Warm Up Guitar - Warm Up Book Lesson

7/18/2019 Warm Up Guitar - Warm Up Book Lesson

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Warm-upThe Ultimate Warm-up

For All Styles of Guitar Playing

David Bond



Warm-up

The Ultimate Warm-up For All Styles of Guitar Playing

By David Bond

iTeach Music Limited

Trinder House, Free Street, Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire SO32 1EE

Copyright 2012 - iTeach Music Limited

International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

For all works contained herein: Unauthorised copying, arranging, adapting, recording or public perform-ance is an infringement of copyright. Infringers are liable under law.

iTeach Music Limited

www.internet-guitar-lessons.com



Video Tutorial

Click to play



Introduction

Welcome to this eBook on guitar warm-ups. The warm-up is one of the most importantparts of your practice schedule, and should never be overlooked. It prepares yourfingers and your mind for playing the guitar, to ensure that you play at your best and

also avoid causing any injuries.

This eBook aims to provide a complete warm-up schedule that addresses all aspects of your playing, and aims to make your left hand (herein ‘LH’), and right hand (herein‘RH’) work together as a unit. It can be used in its entirety, for a very comprehensivewarm-up. Alternatively you can pick and choose applicable elements when warm-uptime is in short supply.

Warming up should take place every time you pick up the guitar, whether at home, aband practice, a gig, or even just when jamming with friends. The degree to whichyou warm-up should be dictated by the situation, for instance, at a gig you might

warm-up through all the support band’s sets; whereas at home, a warm-up may onlylast for 15-20 minutes.

All warm-up exercises should be played to a metronome, at a slow, constant speed atwhich you can comfortably play the exercise. There should be no hesitations or wrongnotes, if this is not the case, drop the tempo by approx. 10bpm, or until you find atempo that you are comfortable playing at.

The warm-up is split into several sections, as listed below. A complete warm-up wouldplay all of the exercises, however, for a shorter warm-up, you should aim to at leastplay one exercise from each section:

~ Stretches

~ Alternate Picking Exercises

~ String Skipping Exercises

~ Legato Exercises

~ Chord Exercises

~ Sweep Exercises

~ Rhythm Exercises

~ Ear Exercises

~ Improvise



Stretches

Stretches prepare your wrist, finger muscles and tendons for playing. Each stretchshould be held for 15 seconds, and used on both hands (except stretch 3, whichstretches both wrists). A complete stretch cycle would go through each stretch three

times and will take several minutes.

Alternate Picking Exercises

Exercise 1a

This chromatic exercise uses alternate picking throughout and should be fretted withLH fingers 1-4 accordingly. You should play the pattern, ascending and descendingthrough the strings, after which you move up the fretboard, repeating the pattern.This can be applied to most of the exercises in this book. To vary the exercise, trydifferent note combinations as suggested below:

~ 1-3-2-4~ 2-3-1-4~ 1-4-2-3

Exercise 1b

This exercise is very closely related to 1a, however you should only remove eachfinger from its previous fret when it is required for fretting a new note. This isextremely counter-intuitive to how the guitar is generally played, so it serves as anexcellent exercise for finger control (see video for more details). It should be notedthat this exercise only works ascending the strings, with the 1-2-3-4 pattern. Other

patterns or descending will not work.



Exercise 2

This exercise ascends and descends the strings chromatically, however, this time onlytwo fingers are used at once.

String Skipping Exercises

Exercise 3

Exercise three requires you to skip back and forth between two adjacent strings,playing chromatic patterns. To vary the exercise, try different note combinations.

Exercise 4

Similar to the above, but each note is played on a new string. Alternate picking should

be maintained throughout and varying the notes is encouraged.



Legato Exercises

Exercise 5

This exercise uses the ‘hammer-ons from nowhere’ technique, named by Greg Howe,

whereby a note on a string which hasn’t been struck is sounded using a hammer-on.Each note is on an adjacent string, as you move up through the string sets. The RH ismainly inactive during this exercise, which is fantastic for developing LH fingerstrength and proper legato. Aim for consistent volume on each note and carefullymute any ringing open strings with the RH.

