Guitar exercises should benefit you in four ways: Strength, speed, dexterity and accuracy, should all improve as a result of any worthwhile guitar exercise.
However, the one that often seems to get lost in the weeds is accuracy.
Strength and speed are always high priorities, but it's common to see accuracy get left by the wayside or, heaven forbid, ignored entirely. Even in my own playing, I've at times noticed that I'm playing the simplest runs with accuracy-related mistakes. If you really start to pick apart your playing, you'll probably notice that you're missing or "fumbling" a lot of notes as well.
And that's what this entire article is meant to fix.
Because if you could actually be intentional about improving your accuracy on the guitar and the fretboard, wouldn’t you want to do it? Wouldn't you be glad to eliminate those nagging mistakes and missed notes? Every guitar exercise here (and there are a lot) is designed to help you do that.

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Where can accuracy improve?
First, we need to think about where accuracy comes into play and is most relevant. Focus on accuracy in the context of the following three areas:
- Intervals
- Chord Changes and Arpeggios
- Scales and Modes
We need to know how to exercise accuracy for all three of these categories, beginning with intervals, since they are the most basic aspects of fretboard movement. Additionally, if your accuracy improves when it comes to intervals, it’ll improve in the other two areas as well.
"But wait…what is an interval?" Not everybody is familiar with the concept, so if you’d like to brush up, here are a few resources that explain them succinctly:
Even if you don’t totally “get” intervals, you can still begin working through this content. I’ll explain it as we go.
Guitar Exercises, Accuracy and Best Practices
Regardless of the guitar exercises you might employ, there are some universal best practices that should be applied when you’re trying to develop better accuracy. There are primarily four of them:
- Memorizing the fretboard dots
- Aiming for the middle of the fret
- Play annoyingly slow
- Staying close to the fretboard
Let's look at the implications and practical workings of each one:
1. Memorize the Fretboard Dots
The dots on top of the fretboard can be seen looking straight down at your guitar’s neck. They typically occur on the following frets:
- Third Fret
- Fifth Fret
- Seventh Fret
- Ninth Fret
- 12th Fret
The pattern then repeats above the 12th fret.

The fretboard pattern goes from 0 to 12 and then repeats.
What you need to do here is simple: Memorize the notes on the sixth and fifth strings at these spots on the fretboard.
Why?
Because they mark the locations of the most common root notes and positions that you’ll use. If you know where they are, you’ll be able to more quickly and accurately identify where your fingers need to go, simply by using the dots as references.
Here’s a cheat sheet for finding the notes on the sixth and fifth strings:

Simple cheat sheet for memorizing the notes on each fret below the sixth and fifth guitar strings
It’s really helpful to memorize every note on these first two strings, though pay particularly close attention to notes on the “dot frets” that we’ve marked out. Memorize those notes first. They’ll be your ticket to more accurate playing, especially when you’re looking for specific chords and keys.
2. Aim for the Middle of the Fret
The standard for every note you play should be that your finger would land smack-dab in the middle of each fret. Not only does this improve your chances of avoiding the dreaded “buzzing” note, but it also helps you train yourself to target the fretboard intentionally. It’s kind of like raising your own standard, meaning you aren’t going to allow yourself to be satisfied with simply hitting the right fret, but instead you make it your goal to hit the perfect center of the right fret.
Accuracy, and the clarity of your playing, will both improve as a result.
3. Play Annoyingly Slowly
I’m sure you’ve heard this before. “Play slow.” We know that it’s the better way. Yet our tendency - especially during guitar exercises - is to always play to the ceiling of our ability. In other words, we’re pushing past our comfort zone.
The task when practicing accuracy, is to dial things back and stop pushing for speed. It’ll feel weird and counter intuitive, but for improving accuracy, it needs to be done.
Make sure you’re playing slow enough that all your notes are ringing clear.
4. Learn to Stay Close to the Fretboard
If you watch the pros, you’ll notice their fingers and hands never stray far from the fretboard. This is part of why they’re so accurate. They simply keep things close enough to minimize the chances of hitting wrong notes. There are a few things you can do to help form the same habit:
- Slide between chords without moving fingers off strings.
- Learn and employ proper left arm and wrist form.
- When moving your hand to a different fret, let at least one finger slide over top of the thicker strings.
For some guitar players, this is already habit. If that describes you, keep doing what you’re doing. Otherwise, start making it a point to keep your fingers as close to the fretboard as possible. Eventually it’ll become second nature. As we cover each exercise, keep all of these best practices in mind and try your best to implement them as we go.
The Most Basic Guitar Finger Exercises: Minor and Major Second Intervals
We can use the minor and major second intervals to develop our first exercises. First, note that these intervals equate to the following:
- Minor Second: Notes Separated by 1 Fret (semitone)
- Major Second: Notes Separated by 2 Frets (whole tone)
It might sound too easy, but starting off with your one and two fret exercises is going to be a tremendous help to your accuracy, especially when you start to develop speed.

