STUDY

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TECHNIQUE
CONTROL
MASTERCLASS
Brian Maillard

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 MASTERCLASS BOOKLET

Brian Maillard
TECHNIQUE CONTROL
MASTERCLASS:
BEGINNER

INTRODUCTION
Hello fellow guitar players, and thanks for checking out my Technique Control Masterclass!
In this masterclass, I’ll be showing you some ideas for gaining more control over your tech-
nique. We’ll be working on a range of techniques and increasing your knowledge of how to
improve timing and precision. I think this is very important in order to acquire a good sense
of rhythm and to play in a smooth and more polished way.

There are three levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) gradually increasing in rhythmic,
melodic and harmonic complexity. However, even if you’re an advanced player, there will be
stuff you can use in the other parts.

IN THIS PACKAGE
For this Beginner section, we’re going to work with two sets of exercises and two different
backing tracks. The first set will concentrate on playing rhythm with a clean sound and the
second set will cover a range of lead and rhythm techniques with distortion.

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 TECHNIQUE CONTROL MASTERCLASS: BEGINNER
BRIAN MAILLARD

CLEAN ACCENT EXERCISES (EX1-5)

For these exercises, we’re playing through a chord progression, strumming in steady 16th notes.
However, we’re mostly playing muted notes, holding the strings lightly under our fingers, only fret-
ting the notes on selected accented strums. In Ex1, the accented chord is right on the beat, in Ex2
it’s on the second 16th note of each beat, and so on.

The important thing is to try to maintain continuous motion with your picking hand, playing con-
sistent 16th notes. With your other hand, you have to be able to squeeze and release the strings
accurately. Don’t release too much, or you’ll have open strings! Be very careful with the timing: work
slowly at first, making sure everything is tight and clean.

CLEAN TRIPLET EXERCISES (EX6-10)

This is the same principle as the clean accent exercises, but we’re now adding triplets… three
strums in the space of two. Making the triplet movement with the picking hand involves shorter and
quicker movements, so it is important to relax in order to avoid an over-aggressive sound.

One of the main difficulties here is that the triplets mess up your up/down strumming. As you can
see in Ex7, playing the triplet on the second half of the beat means that you’ll be strumming up-
strokes on the beat. Most people naturally hit downstrokes on the beat (and upstrokes on offbeats)
so it’s important to work on playing strong, powerful upstrokes.

Ex8 and Ex9 are also a test for your fretboard hand because you now need to squeeze and release
the chords in time with these fast triplet strums.

CLEAN VARIATION EXERCISES (EX11-14)

In these four exercises, you will find a variation of regular 16th notes and 16th-note triplets so you
have to concentrate on the timing. Again, it’s important to focus on the next beat AFTER the triplet,
especially as this is often an upstroke.

CLEAN OCTAVE EXERCISES (EX15-18)

Another very important and related technique to practise here is octave strums. The principle be-
hind these exercises is the same as Ex1-5, moving the accents around in the beat. However, by
using octaves, it’s even more of a challenge for your fretboard hand. Even on the accented strums
(where you squeeze the notes) you still have to mute the unused strings, especially the one be-
tween the two octave notes.

CRUNCH RHYTHM EXERCISES (EX19-22)

Now we move to a crunchy overdrive sound, which places different demands on your technique. It’s
harder to clip notes short, because they naturally compress and sustain more, and there’s less of a

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 TECHNIQUE CONTROL MASTERCLASS: BEGINNER
BRIAN MAILLARD

difference in volume between notes and muted sounds.

There are four examples of funky rock riffs based on the E Mixolydian backing. Try to focus on keep-
ing the chord changes as clean as possible.

CRUNCH PICK MUTING EXERCISES (EX23-26)

This technique is used by many guitar players such as Paul Gilbert. It’s a way of cutting the note
short by stopping it with the pick. In a sequence of pick-muted notes, the pick rests against the
string between the notes… pick-stop-rest-pick, etc.

Ex23 demonstrates the basic technique, and then we move to patterns using three and four notes
per string. The remaining exercises practice the same approach with a combination of different tim-
ings.

CRUNCH SOUND VARIATION (EX27)

This is a repeating pattern designed to demonstrate the contrasting sounds of straight picking )with
full sustain), palm muting and pick muting.

PENTATONIC SHAPES (EX28-31)

Pentatonic scales are often treated as an “easy” approach, but they place certain demands on your
technique. Mostly this has to do with position shifts and alternate picking. Most of the time, we’re
working with 2-note-per-string patterns, so the physical shape and layout of pentatonic scales is dif-
ferent from the regular major and minor scales.

Ex28 covers all five shapes in E major pentatonic (E F# G# B C#). In Ex29 we do something similar,
but in 8th-note triplets. This is more of a challenge for your alternate picking technique, because
you’re playing 2-note-per-string patterns in triplets (three notes per beat). In Ex30 and Ex31, we add
pick muting.

LICKS 1-5 AND FULL SOLO

There’s nothing too fast or difficult here, just a few ideas to expand on the material we covered in
the exercises. The solo and licks are all based around an E Mixolydian sound (E F# G# A B C# D)
but the backing for the licks has more variation. The G chord pulls more towards a bluesy minor or
Dorian (E F# G A B C# D) sound, while the final B chord gives you the option of playing straight ma-
jor (E F# G# A B C# D#). As you’ll see, there’s also lots of E major pentatonic (E F# G# B C#).

Good luck, see you at the Intermediate level!


Brian M.

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