My friend, Hristo Vitchev is an amazing guitarist originally from Bulgaria but now based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve been following his very cool video series on Facebook and decided to share the collection so far here. These are all the warm up videos he started posting this year up to now. Great ideas, beautiful playing, technically challenging.
If you dig these videos, do check out his book, CDs & video lessons at http://www.hristovitchev.com/
PLEASE NOTE: The following text are his descriptions of the warm ups:
15 Feb 2017: Morning practice: diatonic “add9” triads. Great warm up exercise.
23 Feb 2017: Harmonic morning workout: add9 triads in the key of Bb in all the diatonic modes and positions.
23 Feb 2017: Harmonic morning workout #2: “quintal voicings” in the key of Bb in all the diatonic modes and positions.
23 Feb 2017: Harmonic morning workout #3: “diatonic 9th arpeggios” in the key of Bb in all modes and positions.
15 March 2017: Daily warm-up: Diatonic 4 note arpeggios (2 octaves) in one position.
15 March 2017: Another cool practice idea: diatonic arpeggios with the 9th and 11th on every scale degree.
20 March 2017: Daily warm-up exercise idea: diatonic 4 note arpeggios (one octave) in alternating directions in one position. Repeat through all modes.
18 March 2017: Voicing study/practice over “Green Dolphin Street” melody. Trying some different re-harmonization techniques.
18 March 2017: Intervallic cool down exercise #2 :Diatonic 5th, 6th, 7th, octaves, 9th, and 10th intervals in one position. (Repeat in all modes)
16 March 2017: Evening intervallic cool down exercise: Diatonic 10th intervals in all positions.
21 March 2017: Mandatory daily warm-up: diatonic 13th intervals through melodic minor in position. Repeat through all modes. 🙂
22 March 2017: Today’s harmonic work-out:
Harmonizing every note of the super locrian mode (on top 3 strings) with a dominant 7 alt voicings.
This is Ab melodic minor harmonized with G7alt chords.
23 March 2017: …and the mandatory daily practice video: Minor 7th chords in cycles of minor 3rds (Gmim7 / Bbmin7 / Dbmin7 / Emin7) arpeggiated in position with diatonic inversions of 9th and 11th arpeggios. Repeat through all modes. 🙂
24 March 2017: Today’s morning warm-up: minor voicings study in the preferred guitar key of Emin. 🙂
25 March 2017: Friday’s warm-up series:
Outlining a ii-V-i in a minor key (Dmin7b5 / G7 alt. / Cmin6) with melodic minor and dorian modes using “add 9/11 arpeggios” in all inversions and positions. It kills a few brain cells. 🙂
F melodic for the ii chord, Ab melodic for the V7 chord and C dorian for the i chord.
13 April 2017: After an amazing tour in Japan over the last two weeks I’m back home and ready for more daily warm-up idea experimentations.
Today’s harmonic practice: generating minor chord voicings by diatonically transposing a sonority composed of a diatonic 3rd, diatonic 2nd, and diatonic 6th intervals (lowest to highest).
In the example I’m transposing in the G major key and producing different Amin7 voicings.
Great way to find new voicings on your instrument.
14 April 2017: Daily warm-up harmonic idea:
This is a continuation from yesterday’s diatonic transposition of a sonority made out of a 3rd, 2nd, and 6th interval diatonically transposed in dorian to produce minor chord voicings. Today’s idea pairs each one of the modal voicings from yesterday with its dominant 7 alt. and its tonic major chord to produce a ii-V-I in each position of the modal voicings with the closest possible voice-leading. You end up with 7 options for ii-V-I all across the fretboard. You can repeat on each string…
14 April 2017: Evening melodic workout: taking a melodic motif (in this case a 9/11 arpeggio) and only changing the notes that do not fit in the next key signature of a progression.
I am applying it over the changes of “Beautiful Love” in this exercise. Also taking into account all chord alterations for the voice-leading between the different harmonies.
It can make your brain hurt. 🙂
Repeat in all 7 modal positions on the fretboard.
15 April 2017: Evening Melodic practice session: My obsession with 9th arpeggios continues. Here is a cool line that incorporates diatonic 9th arpeggios of G Dorian across the fretboard under a Gmin11 chord. You can repeat in all positions.
10 May 2017: Now that I finished with all the composing for the new HVQ album it is time to go back to the shed and spend some quality time with the metronome. 
🙂
Today’s workout is a diatonically transposed variation of a Mike Moreno lick that involves a lot of 5ths, 2nds, and 4ths. This was a pain in the butt to transpose in all positions but a great workout.
19 May 2017: Daily practice study: a hybrid phrase between a Jonathan Kreisberg and Kurt Rosenwinkel lick that combines diatonic 7th arpeggios (no 3rd: just 7,1,5) through all modes and positions.
https://www.facebook.com/hristo.vitchev/videos/vb.801119924/10155553799374925/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab
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