Diagram that shows a major second interval

Diagram that displays a mionor second interval pattern
We can still make these movements varied in difficulty. Let’s start with something easy:
Minor Second Exercises
Exercise #1

Exercise based on the minor second interval
Perhaps it’s not “easy” in the strictest sense of the word, but this will get you started skipping strings (brings accuracy more to the forefront) and allows you to develop a little bit of speed.
Let’s do a similar pattern, but this time with all four fingers.
Exercise #2

Second exercise based on the minor second interval
I would recommend using all four fingers to complete each set of four notes. For example, the first 3, 4, 5 and 6 should be played with your pointer, middle, ring and pinky finger respectively. We’ll add three more exercises that highlight the minor second interval:
Exercise #3

Minor second interval exercise that uses all four fingers
Exercise #4

Exercise focusing on the minor second interval that uses all four fingers
Exercise #5

Starting at the 10th fret, we employ the same pattern as the previous exercise
Basically I’m isolating short, chromatic movements to each individual string, which means you can vary it however you’d like. Change strings, frets - it doesn’t matter. Just make sure you spend plenty of time with this type of exercise. I can guarantee that it’ll pay off well.
Major Second Exercises
These exercises incorporate two fret jumps, or more formally, the major second interval. First, something basic:
Exercise #6

Major second pattern, starting at the third fret and working up through the strings
This is just so your fingers can get used to the interval and isn’t likely to challenge you significantly. Don’t spend too much time on it. To challenge our accuracy we can incorporate a pattern similar to what we used in the first minor second tab.
Exercise #7

Alternating pattern of major second intervals moving up the strings
Let’s add another major second to each line:
Exercise #8

Another major second pattern alternating strings
Finger selection for each note is important here and, for the first three notes, should go in this order: First - Second - Fourth. So, pointer, middle and pinky finger for the third, fifth and seventh frets. If you aren’t used to this movement, expect it to stretch your fingers a bit. Let’s adjust the shape to incorporate all four fingers.
Exercise #9

Major second interval pattern between the third and seventh frets
I broke up the pattern into three measures so you can see how the notes are grouped. For each group of four notes, you’ll want to use your first, second, third and fourth fingers (in that order) to play each note. With the third note in each block (fifth fret and fifth string) you’ll need to tuck your third finger behind the second note, which is also on the fifth fret.
The next one looks easy, but it’ll feel fairly counter-intuitive.
Exercise #10

Major second interval while skipping strings
We can move the pattern up to different frets to make it more challenging:
Exercise #11

Major second interval moving up the strings and up the fretboard
For this second tab, the finger order for the first four notes should be first - third - fourth - second. Basically you’ll play the first two notes with your pointer and ring finger and then slide your pinky finger up to the seventh fret, then drop the note down to the fifth fret with your middle finger, or whatever is comfortable at that spot. The pattern can then repeat on up the fretboard.
Major Second Continued: Increasing Distance
If we’re going to improve accuracy, we need to get better at covering longer distances on the fretboard. We’ll still use groups of the major second interval, but we’ll separate them by a larger number of frets and play the interval in both spots.
Here’s a simple, structural example:
Exercise #12

Groups of major second intervals and longer distance
The intervals are separated by at least five semitones.
What you’ll want to do here is try and develop some speed, up to the point where you’re making mistakes. Once you find that spot, dial it back just enough to avoid missed notes and that will be your target pace.
Exercise #13

Intervals now separated by at least five semitones
We’ve utilized the same structure here but added the complexity of another string.
Combining the Major and Minor Second Intervals into One Exercise
Now that we’ve covered both intervals, as well as some fretboard distance, we can start to run exercises that combine all three. The simplest way to start is to base our exercise off the following three-note sequence:
Exercise #14

