html

For legato add some cloth around the nut to dull out unwanted sounds so you can concentrate purely on left hand technique. Start with 3 note per string patterns and use a triplet feel to develop your hammer ons first then work on pull offs. With pulls remember the effect on a lower string may be unwanted sounds so then start to work on muting with both fretting fingers and right hand palm and fingers.

Finger strength i would not confine myself to bending a note at 24th fret of E string you need to develop strength in ALL fingers. Bear in mind how your thumb rests behind the neck can add stability to your fretting fingers so sit down and analyse every little part to refine things.

Finger independence the 1-2-3-4 fret in every combination played as scales then play as 4 note chords moving up the strings and up the frets. Plenty of videos of Satriani demo'ing this and info in his book Satriani Secrets.

Lastly I would say don't go mental playing this stuff for hours. just play for 5-10mins as a warm up then play some real music!! enjoy

One other thought about this is warmup in general should be like a sportsperson....do some simple stretchof arms, shoulders etc and remember to BREATH when playing long legato runs....you hold your breath for concentration the first thing that goes is your muscles due to lack of oxygen and you'll make mistakes. :huh:

I find playing through some pages in the Real Book helps a lot with warming up. Practice scales with legato, use the metronome and keep track of tempo so as the days pass you can turn up the speed. Make sure to play and learn a new lick every day.

A legato exercise I use is below. It's basically just a melodic sequence through a G major scale (or any scale you choose to use). The first note in each group of 4 is either picked (if it's the first note on that string) or I slide into it (denoted by an 's' on the tab). I've denoted hammers with a 'h' and pulls with a 'p'.

The first part is relatively straightforward and is just pick, hammer, hammer, pull, slide, hammer, hammer, pull, slide, hammer, hammer, pull, slide, hammer, hammer, pull (it's easier than my messy tab looks). What makes this a little more challenging is the 2nd part where I move to the 5th string and reverse the pattern so that you are sliding with the little finger.

I specifically came up with this exercise to get me out of sounding like Satch and sliding around on my 1st finger all day.

But I also come back to this when I want to practice a new scale or mode as it covers all the notes and helps me get the sound in my head as well as the shapes under my fingers.

String 4:
5--h7--h9--p5--s7--h9--h10--p7--s9--h10--h12--p9--s7--h9--h10--p7--

String 5:
10--p9--p7--h10--s9--p7--p5--h9--s7--p5--p3--h7--s9--p7--p5--p9--

REPEAT

Hope this makes some sense, but please shout if it doesn't. And don't hurt yourself!

Cheers
Rob

Sorry, that last note should be a hammer of course!

String 4:
5--h7--h9--p5--s7--h9--h10--p7--s9--h10--h12--p9--s7--h9--h10--p7--

String 5:
10--p9--p7--h10--s9--p7--p5--h9--s7--p5--p3--h7--s9--p7--p5--h9--

When I was at college about 10 years ago I was on a mission to perfect my legato technique. I would pickup every Satriani guitar book I knew and study the excercises. I also listened alot to the legato of the player that inspired Joe's legato technique, namely Allan Holdsworth. This was a fluid, fast, aurally pleasing technique that seemed a very expressive and impressive tool to aqcuire.

Eventually I found an excercise that explored Satriani's legato technique, and that set the ball rolling for me until I was able to eventually master the technique. Here are a few tips which I'm sure you will find useful for developing your legato technique:


[Key: ^ = hammer on/pull off, \ = slide down, / = slide up]


1. learn the condensed major (which is also the minor) scale shapes all over the neck of the guitar (i.e. non-three notes per string).

2. Learn to visualise the extended scale shapes as well (i.e. three notes per string).

3. Hammer on to three notes per string on every string, both ascending and descending for every scale shape up the neck. Do the same with pull-offs too.

4. slide up to each three notes per string hammer on pattern with your first finger, so that you are now playing 4 notes per string, or every other string (tip: sliding up one fret is usually the smoothest legato sound).

[e.g. hammer ons: -----7/8^10^12---- pull offs: ---12^10^8\7---]

5. do a three-notes-per string hammer on or pull off but instead of using the first finger to slide to the second note, use your fourth finger to slide to the fourth note at the end of each 4-notes-per-string pattern.

[e.g. hammer ons: ----10^12^14/15---- pull offs: -----15\14^12^10----]

6. start from the top of the scale pattern, and slide with your fourth finger to the second note down, then pull off the other 3 notes. Repeat this all the way down the scale to produce a legato run.

7. When Joe begins a legato run, he usually starts with this pattern, alternating hammer-ons and pull-offs to give the run a more complex, interesting sound:

E---15^12^14^15^14^12-----------------------------------------
B------------------------------15^13^12----------------------------
G-------------------------------------------14^12^11\9^11^12 ect.



...hope this helps, I could spend more time on this subject if time permitted me. :)

Excercise for finger strength:

---1^2^1^2^1^2^1 ect
---1^3^1^3^1^3^1 ect
---1^4^1^4^1^4^1 ect

---2^3^2^3^2^3^2 ect
---2^4^2^4^2^4^2 ect
---3^4^3^4^3^4^3 ect

----------5-7-9-7-5
---5-7-9------------9-5-7-9

or any variations of that, on strings, up and down fretbaord, in various different note groupings (not just 2 whole steps).

I started with things like that (since many pattersn like that are found so often in Satchs solos, which is why I came up with it) and then moved on to what Rob and Holdsworth has said, which is the real crux of it.

Interestingly enough I used to have an article in Guitar Techniques where Satriani was quoted as saying that "You should aim to liberate yourself from playing any organised fingering". I feel his excercises and way of teaching through improvisation reflects that.

^ yes, definitely

If you just play the same pattern shape over and over again it will only work against you...like if there's a section and you do the first half of a memorized pattern and you're supposed to do something different but instead you just play the end of the memorized pattern...it works against you.