Warming up?

[bengerm77]

I was just playing to a metronome for the first time in a very very long time and I realized after about twenty minutes of playing that I'm now just as fast as I've ever been. I've got to start warming up before playing more often. Do any of you guys have warm up regimens that are shareable? Also, I'm going to start packing a metronome into my guitar case for shows.

[mosiddiqi]

Nowadays, I find the most effective warm up routine for me is mental preparation via visualisation. How this works is that on my daily commute I actually visualise playing guitar, scales, arpeggios, whole songs..actually seeing and hearing the notes in my mind. What I found is that when I get home and pick up the guitar, I already "feel" warmed up and can start playing reasonable well quite quickly. YMMV.

[gennation]

http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/play-this-to-a-metronome-series-picking-accuracy-t45.html

 

That's a 5 part lesson on picking accuracy. Part 1 deals with warming up, and the rest of the exercises are to help you gain control over the pick and picking hand.

 

Each part is played with a metronome. Through the lessons you'll also learn some ways to use the metronome.

[1001gear]

For me warming up is usually in preparation for super noodling. Improvision (friend at school used to say that) as glitch/stuck /hang - free as possible.

It happens best when I start the day with an inspiration. That will cook the mentality of it while I go about not sleeping and getting up and running. Coffee and then normal activity/food but not usually to start, get the metabolism going.

THEN
basics.

grip

position

slowly warming up the muscles and physique

musical basics; patterns etc. all slowly and deliberately.

Maintain for several hours if I can. (this is very rare)

All this preps the machine to play.

For those of you actually trying this, NOW play.

If you can't play, go back to the previous step.

[MuyLoCo444]

I do a simple routine with 6 exercises starting with a different finger everyday:

For ex if I start with my index finger it do: 1234, 1243, 1324, 1342, 1423, 1432

It's simple, but effective especially if I haven't played in awhile.

[Jesse G]

When I warm up I just play chordy stuff on the acoustic for a while. I play scales and exercises to improve my skills but as far as actually warming up, nothing gets my hands ready to go like holding down some chords on the acoustic.

[alesandor]

I'm not really organized when it comes to warming up, I just improvise and play some ad-hoc riffs until I get in the mood. The "mood" of a song/concert setlist is really important to me and in the beginning of my playing career it always pushed me to play long intros before a song. Until I was fully there, I couldn't do it right

 

As a finger warm-up, I use the Grip Master ( http://www.gripmaster.com.au/index1.htm) pretty often - it really helps improve their strength and coordination and also keeps the wrists and forearm in good condition.

 

I always keep it in my pocket and when I'm walking on the street or something, I'm always exercising with it. You can start with a light tension grip master and move up as your hands get used to this kind of exercise.

 

Rock on!