Combining the minor and major second intervals
Given three notes, we now have two intervals:
- Minor Second: Between the second and third fret
- Major Second: Between the third and fifth fret
Now we can use this sequence to construct our exercises. Here’s what I came up with:
Exercise #15

Extending the previous pattern up the fretboard on different strings
Exercise #16

Similar pattern extension with string skipping and lots of vertical movement
This pattern takes the same sequence of three notes and moves it around to three different strings. Now, instead of jumping from the third to the 10th fret, let’s look at an exercise that let’s us climb there:
Exercise #17

Same three note pattern moving around to different strings
And continuing:
Exercise #18

Similar to exercise 17 but positioned at the ninth fret instead
We’ll now stack the intervals one after another on each string:
Exercise #19

Intervals stacked one after another on different strings

Same concept as before, but starting on the fifth fret
Repetition (unfortunately) is key to making these exercises really work for you, so there will be some boredom involved. At the same time, we’re providing a lot of variety here, so you can switch around to different exercises at your leisure, which would also allow you to challenge the muscles in your fingers.
As far as the minor and major second intervals go, we’ve covered enough that we can move onto a more difficult topic - accuracy in chord changes.
Chord Changes and Arpeggiated Exercises
One of the best ways to exercise your fingers for guitar chords is to break the chord up into an arpeggio and focus on one note at a time. For our first few exercises, that’s exactly what we’ll do. Let’s begin with a basic open C major chord:
Exercise #20

Arpeggiated C major chord guitar exercise
We’ve moved the pattern up one fret so we can incorporate all four fingers into the exercise. Let’s continue by moving the shape up the fretboard:
Exercise #21

Same pattern but moving to different parts of the fretboard
Repeat for the D major:
Exercise #22

Exercise using an arpeggiated D major chord pattern
For A minor:
Exercise #23

Exercise based on an arpeggiated A minor chord
For G major:
Exercise #24

The arpeggiated G major chord pattern creates a challenging exercise
For B minor:
Exercise #25

Exercise based on the B minor chord pattern moving up the fretboard
And for F major:
Exercise #26

An arpeggiated F major chord pattern that runs up the fretboard
Once you’ve gotten comfortable with some (or all) of these arpeggios, the next step is to isolate a few common chord progressions to practice in this form. Practicing accuracy should be contextualized as much as possible. Thus, identifying chord progressions that we most often play will provide that context. Let’s start with the most common chord progressions in the key of C:
Exercising the C, F and G Progression
Exercise #27

Combining the C, F, and G chord patterns to form a larger exercise
Exercising the C, Am, F and G Progression
Exercise #28

A combination of C, Am, F, and G arpeggiated chords to create a lengthy exercise
If you want to make the progressions tougher, move everything up one fret so you can’t rely on open notes, like we did for exercises 20 - 26. We’ll continue with chord progressions in the key of G:
Exercising the G, C and D Progression
Exercise #29

Pattern built from G, C, and D chord arpeggios
Exercising the G, Em, C and D Progression
Exercise #30

A lengthy exercise made up of G, Em, C, and D arpeggio shapes
Let’s continue in the key of E:
Exercising the E, A and B Progression
Exercise #31

Exercise pattern made up of the E, A, and B chord arpeggios
Exercising the E, C♯m, A and B Progression
Exercise #32

Arpeggio exercise made up of the E, C♯m, and B chords
The last one we’ll do is the key of F:
Exercising the F, B♭ and C Progression
Exercise #33

Exercise using arpeggiated patterns from the F, B♭, and C chords
Focusing on Barre Chord Shapes
The next step in increasing our chord changing accuracy is to exercise barre chord shapes in a similar manner. Once again we’ll go through the following steps:
- Find a common chord progression
- Arpeggiate it with power/barre chords
- Play through the pattern as an accuracy-building guitar exercise
What we’ll do is start with a shape that is a power chord and not strictly a barre chord, with only the root note and fifth interval. Take the G, C and D progression for example: If we know that the root notes for G, C and D occur on the third, eighth and tenth fret respectively, we can set up our power chord exercise this way:
G, C and D Round Two
Exercise #34

G, C, and D exercise using arpeggiated power chords
This is an easy exercise that shouldn’t take you long to get the hang of. You can even build some speed here if you want to. Now, to make the progression more complex and to challenge our accuracy, we can just start adding notes until we form a full barre chord for each arpeggio.
Exercise #35

