I remember when I started learning guitar I was always curious about how to get my fingers to listen to me. From getting the little finger to actually have strength to fret a note to just getting my coordination together – this was always something I thought about.
Eventually, there was a point where I spent more time with finger exercises than actual music because that felt manageable and rewarding compared to how difficult and time consuming it was to learn complete pieces of music.
Of course, that was 28 years ago for me, and although I probably spend more time practicing improvisation and songs now, I still check out ideas for warmups from time to time.
This book by Charles Chapman is an interesting one.
At 32 pages, it’s pretty short. But then again, it’s really straight to the point.
The book gives us enough useful warm up exercises that seem logical (you’ve probably tried at least some of them before) but in the directness, it solves the problem at hand.
The book is divided into three chapters:
Chapter 1: Warm-Ups
Chapter 2: Stretches
Chapter 3: Alternate Exercises
I would say the most useful one for me is chapter 1 because those are easy to memorize and therefore you can quickly include them into your practice routine.
For the stretches, I used to be more obsessed about that, but nowadays I personally prefer shifting more than stretching whenever possible.
In the last chapter we get a variety of exercises including a version of the crab exercise that I’ve never played before.
The pick and fingers exercises are also quite useful for those who do hybrid picking.
All in all, this is a cool little book for those curious about this topic. It’s certainly well designed although it does feel old school (well you can probably guess that from the cover). That being said, I like the book and am glad I checked it out. Related to this, check out Ben Eunson’s book for a more contemporary approach to warming up or Cecil Alexander’s warm up book.
Pros: A practical collection of mostly straight forward warm ups.
Cons: Might feel like not enough material.
TLDR: If you feel like you don’t have any good ideas for warmups when practicing guitar, this book might be able to give you some practice routine ideas.
Get your copy here: https://www.melbay.com/Author/Default.aspx?AuthorId=38243
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