Warm-ups aren’t just about exercising your fingers. The warm up helps with focus and confidence. It’s hard to get into a performance cold. Whether it’s a Broadway show, a performance at Carnegie Hall, a concert in a bar, or any formal or informal setting, you need a warm-up routine. Just like a runner who needs to stretch before a competition, a musician needs to prepare his mind and body before a performance. Although there is a deluge of method books on the market along with YouTube tips and tricks, there is no standard canon of technical exercises available for electric guitar. As a professional guitarist over the years, I have seen the need for an effective, comprehensive, and fast warm-up routine.
The warm up routine
The following are ten specific exercises, appropriate for both hands with a focus on picking, and when played in tempo, should take around five minutes. You’ll be ready to play just about anything and still have your energy to devote to the gig. The idea is to be able to practice a technique that exceeds the demands of what you are going to play. These are easy to memorize and highly portable, without having to carry books or download an app.
Addresses: Use alternate picking for all exercises except sweep picking. Be careful with the selection, since it is important to develop the technique of the monsters. Play all notes evenly and cleanly at a slow tempo before gradually speeding it up.
Ex. 1 It is probably the exercise that I despise the most. It was shown to me by a guitar freak/colleague in grad school. He played fast with no errors, jingles, or hesitation. It sounded angular and I hadn’t heard anything like it before so it piqued my interest. What makes it difficult is the alternate plucking on each string, with only one note per string.
Start with one finger per fret from the 6th to the 3rd string. Then move the fingering down to the next four strings starting on the fifth string. Continue moving the shape until you run out of threads. The pattern on the left will be 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1. At this point, move down one fret and reverse the shape starting on the 1st string. Keep going until you reach the first fret. It’s a challenge to play cleanly, but it sounds great and it’s a necessary technique.
Ex. 2 it encapsulates the difficulties of playing the guitar in a single measure. This one focuses on string crossing and picking direction. Note the extra note added to the pattern. Flips the selection direction, providing an opportunity to start a sentence with an upstroke. I find my selection trips when the pattern changes, which makes it a good example of overcoming this technical challenge.
The most basic and traditional form of the major scale is shown in Ex. 3. What makes this challenging is a combination of two and three note per string shapes while alternate plucking. You end up deviating from a predictable flow of notes per string. Play this four times to train your pick hand to master this skill with precision.
So you say you know the major scale? This can be one of the most difficult. the premise in Ex. 4 is that wherever you are on the neck you have access to all the notes and scales without switching to a more comfortable fingering. When you’re playing over a chord change or idea, you want to be able to play the next note within your reach. The moment you have to switch to play a line, often your thinking stops and creativity goes astray.
This may even be more of a mental exercise than a physical one. It requires keeping track of several elements at the same time: moving through all the keys in the quarter cycle, the direction of the scale, and finding the right note in position, all at a fast pace (eventually).
Play major scales in one position without changing position. The goal is to play within four to five frets without using open strings. There are four directions for this exercise: up, down, alternating up/down, and alternating down/up.
This is more of a quasi-classical guitar passage where the fingers of the right hand do the work (Ex. 5). Specifically, it’s a pedal point exercise where one note stays the same while other notes move. It actually works with an alternate selection technique with the triplet part.
Ex. 6 it’s one I would play before a performance. When I started acting on Broadway, I realized the participation and demand of the right hand. Fast picking is determined by tremolo technique, so I wrote a tremolo part in an arpeggio in G minor that led to an excerpt from Bach (First Violin Sonata BWV 1001 Presto).
Ex. 7 These are pentatonic quintuplets. Note that for each starting note in the five-note group, the selection direction will be the opposite of the previous one. It sounds amazing when played fast, in the style of Eric Johnson.
Perhaps the chromatic scale is already everyone’s warm-up. Nevertheless, Ex. 8 it uses open strings combined with fretted notes in first position, which is challenging. This may be on par with something from Mel Bay’s Book 1, but try to play it fast and clean.
To play modern ideas on the guitar, you must know how to pick. Since sweeping uses a different musculature, it will feel strange or different at first. Start slowly with triplets, then take the same pattern of notes and play sixteenth notes followed by quintuplets. Ex. 9 It helps both in plucking and rhythmic control.
Ex. 10 breaks with narrow intervals of scale steps and branches into broader intervals, such as fourths, fifths, sixths, and sevenths. The techniques involve jumping rope and a plethora of different forms. Practicing intervals is a great ear training exercise and should be done daily, just like taking vitamins.
I hope this warm up routine will give you improved technique and much success in your musical performances. Until next time, happy shredding and enjoy the ride!
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