Ideal warmup for beginner and intermediate guitarists - Week 1

Welcome to the first Technique weekly challenge!

In this series of videos, we are looking at many topics from: warm up ideas, technique improving concepts, strumming tips, lead guitar tips and more!

In this video we look at a warm up exercise for total beginners and later intermediate level, both coupled with a great technique/learning concept called ‘Slow, Slow, Quick!’

Exercise 1 - Finger Warm Up (beginner) 

• Place the index finger on fret 5 to start, then following fingers in order on the neighbouring frets one at a time

• However, don’t just go slow! Think ‘Slow, Slow, Quick!’ 

• Do the same motions progressing down a string each time, string 6 to string 1

Exercise 2 - Wider Stretch Warm Up (intermediate)  

• Place the index finger and ring finger on fret 3 & 5 at the same time

• Then, swap fingers with the middle finger and little finger being placed on fret 4 & 6 at the same time

• When switching fingers still think ‘Slow, Slow, Quick!’ as you place down the fingers

• Once you can do that, progress from string 6 to string 1 each time you perform the movements

This ‘Slow, Slow, Quick!’ concept takes the basic idea of breaking down tricky parts you want to perfect, which usually we try to do very slowly and adds a new element. **Think ‘slow….slow….’ before performing a particular movement on the guitar (even something relatively simple like placing a finger on the fret).

Then, make whichever movement you want to perform on the guitar as a ‘Quick!’ motion. Overall, this helps produces the maximum benefit, compared to just breaking techniques down to slow only, for your muscle memory and ultimately your guitar technique.