# Building Stamina (calling all finger tapping/legato enthusiasts!)



## MrPepperoniNipples (May 30, 2012)

Probably my favorite guitarist is Christian Muenzner, i really like his playing especially his long legato finger tapping runs that he does so often

I have figured out a lot of his licks from Timewarp that involve multiple fingers on the right hand when it comes to tapping, mostly the middle finger and ring finger


Now I can do this licks no problem, but my ring finger gets exhausted fairly quickly, and it's been a few months since I started doing these licks

So when it gets exhausted, it doesn't pull off correctly and so the note after is doesn't come out most of the time

So my question to you is how can I build stamina?

Should I be practicing the licks even after the finger gets tired? - i don't want to develop bad habits, which i think this would provoke

Or should I practice for a while until it gets exhausted and come back to it every once in a while? - i don't know how helpful this would be if i'm not raelly pushing it past the limits

Thanks sevenstring!


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## groovemasta (May 30, 2012)

I had this problem for awhile I find its better now, this may be bad advice but along with other things what i did was like 1-3-4-3-1 motions over and over again treating it like a treadmill type exercise. Generally I would try to do it as long as I could even if it started burning alittle bit but would stop if any sharp non-muscly pains happened. 

I read somewhere John Petrucci made the comparison of how similar body building is to building technique on guitar and generally treat endurance and strength building workouts on guitar as .... workouts.


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## OrsusMetal (May 30, 2012)

MrPepperoniNipples said:


> Should I be practicing the licks even after the finger gets tired? - i don't want to develop bad habits, which i think this would provoke



No no no. Never practice until your finger gets tired. You will over work it. Practice it slowly for about 10 minutes at the same speed. Then, move on to something else for the day during your session. Come back to it the next day and do the same thing. Keep at this for a few weeks and your technique should feel MUCH better. As well as being able to increase speed easier. Just make sure that you are paying attention to the technique at the slower speed.

As for stamina, try just working the hammer on/pull offs with your tapping hand, by doing trills. Burst exercises should work nicely. Like spend 5-10 seconds doing 8th note trills with the middle and ring finger, then 2-3 seconds immediately after doing 8th triplets or 16th notes. Do this for about a minute straight moving between the two speeds.

Always stretch before you play. Never play past the point of getting tired or hurting. You will hurt yourself in the long run. Always remember, "Tomorrow is another day." Meaning, you can work more on it later. If you try to force results in a days time, usually you will do more harm than good. Take the slow, relaxed approach. You will thank yourself later.


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## groovemasta (May 30, 2012)

just disregard my post I guess, it's probably going to get confusing with two contradictory posts and his seems like a safer method.

I highly advocate stretching often though.


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## ChronicConsumer (May 30, 2012)

The key to building stamina is to regularly work out. If you're an inexperienced runner practicing for a marathon, you don't do this by running 30 km on your first day of practice. You'll collapse, possibly tear a muscle, lose all motivation.. basically, the point here is that in order to perform any great physical endurance act, you can't just dive in head first, you have to be ready for it. So let's get you started!

You should always warm up, stretch, and begin at the highest possible speed you can do the given lick. This means perfectly timed, without any tension, completely in control of every muscle movement (it's probably very very very slow, but hey, that's alright!). I like to practice new licks at this speed for about 2 or 3 minutes when I learn them, that is 2-3 minutes without stopping (unless I screw up hehe). This should get the lick into your muscle (and mental)memory. After practicing until you master this, you want to speed up probably. The absolute best key (in my opinion and I'm rather sure most people agree with me on this) to building up speed is to maintain that immaculate, seemingly effortless technique in your fingers whilst keeping your mind concentrated. Once you get comfortable (and I don't mean just playing it once and saying Yep, I got that) at any given speed, playing it faster is essentially just a matter of being able to think it faster (you want every movement to be a conscious act). To a certain point, of course, at which you need to practice it more again. The thing is, though I'm fairly sure you don't even NEED to go anywhere NEAR Shawn Lane's top speed, the faster you get, the longer it takes to get even faster.

So there's that on how to practice, but don't forget when you practice. I find that my improvement is much faster when I'm sober and I fully concentrate whilst practicing for 15 minutes, 4 times a day, than to noodle around for 8 hours straight when I'm high as a kite.
Basically, focus, be in absolute control and keep at it. Don't give up after a day because you're not Petrucci yet. It takes time.


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## Konfyouzd (May 30, 2012)

If I can't play something fast, I just play it slow and exaggerated and slowly speed it up until it sounds cleaner. At the point where it begins to sound sloppy again, I back up the bpm a bit on the metronome and start again working my way back up to the speed where it starts to sound sloppy. Eventually you start to push that number up.

If your exercise is rigorous enough you should be working all fingers anyway and they should eventually start to level out in ability.


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## Lagtastic (May 30, 2012)

Do the Legato Workout from Cooley's 'Shred Guitar Manifesto' every other day for a month.

Try out the 5 minute rule. Get yourself an egg timer or a stopwatch. Anything that gives you trouble, play it at a slow comfortable speed for 5 minutes straight, 1-3 times during your daily playing. I keep a "5 minute list" that I go through. Once I am warmed up and play a few songs for fun, I go down my 5 minute list on all the licks/ideas that I am currently working on. I go through the list 2-3 times every day that I play. It has helped me immensely with uncomfortable legato lines, tapping with string skipping, and multi finger tapping with the picking hand.


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## Solodini (May 30, 2012)

Regularity is important. The more often you practise, the more you'll become used to your recovery time and your hands may start to recover more quickly, to a point.


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## wizbit81 (Jun 4, 2012)

totally non-guitar way of doing this, but try doing pressups on your fingertips. Don't bust straight into that, try doing it against the wall first to make sure you can without injuring yourself. Do this and any hanging from a bar exercise to develop grip strength and you'll have steel fingers. Tapping and legato can kiss your ass. 

Key thing on the guitar though chaps.....NEVER use more power than you need. For me playing is like typing and no harder. There's a small amount of tension for legato, and a little flick for tapping, but that's it. Most beginners and intermediates use far, far too much pressure when they play. That hurts, slows you down, and gives you tendonitis. It's PLAYING an instrument, not wrestling it.


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## CRaul87 (Jun 5, 2012)

This is so weird.. The way I approach anything on guitar practice wise it the same as if I would go to the gym or take up some sport. What I do is push myself to the limit each and every time and tbh it works for me.. I think it's more a mater of mentality than anything else but personally I feel like a pussy if I stop too soon when practicing something that I already have ingrained in my muscle memory and I'm just trying to push it's speed, otherwise if it's something newer that I'm not familiar with I'll take it slow and with lots of little breaks in between, something like 5min straight practice 1 min pause then repeat.


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## MrPepperoniNipples (Jun 6, 2012)

i've made quite a bit of progress since i posted this

i can't thank sevenstring enough!


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