October 25th, 2009 – I’m not that great of a guitarist. I was content with the skill level I had because it allowed me to track a decent rhythm guitar for songwriting, but being in the company of so many great guitarists in Japan made me realize that good enough isn’t good enough. I really enjoy playing guitar and I’ve decided to work towards becoming a great player.
To achieve this goal, one of methods I’ve been using to get my technique back, is doing scales and variations. One of the brutal exercises I’ve been working on is the stretch scale where you play the 6th string, then the 1st, then the 5th, then the 4th, and so on until you’ve played all the strings and frets chromatically in one hand position. To be honest, it hurts. I have a feeling that it’s because, as a warm up exercise, it requires its own warm up.
In the video below, Billy Penn from 300Guitars demonstrates a quick way to warm up your wrist and fingers. I tried out his techniques and my wrists and knuckle joints felt quite a bit more fluid. These exercises are definitely going to become part of my warm up routine. If you’re a guitarist, check out some of his other posts on guitar tech. There’s some pretty in depth stuff on there.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
TOMMY
Thankks BILLY.
I have severe carpal tunnel and rhuematoid arthritis in both hands arms and elsewhere;…. Do ya know of any good ones for them. Honestly somedays I can hardly form a chord cause of the pain, and once in a while I can cook again. Though I realize that I’m heading near 60, but what do the pros do that are still going in their late 60′s 70′s ..STONES ETC… THANKS,
TOMMY..?&%$
Apr 26th, 2010
Du5t
I’ve been wondering about this for ages.
I play both piano and guitar ALOT and my thumbs and some of my fingers start to stiffen up and click but with this hopefully that’ll happen far less often. Oh and also for anyone else who has similar problems my doctor reccomended a stress ball. It works wonders it loosens up your joints and strengthens the muscles at the same time
Unfortunately I lost my stress ball when playing away so until I get a new one I’ll be using these excersises.
Jun 3rd, 2010
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