Stretching and Warming up.

[Bushfire]

What exercises (musical and for the hands themselves) do you guys recommend? Warming up and down? I really have no idea what's out there, so I don't (stretch) at the moment, but I hope to change that.

Thanks,
-Bernard.

[chaosMK]

I warm up my right hand (fingerstyle) to the bass line from Red Hot Chili Peppers - Parallel Universe. I play it easy and slow at first and probably go through five to seven different different finger patterns (3-2-1-2, 1-2-3-2, 1-2-1-2, 2-3-2-3, combinations, etc etc) for the 16-note-long rhythms in it. I use a pretty light attack.

I warm up my left hand to the outro guitar part from Pantera- Floods. It uses these really wide suspended chord/arpegios. I start out pretty slow on this too.

I stretch my fingers, shoulders, arms, neck, back prior to hitting the stage and actually do my warmups before we set up, if possible. It is key to start slow and not push too hard.

[Bushfire]

Cool, I'll try some of those out. What specific stretches do you do?


-Bernard.

[HeYJa3]

Haha... i dont really play songs to warm up.

I generally play scales or somethin to get my head and fingers movin. Start playin a 2 octave scale real slow quarter notes at 60 then eighth notes, then 16th's, then i usually just stop cuz im not crazy enough to go for 32nds. I play major, naturla minor, harmonic minor, pentatonic, and blues scales all two octaves starting on the lowest F to get my fingers really stretched out.

The pattern for 2 octaves major scale on the bass i use is this:

----------------------------------------7--9--10---
--------------------------5--7--8--10--------------
--------------3--5--7--8---------------------------
-1--3--5--6----------------------------------------

Then just go down from there on the same pattern.

The pattern for 2 octaves natural minor scale is this:

----------------------------------------6--8--10---
--------------------------5--6--8--10--------------
--------------3--4--6--8---------------------------
-1--3--4--6----------------------------------------

Same as the other for goin back down.

This may sound like a waste of time, but honestly, it builds finger strength, stretches them out, gets your ears workin to hear the scales, utilizes the whole fingerboard... its really helpful.

Other than that, if you're into finger tappin, tap from a g major chord (1-5-9-11) on starting on the 15th fret and go down the modes. There's so many variations to doing this and it's actually pretty sounding.

Usually, warmup alone takes me 15-20 minutes. Maybe it's just because im used to a large orchestral setting, but warming up seems like it needs to be pretty extensive to me. Hope this helped.

[Redhotbassist]

I just do chromatic scales up, down, and across the neck, then double it with my right hand, and incorporate my third finger on my right hand into the scales.

Also playing some jaco licks are also a good warm up