Effective Warm Ups

You give an awkward fake laugh and stub out what was left of your cigarette. ‘Who even was that guy?’ you ask yourself after suffering a farfetched tale from a nameless drunk guy who apparently once held a guitar or something in his seemingly much more memorable youth. You turn to walk into the venue, nod at the doorman like a celebrity and grab your drink back from your drummer. “Hahaha as if they’re supporting us, can’t believe they’re gonna stretch this out for another half hour” you smirk at your remarkably sober drummer, “mate, your drunk and it’s their last song, let’s get backstage, we’re on in ten”.  On in ten??!! You can barely see straight, your first song is a homage to Lamb of God and your hands are cold from where you have been in the smoking area for the two support acts, if only you’d warmed up…

Whether you’re a drunk metal guitarist who is about to bomb so hard the Tsar Bomba looks like a spud gun or you’re just working towards your next piece, warm up is important to keep risk of injury low and chances of shred-ccess high. Spending about 10-15 mins of your practice routine shaking off the cobwebs and revving up the tendons is no hassle and can be fun, just treat it like a challenge within a challenge.

In terms of where to start, let’s go super basic. Always use a metronome or a drum pattern machine of sorts and start slower than what you’re comfortable with, playing something you have as muscle memory slowed down is surprisingly tricky and is going to make you really think. A good place to start with warm ups are spider diagrams, they come in all shapes and sizes and really move the fingers. There are two PDF’s attached at the bottom of this blog, which basically break down into alternate picking or sweep picking, combining a bit of each may be worthwhile, with some more specialised stuff thrown in to taste (hybrid picking etc.).

Let’s start with the first PDF and the first exercise. Now with all of these exercises, the notated rhythm isn’t important, there’s no listed tempo and the pitch of the notes can be moved if you’re struggling with some of the stretches, the emphasis should be on the movements and working on those stretch struggles. The first pattern uses a simple chromatic figure, 1st fret to 4th on each string descending and then shift one fret up on the high E and descend, this can be repeated until we hit the octave or well we run of frets, either or really.  This exercise is great and can help with many aspects of playing, use it in a way to help you. Let’s say we are learning where the notes are on the fretboard, we can play our spiders at a very slow tempo and name them as we go. Conversely, what if we’ve been playing for years? Well we can create a real finger twister and speed it all the way up.

The most important part of the exercise is focusing on picking, preferably alternate picking. This is notated in the exercise and is key to warming up the right hand effectively. We start with a down stroke followed with an up stroke, and then on we keep an almost mechanical motion going. From where we derive the motion differs slightly between players, but most favour short wrist movements, keeping the arm in an almost stationary position where comfort is key, feel free to adjust arm position with guitar shape. If you feel any tension or discomfort at all, remember to shake it out and take a few moments, this is why we warm up to avoid injury, not get RSI. Focus on the small movements while practicing, keep wrist movements fluid and watch the left hand. If you wish to play faster and more evenly then excess movement needs to be removed from the process, the left hand should stay close to the fretboard with minimal finger movement. The more your left hand fingers move, the longer it will take them to get into position for the next note, so by practicing slowly and ensuring they don’t ‘fall back’ too much when playing is important. Whilst discussing the left hand, an idea we can implement is sticking to one finger per fret. By doing this, our hand will sit in a natural position and fingers each have a small area to ‘man’.

This exercise does wonders for synchronising our hands, warming everything up and helping us smooth out picking technique. In terms of tempos to work at, this is a personal choice and depends on your goals, I’d personally argue that for focusing on technique sticking at 8ths or 16ths below 100bpm will give you the time to think between notes.

The following exercises are variations on the spider diagram, mixing the order with which we play the notes. We can have a lot of fun with this, almost randomising the order and really tying our fingers up. In the examples, we take the formula of a 4 note pattern moving vertically down the strings, shifting up a fret on the high E and going back up the fretboard, shifting once one on the low E then repeating. From here we can chain different combinations together and create unique patterns to improve finger dexterity and maybe make patterns that resemble lines we are working on to overcome challenges. Have a go through the listed exercises running them to the octave and then try designing your own. Another way we can use these chromatic shapes is horizontally, running them up the fretboard to the 12th fret, practicing this way can really help us as guitarists stop only playing in vertical box shapes, try running scales horizontally to really mix up your approach. 

