am I doing this right?
I've got my fingers fretting underneath the string I'm playing and moving each one so it's fretting the string I'm playing?
and you don't need to move them back apart from the ring finger exercise 2? or should I only have 1 finger fretting on the string I'm picking?
Think of exercise 1 as a basic chromatic scale. Start at the 6th string 1st finger 1st fret, 2nd finger second fret 3rd f, 3rd frt, 4th f, 4th frt. Then with fingers 2, 3 & 4 still in their positions, move 1st finger to 5th string at the first fret and so on until you reach the 1st string and then descend back to the 6th string. Move up a fret and repeat. Go up to around the 15th and work back again.
Exercise 2
Start at the 1st string, 1st fret, 1st finger. Then 1st string, 3rd fret, 3rd finger.
With those fingers still in those positions, 2nd string, 2nd finger, 2nd fret. 2nd string, 4th finger, 4th fret and so on until you reach the 6th string.
All fingers off. 6th string, 1st fret, 1st finger. 6th string, 3rd fret, 3rd finger. 5th string, 2nd fret, 2nd finger. 5th string, 4th fret, 4th finger.
And so on until you reach the 1st string again. Move up a fret and repeat. Keep going until the 15th or higher if pains your thing and work your way back to the start.
You will find ascending with exercise 2 harder than descending, also the wider the span the harder it will feel, especially working back from the higher parts of the fret board. If your hand goes numb, stop and shake the blood into it and it should recover. You really need to get your fingers at a right angle to the fret board to make this work. If you look at some of the contortionist positions Eddie Van Halen gets his left hand into that should give you an idea!
I hope this helps! :D
Also alternate pick both throughout and your killing two birds with one stone!
