Hey there, I'm Tomas Michaud. This is part of my 30-day
guitar coaching challenge. Today we're on day
6 so today's question is “What is a good
warm-up exercise or routine that I can use as a beginner when I'm practicing
guitar?“ So I'm going to answer that question by
giving you a specific exercise and I'll show you how to do it
but first let me talk a little bit about warming up. The first thing I like to do
is to stretch and my favorite stretching exercise is this one. If you have to pick
one, this is what I'd recommend. Now you're stretching the muscles in
your fingers that is a good counterbalance for doing a lot of this.
So I'll do this for maybe a half a second. I mean minute
not half a second and that's the basic exercise, nothing
magical about it just do this do you feel the stretching. And
then I like to do the thumbs a little bit because my thumbs get sore sometimes
or my wrist and this kind of stretches both just a little bit and again
half a minute or so. I'm talking minimal just to
get things moving. Now the purpose of warming up is threefold. First of course,
you're going to warm up your muscles, that's pretty obvious.
But second of all, you're going to kind of get your mind
focused and be present. You're going to get a lot more out of your practicing if
you put yourself and be present in that
practice mode and that means kind of letting go of
stuff before and whatever's coming after. And the third is you're going to start
off your practice session with good technique. Now in fact this may be your
best opportunity to really pay attention to your
technique and it'll kind of carry you through the rest of your practice. I'll
talk more about that in a minute. Let me go ahead and show you that warm-up
exercise that I promised. This exercise is simple but very
effective and not because there's anything magical
about the exercise. It's because it's simple enough to give
you the time to put your attention on all the little
details that will carry you through the rest of your practice.
Let me show you the exercise and I'll explain more. We're going to start on the
sixth string of the guitar. So I'm going to play the open sixth
string then I'm going to put my first finger on the first fret
then comes the second fret, third fret.
Now I want to stop there and go on to the fifth string, that's the A string
and then the same thing first fret, second fret, third fret.
All this time I'm paying close attention to where I put my fingers. I'm going slow
enough that I can do that. In other words I'm putting my finger
close to the fret. Close enough to where I don't have to press too hard.
I'm paying attention how much pressure I put on my finger just enough to make the
note but no more. I'm not clasping. So we do
the same thing going through all the strings and that's how you start
then you do the same thing going backwards. Now I'm going to play the
entire exercise all the way through.
Now here's the things to pay attention to. As you go through
the exercise, make sure that your thumb is behind the neck
and then it's relaxed. If you find you're getting tense
go ahead and stop. Shake out your hand.
Adjust your posture a little bit. Shake
out your shoulders and then start again. Go slow. The point
is to pay attention to the details where you put your
fingers. How much tension you're putting in? How much pressure?
Make adjustments as you go along. Do the best you can to keep your fingers close
to the fretboard and not popping out as you go from one
note to the next. Now over time, you can up any a
little bit by going one way and then the other way so
in other words I'd go all the way through the exercise and then come back
to the lowest string again. The next step could be getting that
pinky involved. Though I will warn you that
it's a bit of a stretch from here to here. I often start students with a
little different exercise. Same idea but I start up here because
the frets are closer together. Remember to go slow. This is the
important thing. You got to pay attention to details so
you're not getting anywhere near the full benefit of the exercise.
So in general I'd like to warm up for about 3 or 4 minutes
for a 25 minute practice session. Of course you can
warm up more or less depending on the situation the day,
the mood. That's all I got for you today. If you appreciate what I'm doing
give me a thumbs up and you know I'd love to hear from you.
How do you feel about warming up before you practice? Have you found it helpful?
Do you have any particular exercises you'd like to share?
I'd love to know about it. Let us know in the comments below. I'll be back again
tomorrow. Hope you can join me. Bye