Warm Ups

[Davey Oberlin]

What are some of your favorite ways to warm up your hands and your mind for extended periods of guitar play?

 

[Syn Gates]

For me, I’ve been fortunate to not have any real physical issues(knock on wood). For practicing, I try and get a game plan going so I don’t look up after 3 hours to find that I’ve played the same thing over and over. Before a show I will run through my solos a couple of times and if there are new songs, I’ll try and run through them for a confidence booster.
You having issues?

 

[Brian Haner Sr.]

I usually play some scales slowly that require as little stretching as possible – just to get both hands working in sync and to get a feel for where I’m at. (Anybody who has played guitar more than a year knows that your comfort level changes from day to day. Some days you feel it – some days you don’t. Those days that you don’t require a bit more warm up time).
Then I move to through a few scale permutations that require more stretching, gradually building speed until I’m comfortable blazing through some difficult stuff. I try to mix up the right hand as well; alt picking, eco picking, sweep, hybrid, etc.
If I’m in a hurry, I like the 24 variations. (See lesson 75). This definitely works the left hand, but when you build speed it really helps the right hand as well. This one will get you warmed up fast.

 

[Davey Oberlin]

These are priceless tips, thank you guys! I tend to need a little mental warm up to ensure I’m playing with optimal feeling, and my right and left hands are in sync. Definitely need my morning coffee before I get going!

 

[Syn Gates]

Oh ya, and coffee and a metronome. Forgot the two most important things

 

[Tyler Walton]

I try to emphasize warming up both hands as it can get shockingly easy to prefer one over the other. Fretting hand warm ups include scale work and just getting the fingers moving accurately as to build dexterity. I have a really cool diminished warm up that Bill Kelliher of Mastodon showed me before a show with the fretting hand that I plan on uploading here ASAP. For the picking hand, I’ll try to find a technique I want to prioritize for the day and really hammer at it whether it’s hybrid, sweeping, economy etc.
Also, if you can play piano, I highly recommend starting with that in the morning. Running your scales on piano does wonders for getting the blood flowing through the hands before heading over to the guitar.

 

[Guest]

When I warm up I sometimes prefer to do lots of String Skipping. I would recommend Rock Discipline by John Petrucci! So much material.

 

[idssdi]

I usually play along to some songs. Strating from slow songs like gravoty by John Mayer and gradually increase the technical difficulty of the songs i’m playing. This is when i have like a whole Evening to play guitar. When i Just have like 15-60 minutes depending on my mood ill skip warming up completely

 

[Kevin Welton]

Usually start with open chords and then some scale runs at various speeds

 

[Jake Young]

I’m with Papa..some days you feel it, sometimes you don’t. Syn’s coffee suggestion definitely helps with the mind aspect and speed haha simple 1-2-3-4’s are aways good. As with 1-2-4’s and 1-3-4’s. Also, 1-4-1-3-4-3’s. When the left hand starts getting fatigued, picking a string and strict alternate picking as fast as possible to a metronome is a good way to get blood flowing in the right while giving the left a rest.

 

[Steven Huth]

I do the same thing as Jake here. If the warm ups start to get stale or if I am not feeling it, I’ll throw some kind of backing track on and just improvise over it. Sometimes even playing through a song can get you into the spirit of learning new techniques.

 

[Ben Thorpe]

Good sweep picking exercise from Joe Satriani- sweep pick across 4 strings and use all 4 fingers one fret at a time, moving your way up the fret board. Good exercise for your hand to eye coordination.

 

[Jason Collins]

The 7 3-note-per-string major scale patterns. Different key daily.
Spider and it’s variations up and down the neck: 1234,4321 134,431 124,421 234,432
Play through Rain by Trivium. First song that got my picking up to par. Been obsessive about making sure I still got it ever since.

 

[Julian Barton]

I like to sit down and play 4 notes on each string with each finger like 1st fret pointer 2nd fret middle etc. etc.. Then I like to bust out a few riffs that I enjoy (personally I play roman sky, symphony of destruction, and then end on something harder). After that I will try and play a solo or two and then start to practice something I need to work on.

 

[Brian Haner Sr.]

I will echo what Tyler Walton said. Piano. I don’t know why – but playing scales on a piano for 5 minutes warms me up better than any guitar exercise.

 

[Syn Gates]

Incredible stuff guys you can’t go wrong with any of this! Experiment with as much as you can and then find what works for you. When you warm up with piano and you’re a guitar player, you are triggering your musical ear to lead the way. That leads to playing by instinct and not overthinking, a very important feature of yourself to figure out.

 

[Jake Young]

I’m just commenting to keep this thread alive! There’s a lot to take from this! Everyone has their own ways that could be very beneficial to everyone else! Plus I’m always looking for new warm ups and neat little exercises