How To Guitar Tune - Learn with FREE Guitar Tips!

For guitar practice, it's best to have yourself warmed up and flexible before you actually begin tackling some material that you've been meaning to practice your guitar tunes. Guitar practice may not be like other physical actions like running or lifting weights, but being loose and flexible will definitely improve your performance.

Before you begin your guitar practice, think about what you can do physically and mentally to allow your body to perform smoothly for the rest of your private rehearsal. Here are a few tips on what to do for guitar practice.

* Stretch your fingers just a bit.

Hold your hands out in front of you, palms down, and pull each finger back gently so as not to hurt yourself and hold it there for a few seconds. Try bending back at the wrists and pulling gently to feel a bit of a stretch there as well.

Experiment with a few different actions and exercises to get your fingers and wrists more flexible for guitar practice.

* Get some minor arm stretches in there.

Stretch out your shoulder by holding one arm out in front of you, putting your opposite hand on the outside of your erect arm and pulling across your chest. Hold for as long as you need to feel the stretch.

Make a couple fists with your hands and roll your fists at the wrists to get things a little more loose for guitar practice.

* A few scales should do the trick.

Practice a few scales at a steady tempo. Using a metronome to keep a beat is a very good idea. If you don't own a metronome, you can purchase one from my How To Guitar Tune Store in the navigation at the top of the page.

Of course, I could instruct you on some very proper scales to give you a good understanding of notes that work well together, but the truth of the matter is if you find a pattern on one string and then repeat it to all the other strings in a fluent manner, you have a good scale for the purpose of loosening your fingers for guitar practice.

However, if you ARE interested in some formal scales having to do with keys, here are some Minor Pentatonic Scales that I found from guitarsphere.com.

You can view the scales that I personally warm up with in my post: Guitar Practice Scales

* Practice your down-strokes and up-strokes.

Whether you're forming chords at the moment or not, practice your down and up strokes before you begin guitar practice. Hit 4 down-strokes, then 4 up-strokes, then a pattern of both together, all at a steady tempo.

Incorporate different patterns, but keep everything consistent and moving smoothly for optimum results during your guitar practice. Try to strike all 6 strings across the fret board evenly as well.

* Loosen your wrist by going through some picking patterns.

I actually have trouble with my picking personally, but I can feel it getting better every time that I warm-up before trying some guitar tunes for guitar practice. Try hitting a string of notes with just down strokes and then a mixture of up and down strokes.

I like to put in one really fast string of notes with double-picking just to see how much my picking has improved in speed. Use one note and see how quickly you can hit that note with your pick up and down and up and down.

* Try a few chord changes.

This is almost like diving into your guitar practice, but do some chord changes. It's best to name some random progressions so you can focus on the formation of your fingers on the chords rather than what they actually sound like together.

For instance, I pick randomly, A minor, C major, E minor, and F major. Then, I attempt to switch between those chords, in that order, very smoothly and at a steady rate. Once you can move between the chords perfectly at a slower tempo, speed up your tempo.

This whole exercising and warming-up routine should take about 10 minutes tops for guitar practice. But, when you're done, your fingers, wrists, and arms will thank you with a much smoother guitar practice.