Not so much. A lot of players approach warming up/practicing differently.
But it doesn’t matter who does what as long as it works.
Not so much. A lot of players approach warming up/practicing differently.
But it doesn’t matter who does what as long as it works.
Usually I just noodle for 5-10 mins or play something I know I can absolutely nail. That way I go into my practice feeling confident.
Then other days I start off immediately with Hysteria just to remind myself that I have a long way to go
I warm up by playing "Hall of the Mountain King’. Starting out slow and pick up speed on each repeat until my fingers get into (what I call) a train wreck.
Then I unball all my fingers and go at it again until I’m happy with it then go to other stuff.
Which one? There’s a bunch and all of them vary greatly.
Nearly every day I start by stretching/massaging my palm and wrist. I’ve found that cracking my knuckles seems to really loosen up the joints (and if I don’t, I seem more prone to pain).
I then like to play stuff that doesn’t require a ton of movement or shreddy stuff. “You Give Me Something” by Jamiroquai is amongst my favorites, as is “Disco Yeah” by Tom Misch and “Joe” by RHCP. Stuff that feels easy/fun to play gets the juices flowing.
I know that some people swear by scale routines/techniques. Perhaps I should, too! They’ve never felt very exciting to me, though. I just like to start having fun. As Victor Wooten says, “The more a student plays, the more that student will practice on their own”
When I was 16 I could “just start” without warmup. Or I thought I could anyway! At 62 I find that playing a few songs at a tempo that feels comfortable and then pushing to speed up a little bit every few bars makes band rehearsal and then performing seem significantly easier.
Lately, I’ve been warming up with Billy Jean, Crazy Little Thing Called Love and the Zack Williams version of Go Tell It On The Mountain.
By the time I get through Go Tell It, I can play all three of them faster than they were performed on the official recordings.
Considering that when I first started learning the songs on the 50 Song Challenge I thought “Holy Cow these are FAST!” and I thought I’d never get up to speed. It’s delightful to be able to play more and more of these at speed, right along with the band.
Sorry to take so long on the reply.
I try several variations. But the ’ Hall of the Mountain King ’ I really like is the Savatage band version from the 80’s
Ah, savatage. I almost remember them through the (ahem) party-favor fueled 80’s. Or maybe it wass the 90’s?
It’s been said that behaviors such as i presented in those times affect the short-term… Wait a minute, what was we talking about again?
typically do 30 minutes of Guitar first so that warms me up nice and good
reviving this topic with a cautionary tale. started getting some pain in my hand /fore arm last week, plucking hand, have a trainer at the gym who also plays guitar explained what was going on he explained it was akin to tennis elbow. showed me some stretches and it stopped hurting. does anyone else have any good hand/ forearm warm ups they would like to share?
Stretching is the best bet. Next is working on making sure you are not fretting too hard - it should take very little pressure to fret a note on a properly set up bass, but many beginners will “Death Grip” the bass. I know I did.
Adam Neely has an outstanding early video about proper left hand technique. I am convinced it saved me from an RSI.
I still have to consciously not death grip the fretboard some days (14 months in). I had the same kind of pain early on. The stretches help in the moment but teaching yourself minimum pressure to fret a note is going to be the long term fix imo. That, and the body just adjusting with more time playing. Please do work on teaching yourself to not squeeze so hard.
Yeah. You should be able to fret notes without touching the back of the neck at all, just with a little counter pressure from your plucking forearm on the bass body.
This is a useful practice exercise- and if you cannot do this it may mean you need to work on the bass setup.
I play some very simple & slow songs at the beginning to get into the flow.
About “chemical assistance”: I stopped smoking weed many years ago, but now I’m thinking about taking it up again.
When I learned inline skating, it helped immensely to get into the flow and it made even my falling very elegant (at least I thought so). So maybe it’s also good for practicing playing bass??!
I am nowhere close to a long time player but I do kind of warm up, and I would definitely like to make it better and more consistent. Since I am doing B2B again, before I start a lesson, I normally play some licks for around 5 minutes. The content varies but lately, I have been using the 4 first exercise from Josh’s Youtube video that corrects mistakes (Not clear, sorry). I find that it unlocks my fingers kind of ok. Then, Thunderstruck is nice for the plucking hand. I tend to use a metronome because I found my time keeping is very bad when I am cold.