Exercise using an extended arpeggio from G, C, and D power chords
Exercise #36

Another arpeggio exercise using the G, C, and D power chord progression
Exercise #37

Full barre chord arpeggio pattern exercise using G, C, and D chords
Exercise #38

Full barre chord arpeggio pattern using G, C, and D roots
We can do the same exercise using the F, B♭ and C barre chords in an arpeggiated pattern. In this case, I’ll tab out only the first and last form of the exercise.
F, B♭ and C Round Two
Exercise #39

Power chord exercise in F, B♭, and C
Exercise #40

Barre chord exercise in F, B♭, and C
Focusing on Triads
The formal definition of a triad is the following:
A chord made up of three notes that are stacked in third intervals.
Thus a triad will have three components:
- Root Note
- Third Interval
- Fifth Interval
If we look at our interval cheat sheet we can establish the following distances for each interval:
- Minor Third Interval (three semitones)
- Major Third Interval (four semitones)
- Diminished Fifth (six semitones)
- Perfect Fifth (seven semitones)
- Augmented Fifth (eight semitones)
Any combination where you have a root note, one of these third intervals and then one of the fifths would be considered a triad. This is what we’ll use to build our exercises. Let’s start with something easy, in the key of C:
Exercise #41

Exercise based on a simple triad pattern
Though it’s short, this run does present a distinctly challenging note at the third fret on the first string. If we stretch the pattern up the fretboard, we can start to challenge our accuracy on both a horizontal and vertical plane.
Exercise #42

Multiple triadic patterns ascending the fretboard
I’d recommend using your middle, pointer and pinky finger in that order. If it’s easier to grab the third note with your ring finger, that’s fine too. Perhaps alternating between both would be helpful. We’ll move onto our second triad:
Exercise #43

Another triadic form placed at the seventh fret position
This minor triadic arpeggio makes for a fantastic exercise, because it feels backwards and challenges your fingers with a position that they’re likely not used to. Ring finger, middle finger and pointer finger in that order. Just like before we can continue the exercise up the neck:
Exercise #44

A minor triadic arpeggio, moving up the fretboard
We can repeat the movement vertically as well:

The same pattern as before moving vertically up the strings
The intervals get shifted once we hit the second string (open B), but the value we get out of the exercise is still the same.
Exercise #45

Interval shifted on the higher register to maintain the triadic pattern
Once again we’re backing down the fretboard after beginning the pattern with our ring finger.
Exercise #46

Same minor triadic interval pattern on the higher strings
You could easily employ a chromatic advance up the fretboard as well:
Exercise #47

Moving the minor triadic shape up the fretboard in chromatic increments
How you arrange the sequence is up to you. Let’s add one in a major key, just for fun:
Exercise #48

Triadic pattern in a major key on the higher register
Intervals and triads give us contextual ways to improve our finger strength and develope more accuracy on the fretboard. So now that we’ve covered those two categories, we can move onto a more challenging group of exercises based on scales and modes.
Let’s jump in.
Scales and Modes Exercises
The easiest way to get started is to just play an easy scale as an exercise. Because in essence, that’s what they really are - exercises with a little more meaning and music behind them. Begin with a basic C major scale:
Exercise #49 - The C Major Scale

The C major scale
Easy, right?
Here it is in a guitar scale diagram as well:

C major scale guitar diagram
We mentioned that this would focus on scales and modes. How do we get to modes?
Well, a mode is sort of a variation of a given scale, which means a good follow up exercise would be to come up with a tab that takes us from the C major scale to the C Lydian mode. Something like this:
Exercise #50

Lydian mode in the key of C
You’ll note that there’s only one note difference between the two shapes. The Lydian mode is just a Major scale with the fourth degree raised one half step. Move back and forth between these two shapes, both for the accuracy benefit and so you can start to hear the difference between them.
Let’s try another one. This time we’ll employ the E major Pentatonic scale:
Exercise #51

E major pentatonic scale
And once again, the diagram version:

Diagram of the E major pentatonic scale
This shape on its own isn’t particularly challenging. In fact, it’s fairly intuitive. But let’s repeat the process we used for the C major scale and apply an adjacent mode to this exercise so we can jump back and forth between scale and mode.
This time I’ll use the Dorian mode in the key of E. Tab sheet first:
Exercise #52

Dorian mode in the key of E
Then the diagram:

Diagram of the Dorian mode in the key of E
Note that the scale would continue onto the second and first strings. I’ve cut it off at the root note on the ninth fret for simplicity. Now we can combine the two in a tab sheet, just like we did with the Major scale and Lydian mode.
Exercise #53

Combining the major pentatonic scale and Dorian mode

Second version of the major pentatonic scale and Dorian mode combination
From just these few scales we can derive patterns that can be re-purposed as individual exercises that loosely mimic the scale’s shape. Take the Dorian mode, for example. What if we were to create an exercise based on the three-note pattern on the sixth string?

