• For each of these exercises, remember to alternate your plucking fingers without deviation. This will most likely require some very focused attention. Sometimes the best way to monitor your consistency is to practice in front of a mirror or with your eyes focused on your plucking hand. 
• Keep in mind that our momentary concern with perfect alternation is only a practice-shed tactic designed to maximize the effectiveness of these drills. The idea is that the consistency and confidence you develop in the shed will work its way into your performance playing, automatically. Let me stress that it is not important that you alternate perfectly when you perform. The intention with these exercises is to build more headroom into your performance potential so that you are not at all hindered by technical limitations. Your goal should be complete freedom in spontaneous musical expression.
• Make sure your dynamics are even between your plucking fingers, at least for the first iterations of each exercise. Sometimes, without even realizing it, we lean into one finger more than the other; this can cause dynamic inconsistencies that make our phrasing come across as apprehensive or sloppy, especially in longer passages that should be played fluidly. The best way to test this in the practice shed is to make sure you practice slowly and intentionally, constantly using your ears to evaluate your dynamics. More advanced players who already have this down will want to experiment with alternative dynamic approaches, like emphasizing the strong beats—beats one and three in a 4/4 measure—while playing softly on beats two and four. In an eighth-note exercise, try playing softly on the downbeats and loud on the upbeats. Use your imagination as you explore the dynamics frontier.
• Finally, once you get past the initial challenge of executing each exercise without repetitive mistakes or mis-fingerings, go out of your way to make the exercises sound as musical as possible. A great player makes even the most mundane phrases or exercises come to life by playing in an expressive or emotive manner. Even a simple major scale can be made to sound lyrical by doing such things as altering dynamics, loosening the time feel by allowing the pulse to breathe, or even altering your technique to vary your tone across the phrase.

Adam Nitti
Adam Nitti currently plays and tours with Steven Curtis Chapman. He is also the Chief Learning Officer at musicdojo.com, an online music instruction site. Adam's latest solo CD, Evidence, was released on his Renaissance Man label. www.adamnitti.com.