Warm Up: Focus on Technique First

Fingerpicking guitarists are notorious for many things, chief among them, not warming up and right hand injuries. If you’re considering playing an instrument like the classical guitar you should furnish a technique that you can foresee using on difficult pieces and schedule at least 10-20 minutes of warm up at the start of each day. Initially sitting without the guitar and observing your hands dangling at your sides develops important awareness of a truly relaxed hand position. Similarly, unbending your elbows occasionally, after you’ve begun your warm up, can serve as a reminder of this ergonomic home base. Such frequent pauses give us an opportunity to take a few slow, deep breaths. You should prepare yourself to properly recline your right hand back onto the strings without moving the right shoulder.

The slower we play, the fast we think...but perhaps our intensity of focus is even more important than speed of focus. You should be warming up your mind as well as your body. How? Numerous master musicians have convinced me of the importance of playing simple, long tones on the open strings; I recommend you try doing this each day for at least a week. Listen to the notes decay or image playing double dotted whole notes tied together; whatever it takes to play intentionally while being acutely aware of your sitting position. I think of such technical warm ups as a way of re-examining right hand technique long before attempting an actual piece. While watching my right hand play these open strings, my left hand might gently touch my right shoulder, left leg, or lower back. The purpose here is to search for unnecessary tension. Additionally, staring slightly upwards or to the right can help eliminate the need to always look at your hands and keep the neck moving freely. After a few minutes of slow and simple right hand work, begin playing something very easy and familiar from memory, like an etude, arpeggios piece, or a sequence of scales.

Additionally, you can sight read something far below your ability level. What to sight read while you’re still “warming up”...? Because I play repertoire in the Royal Conservatory of Music Series Book 8, I prefer to sight read levels 3. The difference between level 8 and 3 may sound severe, but I expect myself to play only slightly below the marked tempo when sight reading. Many intermediate students should try sight reading in the RCMS introductory level book or a beginner method for steel string guitar (book 1). Take the time to find massive amounts of easy material if you want to incorporate careful sight reading with good technique. Ask your teacher for feedback on technique, specific warm up exercises, and appropriate sight reading material. Then, patiently enjoy the fruits of your labor. Create a diary of secret home recordings and listen to what you did a month ago. In other words, using your relaxed and improved technique will requires significant patience. Eventually good warm ups pay off and become baked into a sustainable routine. Remember, a warm up should serve your practice session and good technique should serve the music...not the other way around.