A classical guitar player will hold the guitar on his left foot, which will be resting on a guitar footstool in order to have easy access to the whole fretboard as classical music relies heavily on complicated chord progressions.

A flamenco guitar player holds the guitar leaned forward, on his right leg, as it rests with the ankle on the left leg. No footstool is required and this position is meant to make the guitarist look proud and imposing. Another variation is to simply hold the guitar on the right leg while standing on a chair.

Electrical guitar players usually don’t sit down while playing and they tend to hold the guitar very low, and will be leaning himself in order to reach the strings with his hands.

There are variations of these as each guitarist develops his own position, but these are the standard positions for these styles.

Beginner guitar exercises are meant to improve the left hands stretching ability with simple progressions such as f-f#-g-G# or 1-2-3-4 on the E string so the player can also easily remember notes on the fretboard. This exercise is most commonly practiced on all strings, starting from the lower E string to the high E string(on a standard tuning).

Advanced players will often practice scales instead of the chromatic progression in order to implement certain patterns for faster and more precise playing. Common scales include A minor(same as C major, but it just sounds more kinky) which would be a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a. On the first 4 frets you can repeat this scale 2,5 times. I recommend trying to learn this scale on the whole fretboard as this is the basic scale and it will help a lot.

I encourage you to create your own guitar exercises, usually you can copy parts of songs that sound cool or use variations from the exercises you already know (from 1-2-3-4 you can try 2-5-7-10, then try 2-5 on E string and 7-10 on B string, then you can try…well you get the idea, improvise and create your own style).

Why should you create your own guitar exercises? For one thing you’re the one who should know best what you can and can’t do and also guitar greats usually develop their songs based on the exercises they created.