I have an amusing problem with exercise 3. Because I’m used to mute with the plucking hand, now when I’m practicing to mute with the left, I’m pressing so hard into the fretboard (thumb and fretting fingers). Why is it so hard to control? 
Normally I play with a much lighter touch (MVF, minimum viable force).
Does this happen to anyone else?
Yes-and then I’ll mute too lightly etc-I’m all over the place. The timing of lifting fretting finger off and applying mute is very chaotic as well. I’m better the 5th time that I was the first so just keep plugging away. It’s a great challenge.
Just completed day and everything is getting better. Who’s have guessed 
Missed one day due to just being busy, but after 7 days, I’m feeling a bit more confident with the pinky rolling on exercise 2. Still doing that on easy, but looking towards advancing in the next week.
I suck at muting other than with plucking fingers. Pinkie roll is maybe 50% decent. Can’t seem to play at speed/tempo with lesson 2.
I play with a pick so much now that my plucking hand muting (other than with the palm) really kinda sucks. Pinky rolls do indeed suck. If I’m trying to work on pinky rolls, I’ll do that. If I want it to sound good, I’ll just cheat and roll with my ring finger. I’m going to be bumping the bpm of all 3 workouts up by 5 today before I start working on the advanced exercises.
I’m still having trouble with Exercise 2, and can’t get the advanced level to sound more staccato and less legato (or whatever the term is where the notes bleed into one another). I’m thinking it’s probably due to the weak ass pinky/ring finger issue everyone else is struggling with. I still can’t get that pinky roll to co-operate on it’s own and really need to focus to force that little guy to work properly 
.
At the same time, exercise 2 has greatly improved ALL of my overall plucking. I’m finding my brain is now randomly choosing what it’s comfortable with when playing, and seems to default to alternative raking patterns. I’ve also noticed my plucking dynamics have improved as I have experimented with playing hard/soft with the exercise.
Keep going buddy-sounds like you’re making great progress.
I have to admit that my life has been consumed by that goofy melody in exercise 3. It is just constantly floating around my head and will randomly appear at all hours to just plink around in my brain.
Ah! Only just seen this and we’re already a third of the way through the month. I’ll have a go at picking it up now, and see how far I get 
Phil
I have had pneumonia and I’m finally getting over it, so I haven’t started yet, and I will start with you!
Exercise 3-fretting hand muting-has me actually doing it more outside of the exercise and it’s getting more and more comfortable. I’m pumped.
So got my first “morning routine practice” in today (yes, I’m a late starter 
).
It took me a little while to get the beginner exercise #1 under my fingers in the first place, and then I just spent about 15 minutes trying to play through the backing track on Soundcloud.
I kept finding the finger-stacking (from ring finger on 9th fret of D-string, to middle finger on 9th fret of A-string) to be tricky. The length of the backing track, requiring multiple reps of the exercise, also highlighted a tendency to lose focus - I frequently got 2-3 reps in, and then I’d either miss a note or hit a wrong note on the next one. So even just the first exercise has already given me plenty to work on improving! 
I’ll hopefully try the other exercises tomorrow, but will probably stick at the “beginner” level for now.
Phil
I can do exercise 1 pretty well at about 110 BPM, trying to go higher and I’m all over the place, flying fingers, not hitting the beat, buzz when fretting with my pinky, etc. Trying to push about 5 BPM a day seems like an achievable rate.
Been really busy with life etc. the last few days so haven’t had much opportunity to have another crack at the exercises, but hoping to have more time this week.
I’ll try and make some recordings as I go, so I can look for improvements and review where I’ve got to.
Phil
Hi @JoshFossgreen , I might have some criticism here. I only started the challenge today, and it took my like an hour to get down the before videos for the beginner version, in some parts not even with the provided playalongs, but with a way slower metronome. Considering that I am a certified badass 
I think that’s too long for this kind of video. In detail:
Don’t get me wrong: I think these are great excercises, that will help addressing and solving common problems. But I feel the first hurdle to really get started is to high for people that scroll through youtube more or less randomly.
Andrea
Sounds like you worked through everything fine-keep at it and you’ll get better and better-there’s no substitute for that.
I have been doing the exercises everyday and I noticed some things.
Exercise 1: I have progressed a lot with it. Didn’t take long to be able to play the advanced version.
Exercise 2: No progress. I’m still as bad as in the day 2. I can’t finger roll with the pinky. I can do it with the ring finger. Pinky and ring stacked: kind of works, but everything I try slows me down. I can’t play along with the track nor anywhere near the right tempo. Moving to the fourth fret slows me down.
Exercise 3: It seems it is almost impossible not to mute the string with the plucking fingers. They do it by themselves. If I pay a lot (and I mean a LOT) of attention I might occasionally succeed at not muting with the plucking fingers, but they are very determined to mute and are wildly rebelling against me.
Muting with the fretting hand: I can do it without the track. As soon as I play the track, the muting stops working when I reach the D string. Surprisingly, the open strings are the ones I have the hardest time to mute, even though they should be the easiest. Often I can’t coordinate the fretting hand muting (open strings) with the plucking, so I will accidentally mute the second or third note while I’m still plucking it. This happens the most when I play with the track.
Some days this works, and then the next day it is as if I had not practiced this enough before. Now I start the exercise 3 by only plucking and muting open strings. When it is going well, I include the fretted notes. Then I try with the track. Soon I notice I’m doing all the same mistakes again.
Nothing wrong with the exercises. It is for some reason hard for me.
Been ~2 weeks-I’ve done daily. I’m getting to the point where I know each exercise and bass line well. A few things are happening-
Exercise 1-I’m not increasing speed but rather adding more notes. Playing triplets and 1/4 notes etc.
Exercise 2 adding chromatic runs to the beginning of each riff. Mixing and matching 1/2 notes etc-having fun with it. Able to bar 5th and octave better-I normally fret each note with a finger.
Exercise 3- I’ve noticed all fretting fingers staying close to fretboard for muting. Pulling off note/muting timing much better. Fretting hand muting is now more apparent in all of my playing.
I did and I will. I’m not looking for a substitute here, but just described my first impression and trying to see it through a youtube-watcher’s eyes.
That Is So Dang True @AndreaFromGermany - Somedays , So Got This - Other Days , What The Flock Of Seagulls ??
You Got This ,
Cheers