Do you warm up before you practice?

Had a few outdoor gigs over the last months, all private parties. Doing my first festival type gig Saturday and I’ve been practicing in preparation. I usually record when I play out and I was aware that my play is sloppy and not as solid as usual.

under normal circumstances I practice daily but it hasn’t been normal since Feb. So I’m usually in shape and don’t need to warm up, maybe take it easy for the first couple of tunes if I’m really ‘cold’. A friend of mine suggested years ago that I stretch my hands/fingers before a gig. He’s a percussionist doing mostly hand drums recently and it seemed to help.

 

I stretch and then warm up by playing scale at slow tempo, up and down the neck, for several minutes, then I stretch again.

 

Absolutely, I warm up before I start to play rather than warm up playing to a song or two or three.
I do chromatic scales forwards and backwards up the neck. Once completed I've touched every
note on every string from the nut to the end of the neck. Then I'll play a few semi difficult riffs for a about 5 mins and then I'm ready to roll.
I do this also before a show, even if it delays our downbeat by a few minutes.
If I don't do this, I feel like my playing is crappy and doesn't get up to speed for 2-3 songs.
Athletes, singers, pro musicians all warm up before they perform.
Go to a baseball game 20 minutes before the umpire says, Pay Ball!
The players have just spent the last 20 minutes warming up.
It's important to "Warm Up" it loosens up your fingers and gets your muscles warmed up and the blood flowing.
At first it was annoying because I was eager to just start playing but if you stretch and warm up your playing will start off much better and enjoyable.

 

embarrassed to admit i never warm up, and i didn't warm up when i was a guitar player, either. don't follow in my footsteps as i'm a bad example!

 

Yeah. Always

 

I should ....

What I do is playing scales, arpeggios, etc. Dunno whether this counts as "warmup", though.

 

It may..or may not...but that's not why we warm up. We do so to slowly introduce our hands/fingers to the upcoming physical work expected of them. So I suppose this in itself may make a practice session more effective.

To answer your question...I always warm up before playing the bass (regardless of the circumstances)...and just as important...I warm down after playing.

 

Interesting question. If i would worm-up before i practise, i could call it also a practice, but if i don't - it's practice, too. So i worm up only by tuning the strings.

 

If I have enough time to pick up my bass, that almost certainly means that I have already been using my hands to complete a wide variety of tasks for the last ~12+ hours and everything is limbered up just fine.

Even if I picked up a bass right out of bed, do I need to carefully awaken and activate each individual arm muscle? I’m not playing the bass with two baby birds attached to my wrists.

 

Do you warm up before you practice?
Yes.

 

C Major scale couple of times and I'm good to go. The band, after jamming with the drummer waiting on everyone to get ready, we may play the first song on the schedule as a warm up.

Never been what you could call a warm up guy.

 

Only if I have time to warm up. Most of the time I don't.

 

Never thought of it...on bass. On trumpet it's integral, a necessity both from a physical standpoint and getting a feeling of what the horn feels like that day, how get a sound from your vibrating lips is in question everyday based on tiredness of chops and body, in cold weather getting the horn to a comfortable temperature for playing takes a warm-up. I'm like, a 3 minute warm up guy, some people do 20 minutes or a hour. If you can rest some in a first song that can be a warm up. It it kicks off with high accurate notes with the right tone, that takes being totally in touch with your playing.

 

The hands and fingers were never designed or meant to be used to play the bass and the action of doing so is quite different to the ordinary, natural day to day tasks they perform. With this in mind it makes sense (at least to me) to slowly introduce them to to this "alien type work". It is a way of letting them adapt, and in the process limit your chances of experiencing injury problems further down the line.

 

A few gentle stretches before you pick up the bass only takes about two minutes or so. Time well spent IMO.

 

We do all kinds of things with our hands all day without a warmup. I didn't warm up to type this message. I think a warmup ritual may be a great way to get focused on playing music, but I doubt the physical need to do so.

 

Couple of beers should do the trick

 

+1. Bad example #2 here.

I never found it all that necessary or beneficial for what I do. I just pick up the bass, check the tuning, and have at it. It used to annoy the living hell out of one guitarist I worked with. He had a ten minute warmup routine he had to go through or (so he said) he “couldn’t play.”

Never really noticed any difference in his playing on those occasions when he couldn’t perform his little piece of dramatic ritual. But doing it made him happy, so no harm done.

Same goes for all those elaborate stretching things people go through prior to exercising. I just start slow and gradually pick up the pace.

But that’s me. If additional steps work for you then by all means do them.