Exercise 6

This exercise uses 3 note-per-string (herein, NPS) patterns, ascending/descendingchromatically, using legato. The first note on each string is struck with the plectrum(or using your fingers in a hybrid picking style, which will be discussed further inanother eBook), and you should aim for consistency of volume and tone throughout.



Chord Exercises

Exercise 7

This exercise uses bar chords in the key of G, ascending the neck, alternately picking

the notes within the chord. Each note should ring without any buzzing or muting.

Sweep Exercises

Exercise 8

Sweep picking a technique which uses downstrokes when ascending across strings, andupstrokes when descending. This exercise uses a chromatic shape which is mirroredand then moves up the fretboard. Swept notes should not bleed into one another, so

remove each finger as another is fretted, and carefully palm mute any open ringingstrings with your RH.



Exercise 9

This sweep pattern uses only two fingers at once and is great for finger control.

Rhythm Exercises

Exercise 10

This rhythm exercise will require careful counting and is great for developing yourrhythm centre. Fretted notes can be added once the rhythm aspect is mastered, andas with all the exercises, play it to a metronome.



Exercise 11

Here, chords are played on the off-beat of each metronome click, in a reggae style.Vary the chord progressions to keep the exercise interesting, below are somesuggestions:

C/G/Am/EmG/C/Am/D

Exercise 12

This exercises uses the gallop technique, as heavily used my metal/rock bands such asIron Maiden, Metallica and Slayer. The exercise changes between an on beat and off beat gallop between each bar.



Ear Exercises

The following exercises aim to warm up your musical ear so it is more sensitive totuning, melody, tonal centre and general musicality. Additional to these exercises, itis good practice to get into the habit of tuning your guitar by ear before each

practice. This will help develop your sense of pitch, and if you are not confident aboutyour ability to tune, check with a digital tuner afterwards!

Exercise 13

This exercise uses double bends to warm up your sense of tuning and bend accuracy. Adouble bend is executed by playing two adjacent strings, and bending the lower stringup to the same pitch as the upper string. Practicing bends whilst plugged into a tunercan be useful to check how accurate you are.

Exercise 14

This exercise involves playing the major scale and singing a harmony above each note.

The easiest intervals to harmonize are 4ths, 5ths and octaves. In this case we will use

5ths, and every interval is a perfect 5th, with the exception of the harmony above the

7th scale degree, which is a diminished 5th. Intervals and scale theory will be discussedfurther in a separate eBook.



Improvisation

Improvising is a great way to finish a warm-up, as it brings all the elements of playingtogether in a spontaneous scenario. To keep things simple, it is advisable to usesimple scales for an improvisational warm-up, so the minor pentatonic will be used

here.

The beauty of this scale is that it can be used in several different positions, whilst stillplaying in the same key. In a major key, you can play a minor pentatonic scale starting

on the 2nd, 3rd and 6th scale degree without playing any out of key notes. For example,an improvisation in C major could use the D, E and A minor pentatonic scales.

When improvising as a warm-up, you should play either to a backing track (identify thekey before starting), or simply to a metronome. Backing tracks can be prerecorded, oryou can use programs like Band-in-a-Box, or websites like http://www.jamstudio.comto quickly create a backing track.



About the Author

David Bond is a Leeds based guitar teacher specialising in metal, shred,

jazz and fusion. He studied at LeedsUniversity, where he completed a BAMusic degree. He is very active as a

professional musician and has toured

extensively with numerous bands. Hiscurrent active projects are Diascorium(extreme tech/grind/death metal),which gigs regularly in the UK and Europe; and a jazz duo with another local guitar teacher, performing mainly as a function band at weddings and other social events.

He has played since a very young age,

and started teaching about 6 years ago,initially in order to fund his other musical activities However it quickly became clear to that he wanted teaching to become a full time

profession. He enjoys the challenge of developing new talent, watching them

grow, and passing on the metaphoricaltorch.

David is available for Skype lessons at

www.internet-guitar-lessons.com

Documents

Warm Up Guitar - Warm Up Book Lesson