G Major Scale

These files will guide you when practicing Exercises 1 (all down picks) and Exercise 2 (all up picks).  "BPM" stands for "Beats Per Minute", and refers to how fast the scale is played.  The lower that number is, the slower the exercise played.  Start with 60 bpm, and practice both exercises until you can play them without any mistakes and in perfect time with the audio file.  When you are able to do that, then move to the 80 bpm file and try the same thing with that.  Unless otherwise noted, I recorded these scales counting 4 beats before you will start playing.

G Scale   60 bpm G Scale   80 bpm G Scale  100 bpm

These files will guide you when practicing Exercise #3, when you alternate down-up picking.  Try 60 bpm first and, when you can do that in perfect time with the audio file, try 80 bpm.

Are the second and sixth notes of the first half of this scale, giving you a little trouble?  That might be because, when you did the first half of exercise one, your hand traveled from the G string, to the D string, to the A string, and then the E string - always moving downward and getting closer to the floor as you went up the scale.  On this exercise, since you are alternating your pick direction, your pick is moving upward on the second and sixth notes, while your hand is moving downward (closer to the floor).  You just need to make sure that you move your hand a little more - so that it gets below the A string before you play the second note, and below the E string before you play the sixth note.

G Scale Down-Up  60 bpm G Scale Down-Up  80 bpm

These files will guide you when practicing Exercise #4.  Here you will alternate up and down picks, but your right hand is moving at a faster speed because you are playing eighth notes rather than quarter notes.

G Scale Eighth notes  60 bpm G Scale Eighth notes  80 bpm

This file will help you with Exercise #5, which is the hardest.  Concentrate on using the correct pick direction - if you do it correctly, at the end of Measures 2 and 4, you should finish with up-picks.  Up-picking may not feel natural to you but, if you can learn to emphasize the beat while up-picking, you will be able to play a much wider range of music that someone who can only do it while down-picking.

G Scale Triplets  60 bpm