Try These Exercises so You can Play Guitar Longer

What do you do to warm up before playing?

If you're like most people, little or nothing! One of the most common complaints we hear is that the fingers or the wrist hurts after practicing for a while. Let's look at some of the causes and then some of the ways to prevent this from happening.

Relax your fretting hand.

The pain in the wrist can usually be prevented by not tensing up the hand and pushing too hard. When you first take up guitar, it's necessary to push hard to get the strings to sound good. After your fingertips toughen up you can release some of the pressure since the strings aren't sinking into your fingers. The thumb should be in the middle of the neck in back and it should be pushing so that you get a pinching action. Bring the fingers straight down and remember to keep your fingernails short.

Do some exercises to warm up.

I'm always amazed when one of my students tells me "you know, I play better after 15 minutes or so." I ask why they think that is, then I get a question. "Because I'm warmed up?" Exactly! What do most beginners do to warm up? Little or nothing, yet they expect to pick up their guitar and be able to jump right in and play. Then to make matters worse, they usually start with one of the harder songs they've been working on.

Here are a couple exercises to help you get started.

• Play the 1st fret with your 1st finger on the 1st string.
• Without removing the 1st finger, now play the 2nd fret with your 2nd finger, still on the 1st string.
• Without removing the 1st finger, play the 3rd fret with your 3rd finger, still on the 1st string.
• Without removing the 1st finger, play the 4th fret with your 4th finger, (yes, the pinkie and yes, it's a stretch), still on the 1st string. 

So the fretting pattern is: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1.  Do this twice on each string.

To start with, do this exercises on many strings as you can do comfortably. You don't want to be in pain when doing this. The 1st finger stays down through the whole exercise, this is what makes the strengthening and stretching take place.

After you're comfortable with the first pattern, try using different combinations of fingers: 1-4-3-4-1-2-4, 3-4-1-2, 3-1-2-3, etc.

After just a few days you should be able to tell a difference in your playing.