Now it’s time to take the solfeggio we just learned and replace the hand gestures with more guitar specific movements.

This lesson is inspired by the fantastic book, “Essential Ear Training for Guitar and Bass” by Gary Willis, thank you for the inspiration.

I’m a very strong believer that the fretboard should be heard and not seen.

What do I mean by this?

I believe that there should be a subconscious connection between how your hands and your mind’s ear, this is much deeper than just seeing scales, this is building an intuitive relationship between your fingers and the sounds in your head. The act of expressing your internally heard melodies should not have to pass through conscious filters on its bath from your brain to your fingers. This exercise is one of the foundational steps.

Whenever doing “imitation” playing, wether its practicing picking on the side of a table, or playing these exercises, the goal is to hear the instrument vividly and as loudly as possible in your head.

This takes a long time and is deep within my current practice, no matter where you are, this will be of benefit.

I highly recommend practicing this over a drone and using chromatic solfege.