Welcome to the technical exercises and warm-up ideas page. Specific issues here help the student to:

1. Become more familiar with fret spacing in different positions which helps us play more legato, regardless of increased string height (often referred to as "action") in higher positions.
2. Solve timing issues between the left and right hands, wherever necessary remembering to take the left hand fingers away from the strings as fast as we press into them.
3. Use technical ideas which incorporate many or all left-right hand combinations.
4. Create repetitive exercises which help the guitarist address and overcome specific technical area weaknesses.

The key is repetition and focus. Similar to gaining confidence at carrying out any of life's physical tasks, we have to try out very similar things for many days in a row if we are to see any benefit in our guitar playing. A good case in point is the warm-up of a brass instrument player, most really great ones of whom before an orchestral rehearsal or performance will begin their routine with "buzzing" their lips into the mouthpiece alone (not inserted into the instrument, yet). Listening to a group of brass players warming up may sound to a newbie as a group of kazoo sirens or big bumblebees, but they are warming up their muscles and minds with exactly the same exercise, each day, because it works in preparing for what is to come during the performance. The strong, centered focus begins to happen after routines like this are repeated day after day - some players, after they find what works best for them, use precisely the same things for years, and a few are quite universal to each particular instrument.

My intention is to regularly post new ideas here - a mix of which my students and I regularly use, influenced by earlier published materials I've studied, from Mauro Giuliani to Abel Carlevaro. Some will be created in manuscript alone, while others will have the tablature accompanying. Make sure when you play these that you either use a metronome or play to that constant clock/drum in your brain to maintain a very consistent beat/pulse. Warm-ups are perfect for focusing on maintaining an exact tempo!