Better late than never. I know there is stuff that I wish I had learned before I did, everyone is like that. Right now, I’m working on classical guitar. Something I feel I should have started long ago, and right now it seems like the hardest thing. I had to actually go over and start wailing on the bag for a half an hour because I got ticked off cause I kept accidentally bumping the wrong string. hehe I have a bad temper. :D Anyways to get that technique you just have to practice keeping your fingers just above the strings, and always in position. It’s not hard once you get the feel for it and it improves your playing especially when it comes to speed. You’ll get it.

[u]Chromatics[/u]

It’s because your trying to do it too fast from the start. You’ve probably heard this a million times but use a metronome and start on a tempo that you can play each note clearly, even if it’s 10 bpm. ;) Probably not -LOL- but start where your at not where you want to be. Then once you get it at one tempo move it up 5-10 bpm. Don’t rush, you should allow yourself a year or so of consistent practice to reach that goal. Especially if your talking about Malmsteen speed. In the end it doesn’t matter how fast you can play if you can’t play it clearly and coherently. Nothing turns a listener off more than someone who tries to play something he/she can’t play well. Especially yourself.

[u]Question about exercise[/u]

Lift it off, hehe. I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear. But the idea of the practice is to be able to move and control those fingers but at the same time keep them close to the string. So when you change strings, you should only slightly arc the finger over to the next string. Reason being that not all string skips are going to be the next string above or below. You may have to skip 3, 4, 5 strings. Rolling them off is definitely not going to work. Remember slight arc, don’t completely extend your pinky then flop it back down and control yourself from pulling off and sounding the open string. Mute either with your picking hand or your index finger.

[u]Reply to Pantallica[/u]

My problem was my pinky would always stiffen up when I would have to play this weird trill. Extremely frustrating so I came up with that exercise. So Pant just apply that exercise to you ring and pinky. So instead of being 5 - 7 middle - pinky, do 6 - 7 ring - pinky. Plus it’s a great exercise that is often neglected. You hardly ever have to play that pattern so it will keep your dexterity up.

A good calisthenics is practicing patterns like 1324, 1423, 1342, and so on. Well you’ve probably seen these before. There a great way to warm up and keep your dexterity in great shape.