How much preparation do you do before sitting down to play or practise?
If you are anything like I used to be, you'll just grab the guitar and blast away.
I would never even have thought of readying my hands and fingers. Much less my mind.
I am sure thats true for the majority of players. But what if I told you that just a little bit of organising, both mental and physical wil help your progress enormously?
Give some of the following techniques a try and see if it makes a difference. It certainly did with me.
Feedback is always appreciated, so let me know how you go on.
Let me say straight away though, there is nothing groundbreaking or earth shatteringly complicated in what follows.
Its just another area where guitar players can learn from other disciplines, such as sportsmen, to help their progress.
The first thing I try to do before I even pick up my guitar is to get in the right frame of mind.
I'll sit down, right where I intend to play and try and get myself into the zone. Have you ever seen those athletes who before a race, stand in front of their blocks, stare down the track, maybe swing their arms a bit, with what looks like total concentration?
Well I dont do any of that!
Thats far too mystical, but I do use a similar technique to try and block out all the other things that have happened during the time before my playing.
I just close my eyes, take a few deeper breaths than normal, and try to relax as much as possible. Dont worry about getting yourself too calm and relaxed as you'll need to be alert to play, but if you can become just a little more relaxed than before you sat down, then that will help.
What you are trying to avoid is emotional carry over. This is simply bringing the emotions and feelings from a previous activity, over to the present one.
Its good to practise this mind stilling process before other everyday tasks.
Driving your car being a good example. Its been proven by people that test these things, that a lot of accidents and instances of road rage, can be put down to this emotional crossover. So it cant be good for your guitar playing to be still gnashing your teeth over the person that cut you up at the lights earlier, when you sit down to play.
Now that your minds in the right state, lets move on to the mechanical bits of our body, the wrists and fingers.
I just do a few gentle stretches to warm up.
First I'll put my palms together in the prayer position, and the press them together, at the same time gently lifting up and then pressing down my elbows.
This will gently warm up the wrists. Gently being the operative word. You dont want to go at this like some kind of body builder. You don't want to hurt yourself.
Then I'll form a fist with each hand and do a few rotations, forwards and backwards.
The fingers are next. Gently bend each digit from the knuckles, both singly and together. Also assist with the other hand to extend the stretch slightly, but remember gently does it!!
I know that its likely that some of you, perhaps the younger players, may think that these simple exercises are a waste of good practise time. I am equally sure too though, that some of the older folk, who may suffer from a bit of stiffness, and aches and pains occasionally, in some areas will see that its got to be beneficial to do a bit of warming up.
There are loads of other exercises which will warm up your muscles in readiness for playing.
I will be adding more of these exercises and my variations in the coming weeks but I'm sure if you give the above a try it'll be most beneficial to your playing.

Thanks for reading, and Rock On!!

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