The next PDF is arguably for slightly more intermediate to advanced players. But there’s no time like the present to start working on the next step, and definitions of ability are subjective anyway. It is breaking down and showing some diagrams of some patterns we can use to work on our sweep picking and warm up our hands some more. The first pattern is one note per string and is going to mean us using one finger per string, sharing the ideas from the alternate picked spider chromatics. The idea underpinning sweep picking is that we ‘sweep’ across the strings, so we’re only using one hefty sweep of the strings to get us from our first to our last note. In these first examples, it’ll be 4 notes across neighbouring strings, so nice to get started with, just be careful of hitting the other two strings in the process. With these exercises the same concepts for good technique apply, try to keep the fingers close to the fretboard and limit excess movement. When it comes to sweeping it’s all about keeping a nice fluid movement where both hands are in synch. Now with both exercises, angling the pick a little can make it easier, a slight forward tilt can be all that’s needed to increase speed and articulation. It will make for more of a scything motion with the edge of the pick, and so less friction when rubbing on the string. When it comes to sweeping, this is essential so we don’t get caught on a string and stop the movement. I would start sweeping at very slow speeds, just get the motion and the feeling right first and then add speed later, this should help with note clarity as this can be the biggest issue, getting the middle notes to sound clearly.

We can use this shape like the previous Spider and move it up the fretboard until the octave, getting us used to sweeps with all the fret sizes. The next patterns in the PDF are going to be slight variations, good for stretching out the left hand and getting it ready for those Malmsteen style Swedish sweeps that await it.

The next exercise is quite different and is going to introduce some simple economy picking. It is based around using three triad shapes to create a sort of stairs across the fretboard, the first two being major shapes and the last a minor. Above the notes are the normal directions for up or down strokes, but as you can see on the G string, it is going to require two notes on the string. Now economy picking is a fancy term for a picking technique or motion which incorporates sweeps and alternate picking to create the smoothest possible playing style. To be honest, it is quite often used without thinking as it basically forces you to finish certain passages on certain strokes to make sure you’re ready for the next, trying to the keep the right hand in a uninterrupted smooth up/down motion. Really concentrate on what strokes you are using and how your left hand is shifting to accommodate the next shape, start slow, try the picking directions listed and keeping one finger per fret where you can. Picking style is subjective though, and if for a reason you feel there is a better or smoother way for yourself, then give it a go, for example the F note at the end of the minor arpeggio which is followed by the F#. In this case I have gone ‘outside’ the strings to start on an upsweep, although this may feel awkward and perhaps two consecutive down strokes may feel better. This exercise gives you two ‘real world’ shapes that sound musical and many great lines can be built through chaining triad or arpeggio shapes together, check out nearly any jazz saxophone player to hear this in practice. If you’re studying CAGED shapes, this exercise could fit in either A shape, if in a minor key, or C shape, if in a major key, but watch out because as an exercise it wasn’t built to be inherently musical so might not be transposable and still diatonic. When it comes to making it musical, try harmonising a scale you are working on with triads and see what shapes or passages you can create, sweeping or otherwise.

The last exercise is a fun one, and really builds on the idea of harmonising a scale as it fleshes out F Major with 9th arpeggios. We are playing the 1st-5th-9th-3rd-13th-3rd (calling a 3rd a ‘10th’ for me, takes away from the function of the note, so it will stay a 3rd  when discussed here) of each interval of the scale, flattening notes where necessary to stay diatonic. These shapes can prove a challenge, with the stretches required across the low E to D strings, but that’s what we’re here for, to stretch out those lazy sausages. From a musical perspective, these notes are a lot more useful. We can use them to help design lead lines or use them as functional chords, even if we split it and just use the top or bottom half. Playing these swept can prove tricky, mainly as we’re now using all six strings and trying to keep even dynamics and clarity. This exercise can really help our ears identify the tonalities of each diatonic chord and the sophisticated, contemplative sound 9th’s bestow onto the chord. Try moving this exercise into different keys and try creating the patterns starting on different strings, like all of the rest of the warm ups, start slow and make sure everything is clean.

If we get tired of sweeping, we can also try hybrid picking the last two exercises, this can also help us warm up our right hand, but I’m sure we can discuss hybrid picking more in depth in a separate article. Warming up is very important and we really should spare even just 10 minutes when we pick up the guitar to it. Although not the most musical sounding ideas, these should get you started, and when tired of them treat them like puzzles and make some more to solve.