Practicing Guitar

Hello Again,
First....tune your guitar.....now
Ready to practice,sure you are!Ah...the art of practicing.Practice is very important,it develops your chops,helps you to use all those weapons you've aquired,limbers you up,builds speed,and instills confidence,along with new material or weapons.You should start off with some scales,playing them slowly then build your speed.A simple major scale will suffice,and stretch your fingers from the knuckles,other words,if you are doing a 4 to 5 fret stretch,try stretching from your knuckles to achieve that little extra,to be able to gain the distance required.And play the scale down at the lower end of the fretboard(3rd fret or 5th fret),by the nut or the headstock.The fret distance is greater there than say at frets eight and up!And along with the major scale try a minor or chromatic also,some variation(stretches different muscles)!You can start off with a simple down/up picking order,and remember slow!The slow speed helps to stretch the muscles,we are still getting loosened up!In addition,play some chords,to help you get loosened up.Play some open string chords along with some bar chords and for you more advanced players,play some minor and Major 9's,they really stretch your fingers/knuckles out!(Mickey Bakers Book One has some great basic jazz chords in his book...a must have)
Once you are limbered up,begin to increase your speed,But,as always,clean and accurate is the goal!Now let me inject this,use a clear sound, not a fuzzed out distorted tone!A metronome is a good practice tool to have and it allows you to see your progress.With each tick play a note,while slowly increasing the speed of the metronome to the point where you begin to lose control or can't play with it,then back off and start again.And,a drum machine could also be used,with the same affect and a little more entertaining!But,with the metronome you can hear if the note you are playing is right on with the metronome.We are talking about trying to be dead on with the metronome!
OK....this is part one on practicing the guitar,i will include another blog shortly,say in the next 2 to 4 days.So remember......SLOW,to start off with.