Non-musical scales VII.

Positioning exercises

Positioning means the ability of quickly and smoothly changing fret positions while playing. Normally, playing the well-known scales on and on would help acquire this skill. However, advanced students might want to try these special kinds of exercises; the basic principle is to consecutively play different notes by changing fret positions, with whatever fingering you want to use. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that you must physically change fret positions, i.e. not just stretching out your fingers at a certain fret position but lifting your fingers and positioning them to another spot on the fret.  Let's take the F note on E6 string as a reference point:

F note on the 1st fret and its perfect fifth, which is a C note, on the 8th fret. I think this exercise will certainly challenge even those guys with extremely big hands and stretchy fingers.

So you have to lift your index finger from the F note and find its perfect fifth on the 8th fret.
Generally speaking, the distance between the two notes on the fretboard should be greater than the one between note with red highlight and the others, as seen in the below mirror image:

You basically have to jump back and forth between the red F note and the black notes. Let's start the exercise on one string, the E6 string, with the black notes ascending. Here's the the mirror image and the introductory video of this:

Once you are familiar with the basics, you can change strings:

It is very important that you always stick to the constant alternate picking! I think the optimal picking pattern is one stroke per note. However, you can make up different patterns (for example double stroke at each note etc.), if you want.