Are Warm Up Routines Important?

When I was a wee lad first learning how to solo on guitar, my teacher showed me a bunch of cool scales that blew my mind. I thought this is it, this is what I have been looking for to propel me to guitar god status. All I’d need to do is to learn all the scales, be able to play them really fast and shazam, people would surely be reading about me in the magazines! Haha, we can all dream!

I did learn them all and fifty ways to play them up and down the fretboard; building up quite a bit of speed and technique in the process. In reality what those scales gave me was a great warm up routine. What it didn’t do was teach me how to become more musical.

Fast forward too many years to mention and eons of running scales, picking patterns, hammer-on and pull-off exercises. I decided I needed to start warming up in a new way. I set my intention and purpose of becoming more musical every time I picked up the guitar to warm up and devised a three part warm up routine. Starting today I’ll share them with you.

The first video is designed to build up your finger dexterity. While it may not be very musical, it will give you a new found access to each of your fingers and a strong connection between right and left hands. This is extremely beneficial on your journey to becoming a more melodic player. When you aren’t limited by technique, you’re not limited in your ability to create. If you can move each of your fingers easily and independently and have a a great right/left hand connection, melodic and musical ideas will be right there where they should be…at your fingertips!