Taking this three-note pattern from the Dorian mode
It would look something like this:
Exercise #54

Exercise based on the pattern pulled from the Dorian mode in the previous example
Each sequence of three notes should be handled by the first, third and fourth finger respectively. Let’s flip it around so we’re using the first, second and fourth finger, simply by dropping the note at the ninth fret, to the eighth fret.
EXERCISE #55

Flipping the same exercise around so we're using the first, second, and fourth fingers
Any variance of this exercise can be helpful, and left up to the imagination, there are plenty of other possibilities. Think of them as more repetitive versions of guitar finger exercises 15 thru 19. These patterns continue to build accuracy with familiar intervals and patterns, which will in turn help you when you go back to playing a more musical sequence of notes.
Developing Speed within the Patterns
I’ve always been of the opinion that the real challenge isn’t to simply be able to play fast, but to know the musical patterns and sequences that provide the foundation for technical proficiency. Not only does that encourage speed, but it increases our chances of playing accurately as well. That’s why we’ve focused so extensively on intervals, chords and common scales.
They’re the most basic patterns we can learn on the guitar. If we’re comfortable with them, then speed and accuracy will come with practice and will be easier to turn into something musical and entertaining as opposed to just something technical.
If you develop your speed within the scales and patterns that you already know, the rest will be much easier.
Smooth and Subtle Movement
The other benefit is that as you use exercises like this, your playing will become smoother and more subtle. Increasing your accuracy allows you to do more with less movement, which is beneficial when you’re trying to optimize your playing and take command of the fretboard.
Thus, subtlety and accuracy should be at the top of your priority list. The more you strengthen your fingers with guitar exercises, the easier those things will be.
Concluding and Further Study
Guitar exercises can be somewhat mind-numbing, and I’m not going to tell you there’s a way around that. To be honest, I don’t believe there is. Weight-lifting, drills in sports and most other “practice” elements of getting good at something, are inherently, a bit dull to one degree or another.
But to perform, you’ve got to put in this kind of work.
Especially with the guitar.
Fight the boredom and keep pushing for better accuracy and a stronger overall command of the fretboard.
Your Thoughts
Do you have guitar exercises you’ve used to improve accuracy? We’d love to hear about them. Give us a shout in the comments section below.
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Ottimi esercizi per chi inizia lo studio pratico della chitarra da autodidatta. Grazie
ciao Renato – Roma(Italy)
Glad you enjoyed them, Renato.
Muchas gracias por la guia de ejercicios. Considero que son un soporte importante para lograr mis metas en el uso de la guitarra como un medio de diversion. El contenido de la guia es muy tecnico y se nota que fue escrito por un profesional y un gran escritor.
Thanks for the exercises and explanations! I’ve only very recently started to work with a metronome in order to correct over a decade of bad habits. It’s been said before, and I regret ignoring it for so long, but it really is telling how challenging some of even the seemingly easier exercises can be when you’re forced to consciously make what feel like unexpected changes, and you can actually hear each and every fault.
Hey, Dave – thanks for the comment. A metronome is one of my favorite learning tools. Simple, but crazy effective. I’ve always been a rhythm-minded player, but it challenges me too.
It doesn’t look like any of the images (or tabs?) are rendering. Help?
Checking on this. Thanks for letting us know.
Ok – this should be fixed. Again, thanks for the heads up.
Nobody Explain like this,Thank You Sir for your Great heart,Love it best wishes from me…..
Glad you found it helpful.
Great list of exercises and explanations. Looks like the chart that explains minor and major seconds should be adjusted though. It shows it moving up one string instead of one fret for the minor second interval and two strings instead of two frets for the major second interval. Thanks for the article!
Hey David – thanks for the comment. I checked and it looks like those two diagrams are correct. The frets are horizontal while the strings are vertical.