When it comes to exercises for getting your picking and fretting hands in synch, melodic patterns are hard to beat. What's a melodic pattern? It's any small melodic fragment -- usually two to four notes in a row -- that you sequence through a scale. For example, take the first three notes of a G major scale: G, A, B. (The entire scale is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G.) Note that the interval between G and A is a second, and the interval between A and B is also a second. So our G, A, B fragment can be sized up as a second-plus-a-second. If we then start the second-plus-a-second series from the 2nd degree of the G scale, we have A, B, C. From the 3rd degree, we have B, C, D, and so on. Follow that sequence through a two-octave scale, and you get Ex. 1.

You can generate variations on the G, A, B pattern by changing the order of the notes (see Examples 2a-2f), and any of these can be sequenced through the G major scale. For instance, Ex. 3a shows what happens if you take Ex. 2d through the scale.

Example 3b uses the same notes as Ex. 3a, but with a sixteenth-sixteenth-eighth rhythm instead of the triplets we've used so far. Of course, there are many more rhythmic variations to explore. Try sixteenth-eighth-sixteenth and eighth-sixteenth-sixteenth, as well as larger note values, such as eighth-quarter-eighth.

In Ex. 3c, we compound Examples 2a and 2c for a six-note melodic pattern starting on each scale degree. Example 3d shows a melodic pattern with wider intervals -- a third between the G and B, and a fifth between B and F#. In Ex. 3e, we return to our second-plus-a-second interval scheme, but use the melodic pattern to descend the scale.

As you can see, varying the intervals, rhythms, and the order of notes can spawn many melodic patterns, and each pattern offers a different kind of drill for your hands. Make melodic patterns part of your daily practice regimen, and your friends may soon be asking, "Hey, have you been working out?"

Photos: Paul Haggard