#148 - 4 Year Guitar Progress With A Daily Practice Plan!

Man, I need a dedicated note book to write down the amazing amount of gold that I get from watching your videos! These practice routines are all I've ever craved. I took traditional lessons for a long time, and I never got as far as I have from just 2 months on your patreon here and from your YouTube videos. Thank you so much!

Seth Tucker

Awesome evolution! I must say that my entire 2020 routines were based completely on your exerecises and today I can feel serious changes in my guitar skills, and you still surprising me with every new exercise, Thanks a lot master!

Vince Sanchez

Great exercises in this one. Going to take a bit to master even a few. One of my favs.

Thank you for sharing this! I'm impressed even looking back at your old videos, and it really helps when you point out the flaws in your old technique and what you had to work on to improve.

Chris Lee

Awesome bro! Had to get in on Bernth’s programs to learn more so I can up my YouTube game as well. Glad to see you’re a Patreon as well learning gems from this man. 🤘😎🤘

Riffs From The Abyss 666

Hey, I follow you on YouTube, cool to see you here!

Wolfgang

Definitely will be implementing this!

Riffs From The Abyss 666

Thanx for highlighting those Best exercises. very helpful.

Haha... you were so much better than me even 4 years ago xD I'm so sad now ._. Meanwhile I started my routine about end of last years summer/start of last years fall... it was a short routine like about just 30 minutes or so (including starting to work on your Sweep Picking Master Class) just to pause it around november cause of my new album production and moving to a new appartment. Starting this years january I am practicing a tougher routine with about an hour of playing time including the same things from before and adding some of your stuff. This time around with not just the same exercises every day but altering them at least slightly each week and trying to be more focused on what I'm doing. But I have to admit... I still don't feel that much of a progress or improvement... still pretty unlcean technique, not wanted noice etc. especially while trying to sweep. I DO feel like getting somewhere but it seems to endure much longer than I hoped (especially when compared to the last... 5-8 years or so where I was nearly not practicing (like this) at all and just did my practice like playing in our rehearsals once each week - so just playing our songs in the bandcontext - with very rarely, short and mostly unfocused practice lessons at home once in a while. I feel like I really got just a very little talent on playing guitar at all and that I'll never reach any near your level in particular when it comes to clean and faultless playing. But somehow I am still pumped up to improve and get to a good level of being a guitar player. Really wish I would have that will so many years ago... really hard to overcome years and years of being bad at techniques and stuff... so I guess I also have to thank you, Bernth, to be one of my inspiration sources to draw this willpower from. (since we are about the same age I can think of you like a mirrorself that represents what I could have become already if I would have done more in the past...) By the way... I am still using an open hand to play and THAT doesn't cause any unwanted noise here. (not touching any strings) Feels much better for me than a closed hand (tried it some times before) but well that should be mostly about personal anatomy. So I would suggest it is not a failure to use an open hand.

Sephiroth

I want to share a huge, helpful thing I learned on how to get better with a metronome. I home brewed this into my routine and it’s killer! I’ve been practicing downpicking with my right hand only on the lowest string, going 8 beats at 8/16 back and forth between downpicking 16ths and alternate picking 32nds. I set my metronome up to go 20 bpm faster every 8 bars/measures until a max of +80 from where I started. Once I’m at max, I try to hold it as best I can for 32 bars doing the same thing, 1 bar downpicking, 1 bar alternate picking, and if my downpicking starts struggling I throw in gallops to ease tension and stay in rhythm. Next I’ve been doing -20 bpm from max, I call it the “comfort zone” and I do another 32 bars there. I started at 80 bpm low and 160 high, and now I’m at 92 low and 172 high because I increase the exercise by 1 bpm every day. I’m seeing some powerful results! I wrote a riff and timed it out to the metronome, and discovered I blasted out a 190 bpm downpicking riff with some powers chord slides going on :D I can’t hold 190 for over a minute 30 seconds though, but I can do a full minute at 190 which I couldn’t do before I’m discovering this approach works well with other exercises too— left hand and whatnot

Goat Surgeon

Hell yes Gary Holt! That dude is a riff genius. My go-to's are Jeff Loomis, Alex Skolnick and Wes Hauch when I need some riffage inspiration.

Eric James

I do some basic workouts for 20 minutes, starting with a metronome and downpicking speed (raising the exercise by 1 bpm every day, and doing 32 bars at plateaued speed and 32 bars at comfort speed) Then I practice the 6 beginner shred patterns on the diminished scale with some diminished shaped sweeps at the end, 20 minutes— and I include some patterns from Gary Holts “A Lesson In Guitar Violence” on the Exodus YouTube channel. For the last 20 I play riffs, solos and write music. I’ve got a song I’m working on now called “hemorrhaging hemorrhoids”, straight forward no-brainer goregrind And you mentioned gear— I’m really addicted to my TC Eyemaster > Fangs sound which is like plugging a bosshm2 into a Metalzone so... It sounds amazing though I’d like to say that even though it’s messy, it’s very unforgiving with mistakes because it makes them so loud and staticky scratchy when you do I can’t find another sound I love more, is my problem so I’ve made it transparent as possible with 0 gain on everything and that’s still quite enough and can be overwhelming

Goat Surgeon

I started doing a routine in Dec. It has increased my technique and abilities greatly. This month I switched it up to a group of other excersises. Mostly Berth's lessons but also adding in some favorites from other artists. I'm an idiot for not putting a monthly plan like this many years ago. I'm also forcing myself to learn challenging songs from start to finish. It's great to learn these techniques, but I'm finding that I'm learning just as much playing songs while utilizing all the lessons on here. For example the 3 songs I'm working on currently is Prayer Position - Periphery, Colony - Alluvial and a classic Vinnie Moore track called Morning Star. I realize this isn't a new idea, but it's improving my skills greatly. Cheers shredders!

Eric James

2017 Bernth would still put me to shame haha. Cheers for the vid man.

Right now - I am in the Sweep Picking Master and 10 steps to Modern Shredding courses - so I have change the practice routine to concentrate on these courses: Session 1 in the morning - 1 hour Modern Shredding 1 - 10 minutes of lesson 104 from 2020 (warm up) 2 - 15 minute review of previous week - work on sticking points 3 - 30 minute current week (4 lessons) 4 - 10 minute - jam track or cover song playing Session 2 in the evening - Sweep Picking Master Class 1 - 10 min - Lesson 104 or 144 - warm up 2 - 15 min previous week review 3 - 30 min current week practice 4 - 10 min - Jam track concentrate on sweep/legato/tapping freeform

John H

You are inspirational! Both in guitar and in life, how you set goals and achieved them. Thank you for doing what you do!

Daniel