Stage 14 milestone
Milestone: The Technique Forge
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
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Stage 14 milestone
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
You walked into the forge with a disciplined pick and a reliable fretting hand. You leave with a complete workshop: a pick that knows when to alternate and when to let itself fall, swept arpeggios, legato lines that flow without attack, two hands on the neck, fingers that work alongside the pick, a method for gaining speed without hurting yourself, and an inner clock that can count in seven. This milestone gathers all those tools into a single original piece and gives you a routine to temper them.
| Stop | Technique | Key idea | Typical trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy and sweep picking | , | The pick keeps its direction across strings | Notes overlapping like a chord |
| Advanced legato | The fretting hand makes the notes | Uneven volume and ghost notes | |
| Two-hand tapping | The picking hand frets too | Open-string noise | |
| Hybrid picking | , | Pick on the bass strings, fingers on the treble | The pick slipping |
| Building speed | , | Clean before fast | Tension, ignored pain |
| Odd meters | , | Groups of 2 and 3 | Rounding up to four and losing count |
They all share a principle that is now yours: technique serves the music. A sweep or a tapped line doesn't impress because of its speed, but because every note sounds clear, in time and with intent.
The Forge is an original piece in A minor over the progression Am – F – G – E. The major E (with G♯) gives it the colour of A harmonic minor. It has three sections, one per technique, and a coda in 7/8. Listen to the backing first:
Pick on strings 4 and 3, middle finger on string 2, ring finger on string 1. Eighth notes, two passes of the pattern per chord.
Each chord gets a tap, pull-off and hammer-on cell in triplets. The fretting hand changes position every bar; mute the treble strings with your index.
Swept arpeggios on strings 3, 2 and 1. On F and G the first two notes sit on the same fret: use the .
Accented power chords grouped 2 + 2 + 3 and a final Am chord that closes with the same groups.
When you join sections, the critical moment is the switch from one technique to another: from fingers to tapping, from tapping to sweeping. Practise those joins in isolation, the last bar of one section and the first of the next, before playing the whole piece.
| Level | What you play | Target tempo |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | Section A twice + coda | 70 BPM |
| Silver | Sections A and B + coda | 70 BPM (B in triplets) |
| Gold | Sections A, B and C + coda, without stopping | 80 BPM (A and B), 70 BPM (C) |
Two weeks, 25 minutes a day, six days a week. The routine interleaves techniques so you play a little of everything each day, and lets sleep consolidate the work.
| Block | Minutes | Week 1 | Week 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | 4 | Gentle trills and a slow scale | Same |
| Technique of the day | 8 | Mon/Thu sweep · Tue/Fri legato and tapping · Wed/Sat hybrid picking | Same, with the metronome ladder |
| Rhythm | 5 | Counting 7/8 and 5/8, 3 against 2 | Odd-meter riffs and 4 against 3 |
| Challenge | 8 | Your level's section, slowly | The full piece at your level, recorded at the end of the week |
The seventh day is a rest from technique: listen to music in odd meters, or record your piece and listen back.
Thirty seconds of trills with each finger pair, at a soft volume, then the A minor three-notes-per-string scale, slowly, with economy picking.
Goal: Warm, relaxed hands: gentle trills and a slow scale, no chasing speed.
Choose the day's technique from the table and apply the metronome ladder to its main exercise. Write the top clean tempo in a notebook or on your phone.
Goal: Climb at least one 4 BPM step above the previous day's clean tempo and finish with a slow pass.
Metronome on eighth notes, seven beats. Count out loud and play the coda of The Forge. Then one minute of 3 against 2 on your thighs.
Goal: Eight straight bars of 7/8 without losing count, and one minute of 3 against 2 with your hands.
Play the section or level you're working on over the backing. Start 10 BPM below the target tempo.
Goal: Play your chosen level clean four times in a row and record it at the end of each week.
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