bit of technique advice needed...

[spacetruckin]

ive noticed that when playing scales that cover all strings at any speed (e.g. minor pentatonic, natural minor), im fine with the E, A, D and G strings - all accurate, but i tend to slip up constantly on the B and high E strings. i anchor on the bridge of my strat with the side of my palm below the little finger, closed fist - no pinkie/fingers touching the body.
any thoughts/suggestions? ive tried cutting back to about 100bpm on the metronome, and im still not able to play perfectly every time. my anchoring hand stays in the same position on the bridge and doesnt move: is this the problem? am i anchoring TOO hard?
any thoughts? (apart from "yer shite!"  :))

[Matt77]

When you say slip up, what exactly happens?
Are you catching open strings by accident or is it something else?

[spacetruckin]

yeah that sort of thing. hit other strings, sometimes when im really dreadful, ill miss the string all together :/

[maverickf1jockey]

What I'd suggest is that you find songs to learn that contain lots of work on the upper strings as playing music is significantly more effective practice than exercises as it applies to a practical setting and will aid your composition and improvisational skills.

If you feel you need an exercise to get up to speed play
[-1-2-3-4-]
from the sixth string up to the first and
[-5-4-3-2-]
going back down to the sixth.

move this upwards chromatically to the twelfth position.

Start at semiquavers at 40BPM and work up.

If you get really good at that then do [-1-3-2-4-], [-2-4-1-3-] and [-2-3-1-4-] permutations.

This exercise worked for me but when you change the permutation it will be truly frustrating as you probably won't be able to do it at all without error each change due to muscle memory.

Does that make any sense to you?

[Ian Price]

What I'd suggest is that you find songs to learn that contain lots of work on the upper strings as playing music is significantly more effective practice than exercises as it applies to a practical setting and will aid your composition and improvisational skills.

If you feel you need an exercise to get up to speed play
[-1-2-3-4-]
from the sixth string up to the first and
[-5-4-3-2-]
going back down to the sixth.

move this upwards chromatically to the twelfth position.

Start at semiquavers at 40BPM and work up.

If you get really good at that then do [-1-3-2-4-], [-2-4-1-3-] and [-2-3-1-4-] permutations.

This exercise worked for me but when you change the permutation it will be truly frustrating as you probably won't be able to do it at all without error each change due to muscle memory.

Does that make any sense to you?

+1. I'm not a great guitar player but have found that each time I have learnt a scale routine it has been far more effective to mess around with it's formula - you'll find yourself being able to play notes in different sequences a lot more precisely if you do this for a while.

[Matt77]

You could be getting caught the wrong side of a string.
For example: with alternate picking, if you are going from the G string to the B string and the last note on the G string is an upstroke your plectrum needs to go back over the G string to hit the B string with a downstroke.
At this point it's common to catch an open G string by mistake if your plectrum isn't quite high enough and catches it during the motion of the downstroke for the first note on the B string.

Just a thought.

The hardest part of fixing it is working out exactly what you are doing wrong