Phase 1 · Clean hands · 2026-09-21

Day 1. The muting test

Start with Chromatic crawl

1. Exercise 1 · Chromatic crawl5 min · 60 BPM · 1 per click
2. Exercise 2 · Muting10 min · 60 BPM · 1 per click
3. Exercise 3 · Picking10 min · 60 BPM · 4 per click
4. Exercise 4 · Song5 min

Why hands before theory

On stage the lead lines fail for two physical reasons: strings I’m not playing ring under the gain, and the picking is uneven so the line sounds sloppy through the amp. Neither is a theory problem. Two weeks of muting and metronome picking and the same lines come out clean.

This week

• Five sessions, thirty minutes. Sitting is fine. Drive patch on the HX Stomp for every block: gain exposes what’s ringing.
• Same four exercises every day. Day 3 and 4 move the picking drill to thicker strings. Day 4 records the song. Day 5 runs the gate.
• Three clean picking passes in a row: +5 BPM. One miss: stay. Expect 60–70 all week.

The gate

Muting test 5/5 clean on the drive patch. Three clean picking passes at 60 BPM, four notes per click. One recording exists.

Pass: week 2. Fail: repeat week 1. Repeating a week is the system working, not a setback.