Guitar Warm-ups and finger strength building exercises

Friday, 12th June 2009
Guitar Guide for Beginners Guitar Technique Guitar Tips, and Tricks

It’s a good habit to get into before you play to warm up your fingers, because if you try to play when your fingers are not warmed up you can really hurt and damage them!

Here are a few good warm ups to do for a few minutes before playing your guitar.

I call it the spider, because when your doing this exercise it looks like a spider walking.

Here’s how you do this exercise:

  1. Start with 3, then go to 5, back to 4, and then 6 and then repeat for every string.
  2. Make sure you use all 4 of your fingers on this exercise, that is very important!

E———————————————————–3-5-4-6–
B————————————————3-5-4-6————-
G————————————3-5-4-6————————-
D————————3-5-4-6————————————-
A————-3-5-4-6————————————————
E-3-5-4-6————————————————————

  • I really like doing this exercise to warm up my hands before playing, and it really builds up finger strength as well!

Here’s another exercise that is commonly used or taught, and it’s just doing what I like to call a box scale.

  • A box scale is just all the notes played.

Here’s How I play the box scale.

  1. The way I like to do it is, by starting on the 3rd fret of the low E string or sixth string, and play the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th fret.
  2. I will drop down to the A string or the 5th string and continue the same pattern.
  3. Then I will continue to do this pattern all the way down to the first string, or high E sting, and then ascend all the way back up to the 6th string where I started.
  4. When  your not going to pick the notes or frets 3,4,5, and then 6, you need to alternate.
  5. Start with 3, then go to 5, back to 4, and then 6 and then repeat for every string

E———————————————————–3-4-5-6–
B————————————————3-4-5-6————-
G————————————3-4-5-6————————-
D————————3-4-5-6————————————-
A————-3-4-5-6————————————————
E-3-4-5-6————————————————————

This is a great exercise, because it really builds your finger strength, and give you practice on string skipping as well.

Tips:

  1. Make sure if you have never done this exercise before, to start slow, and build your way up to really fast.
  2. This exercise is intended to build finger strength and dexterity.
  3. Use a metronome as well, to help build up your timing.
  4. Keep in mind when you are picking make sure to do alternative picking, this is when you pick up, and then the next pick is followed by picking down.

Here is another great exercise, doing a chromatic scale:

  • For an example if you start on C, to play a C chromatic scale you would play these notes, C C sharp, D, D sharp, E, F, F sharp, G, G sharp, A, A sharp, B, and then your root not C.
  • You can play these going up the scale, or descending down the C chromatic scale.
  • Be sure to use alternative picking as well

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