My assumption upon having a child was that guitar progress was over. For the first few months, my assumptions proved correct, but once he’s begun sleeping through the night, leaving me with a modicum of sleep myself, I’ve found that I’m actually able to learn quite a bit while taking care of him. Many of his activities are self-directed play on a playmat or in a jumper, and he’s pretty much fully engaged with whatever has caught his attention. Obviously, he requires pretty much 24/7 oversight, but it’s entirely practical to sit with the guitar in hand while keeping an eye on him. I’ve currently focused on left-hand/pickless work so as to avoid leaving picks lying around in his path. These are the exercises I’ve found most amenable so far:
- Legato Octaves: (Do this for each note in each position of the major scale). With left hand only, play up and down a full octave of the major scale twice, starting from the given note. Playing twice back to back helps to train your fingers to reverse back up from the bottom of the scale. When you reach the last note of the position where this is possible, reverse and do it descending. This for me is actually a good bit harder.
Note (Oct. 2025): In retrospect, this is one of the most helpful and enjoyable exercises I’ve tried. I’m still working on this regularly, and it’s done more for my left hand strength and coordination than anything else I can remember in decades of guitar. - Legato 3/4/5 note repeats: This is the same idea as octaves but only three, four, or five-note blocks. Each of these groupings repeat nicely and help prepare your fingers for repeated legato runs in improvisation.
- Legato 4/6 note pentatonic repeats: Same idea again as the two above but instead of using diatonic scale, use the pentatonic scale which extends across three strings for the six-note grouping.
- Legato full-box runs: Run the full pattern for each diatonic or pentatonic box up and back. Good for endurance and getting used to moving across the fretboard.
- Learn a random new chord: I’ve been using a brilliant iOS app named ChordBank to learn new chords and voicings. It’s easy to create a list of favorites to revisit, as they’re usually pretty easily forgotten.
- Learn a random new lick: I have far too many Truefire courses that I never seem to find time for. Small windows of time are perfect for learning a single lick from one of the courses.
- Tapping: I’ve been practicing a tapping workout that is simply moving across the strings in an extended diatonic pattern. On each string I tap the three note patterns using the index finger for the lowest note, one finger of the left hand, and a tap for the note two notes above. I then switch left hand fingers to cover both options in a given position. For an A Major Scale in 5th position, this would be 10-7-5, 10-7-5, 12-9-5, 12-9-5 as an example. It reads more complicated than it is once you know it. I repeat each of these a few times and then move across the fretboard.
- Sing him songs: I’ve always wanted to work on singing while playing as well as singing period. He’s quite happy to sit in his chair and listen to songs for a good twenty-thirty minutes, something I’m not sure I could convince anyone else to do!
- Practice fingerpicking patterns: I NEVER feel like I have the time to work on fingerpicking, but when you have two or three hour blocks of baby watching, it suddenly seems more reasonable…
Pedal On 