In another thread I mentioned I had a good exercise to help you play accurately and in tune. It's written for High or Low G tuning, but it's easily adapted to other tunings.
I was shown this exercise about a year ago and I've seen a big improvement in my playing. I can't say for certain that it will help everybody. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. In my case I sounded a lot better when my intonation and accuracy improved. I attribute it to this exercise, but I could be wrong 
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INTONATION AND ACCURACY EXERCISE
This is basically playing a G scale on the first string while playing a G drone
on the third string. There are two important things:
1) Play it very slowly with a 60 BPM metronome or a clock with a ticking second
hand. Hold each note for four seconds. Listen carefully to make sure you're
in tune.
2) Wait until the last possible moment to move to the next note and move as
quickly as possible. You might have a tendency to overshoot, but you'll
learn to correct it.
|--5-|--7-|--9-|-10-|-12-| etc. |-17-|-16-|-14-|-12-| etc.
|----|----|----|----|----| |----|----|----|----|
|--0-|--0-|--0-|--0-|--0-| |--0-|--0-|--0-|--0-|
|----|----|----|----|----| |----|----|----|----|
|----|----|----|----|----| |----|----|----|----|
|----|----|----|----|----| |----|----|----|----|
You can come up with lots of variations. Play a D or C scale instead of a G
scale. Play a D drone on the fourth string. Instead of playing a scale,
play triads (e.g. G B D A C E) or random notes on the first string. Once your
intonation improves you can hold each note for two seconds instead of four.
This exercise helped my playing in a couple of ways:
1) I used to have a problem playing in tune (which really sounds bad no
matter how good your "tone" is). I am much better now. I feel more confident
playing slow stuff. I used to shy away from playing slow stuff because
bad intonation is more obvious. I was surprised to find that because of this
exercise, playing in tune becomes an unconscious thing that you don't have to
constantly work at while you're playing.
2) I can now move more accurately and quickly around the fretboard. That's
good for playing quickly and cleanly. As with the intonation, playing
accurately and quickly becomes an unconsciously relex. This benefit is as
important as the improvement in intonation.
3) I didn't expect it, but my slants are much better. I think it's because I've
learned to automatically hear if I'm in tune and adjust it quickly.
Try this for a five or ten minutes each day for a few weeks.
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Posted - 04/13/2005 : 09:04:13 AM
