The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Ok The questions is clear, do you warm up before starting the serious stuff and how do you warm up.

I myself would have said I don't I just pick a track and start playing, until....
Today I started thinking that most of the time I will ingone the backing after a minute or so and start playing some random stuff. Chords and licks/runs.
This time I didn't start a backing, but just fired my DAW and started recording. After a while I felt like combining the warming up licks and chords to see what happens :)

Then it struck me, this way of playing leads to the HBL guitar backings with a simple lead.

Here is the ending of my todays warming-up session ( and my playing to for the day, as a matter of fact)

download/file.php?id=2023

Oh... the verb is for VB's pleasure

HalfBlindLefty wrote:Ok The questions is clear, do you warm up before starting the serious stuff and how do you warm up.

I put on an extra pullover and have a glass of whisky!
TBH I just play for a while - usually along with some backing tracks. Then if it starts feeling good maybe think about recording. Gradually increasing how often I play with no BT, but it's much less musically satisfying when I try and do this.

HalfBlindLefty wrote:Here is the ending of my todays warming-up session ( and my playing to for the day, as a matter of fact)

That's a very musical piece of warming up - full of feeling and musically satisfying. Very tasteful.

HalfBlindLefty wrote:Oh... the verb is for VB's pleasure

Nice warming up.

I play the same song over and over agin until I maby record it and maby upload it here. I do know how to warm up properly but I skip it. No fingerstreching at all.

Naw... I show up at the bar, fling my stuff on stage, set my guitar down in a safe place and get a drink or two and a bowl of chile. Then I tune up my guitars and set one on stage. After another beer,whenever the drummer shows up, I climb up and join in with the band.

Right now - everything I do is warm up.

I figure I'll be ready for the "serious stuff" in a couple of years.

Without playing in a band I also could name all my playing just warm-up. I noodle around trying to get my toneport running, adjusting here and there while playing my standard riffs and licks. Sometimes it happens that I open a BT or listen to a song here or at YT and start playing to it.

:) responses seem to be depending on the players environment.
Strange, but when playing with the band I do't warm up at all, but at home I'll warm up after a short while when starting.

mhh

When I warm up I use some exercises that I found on a jazz guitar site. They include scale playing, string skipping, even note bendings and such stuff. I play through the exercises very slowly (one note in three seconds) first and when I feel comfortable I speed them up a bit. After a while when I feel that my fingers are comfortably warmed up I begin to play the blues scale up and down until it feels comfortable, too. Then I start a little improvising over a backing track. I play about two hours every evening.
I hope this is okay for a beginner at the guitar.

If that works for you, that perfect, you'll find out that you change your method of warming-up over time.
At least I did, and many with me :)

I realy shuld do as sunrise do in order to syncronise my hands and stop messing with the pic on wrong strings. My paitiens for do stuff is very low witch get worse by the years.

Well, I found something which might help you to break out of your routines: http://www.vai.com/mini-lessons-84/

sunrise wrote:Then I start a little improvising over a backing track. I play about two hours every evening.
I hope this is okay for a beginner at the guitar.

The answer it that it's probably OK if it works for you.
Can I just turn a wee bit green in envy at the thought of being able to spend two hours a night guitaring. Sounds a great idea!

The only time I warm up right before I continue my learning. What i do it try to find new variations of the basic 12 bar blues and go back and forth for that and the scale. Its probably not the best way to warm up but it always get me to have some fun.

Nice stuff Man

My warm up consists of starting on the low E string and running up the fretboard 4 notes at a time and then sliding up a fret on the forth note. when I get to the top I slide down one fret every time I rund down 4 notes. I do this for all strings then just do 4 note runs on each string up and down the neck as well. Then I noodle aroud for a while. A few chords and I am up to my usual poor playing self.

At home, I usually warm up my fingers by playing a scale (penta, myxo, minor har,...etc) over the whole neck for 5 or 10 minutes.
With the band, we usually have no time to do that so we always start with and easy slow song played on acoustic guitar, to warm up everybody, after few beers of course !!!