Warm up drills for guitar serve a few purposes for both students and teachers: They get the left and right hands synchronized on a purely technical level without concern for the music that is being produced. This is especially important before learning or practicing a new song or skill. Warm up drills can also help develop technique because they focus on challenging fingerings and picking patterns that wouldn’t normally appear in performance repertoire. Lastly, they’re a great way to engage students concentration at the beginning of guitar class and set the stage for learning.

In this video blog Mike Christiansen starts with the most basic warm up drills that are appropriate for  beginning students and then moves into patterns that will challenge intermediate students and teachers alike.