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Extended Cut: Mastering Pentatonic 4's, WW394!

🕑 Added 2026-02-19 14:46:35 +0000 UTC

Comments

mitchjrj

Great stuff...although that Exorcist totem in the background is triggering.

Tom

Pentastic stuff UB

Chris Pearce

This is such a great picking exercise not only for alternate picking but for hybrid picking as it alternates between pick & middle finger for the 2 string sections but pick, middle & ring fingers on the 3 string sections.

Ingo Hoffmann

I’m an older beginner and can barely play this at 50 bpm but it feels like the right exercise to train coordination and speed. Thanks!

Dave Richardson

I've tried practicing the old way for years. thanks Ben, this is an awesome workout

RV

I think repeating each part of the pattern actually makes the hard part harder! If you go right to the next set of four notes without repeating, it starts on the adjacent string after that difficult escape, so repeating it is what forces the string skipping aspect. I'm actually finding the normal way much easier. I might treat the repeating version as a bonus challenge, maybe focusing on the difficult versions of the higher string patterns as repeating licks so I can master that escape + string skip motion, which kills me.

Art

Great lesson Uncle Ben

Jontte

Thanks, just what I needed!

George Knoll

Spectacular. This is one of those lessons that is revealing the deepest secrets of right hand technique while presenting innocently as a lick study. "Teaching your nervous system" is such a perfect way of describing the minute motor learning that is happening. Backing out you realize that every lick you struggle getting up to speed needs to be analyzed at this level and probably adjusted for two-way pick slanting (or legato'd etc). Thank you Troy Grady for giving us a vocabulary that we can use to even have this conversation. A+