Waking up feeling like your hands and fingers are far from being loose and relaxed when you grab your guitar is extremely common, especially if you need to play an early morning gig... 

 

 

In this video, I’m going to show you the 4 best guitar exercises to do every morning in order to help loosen up, nail down your timing, increase your finger dexterity and allow your left and right hand a lot more flexibility for the rest of the day.

 

When you play without loosening up, much of what you are trying to overcome is the tightness that develops within the first few minuets. This feeling of tightness tends to be worse if you're playing guitar in the early part of the day when you haven't had much time to warm-up.

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Each of these motor-skill exercises in this lesson will help you hit key playing areas allowing you to play guitar better and reach a higher performance level more quickly (so as not to take up much of your time).

 

It is important to understand that these guitar exercises are ones that you can do at the start of every day. Each exercise will help you improve your; fretting technique for left and right hand coordination and they’ll also help you with the accuracy of your picking hand technique. 

 

This is important because many guitar players do not do any exercises at all, (and that can be for a lot of reasons).

 

 

 

 

Maybe a guitarist don’t know what to do, or even if they do know a few exercises, maybe they’re not all that sure of how to begin incorporating them.

 

That won’t matter for today’s lesson because we’re going to cover both of those areas for you and give you a collection of single-note ideas along with 2-note chord exercises that will go a long way to helping you get your technique together at the earliest part of your playing day. 

 

After your morning warm-up, the remainder of your day will have you playing both more relaxed, (and most important) more accurately. So, grab your guitar and let’s get started with our first exercise.

 

Example 1):
Chromatic Pedal-Tone Exercise

In our first exercise a pedal tone works to maintain the same note in position to hold the location and allow for a second series of tones to progress across both the bass and the treble of two adjacent strings. The study can move anywhere along or across the neck into any position.

 

 

Example 2):
Two Note Chord Study

Our second exercise is similar to the first with respect to how the frets are utilized in similar ways. However, the main difference has to do with the way the notes are performed. During the performance, you’ll want to practice each strike of the two notes having them occur all at once maintaining the position and having the fret-hand fingers sustain the notes for as long as possible. 

 

 

 

Coming up I’ve got two more exercises for you. But first, I want to tell you about a special promotional offer that’s related to getting yourself a copy of my, “Handouts Collection eBook.”

 

 

 

Example 3):
Flat-Picking with Finger-rolls

Our next exercise focuses on the practice of combining finger rolls with the development of more accuracy from the pick-hand. You’ll want to maintain the picking so that it functions very smoothly, but at the same time it must track as perfectly as possible while keeping the beat in time.

 

 

 

Example 4):
Fret-Hand 2-Note Interval Drill

Our final exercise focuses on re-organizing the fingerings for two note intervals. In this exercise, these intervals exist along 2 strings while maintaining a playing position. The interval changes are meant to occur on the beat, so always be sure to use a metronome for the most accurate feel across the count.

 

 

 

CONCLUSION:
Guitar exercises are one of the best ways to start your day. In fact, when you stop and think about it, exercises are really an excellent path to; mapping the neck and learning better control over the use of your left and right hands. 

 

In fact, exercises (like the ones we covered here), also help us learn better individual movement skills for the fingers of the hand. Plus, guitar exercises have long been one of the best ways to help with getting timing together through the use of a metronome.

 

 

 

 

And, that’s important because many Beginner and Intermediate guitar players tend to find it rather difficult to learn how to perform parts perfect alongside a metronome. So, tomorrow - first thing, start with guitar technique (before playing anything else). 

 

And, keep in mind that while guitar technique might not be easy to develop, exercises like these will go a long way to help a guitarist nail down the necessary skills for improving not only playing technique, but also for your sense of rhythm - for feel, and for timing.