How long does it take you to warm up?

[mgoetting]

After a day or two of not playing, what do you do to warm up? About how long does it take before you're about 90% to your peak performance?

[derek]

I have some dex, strenghting, flex exercises I have used for a few years that serve me well in that situation. Frankly, I don't need much warm up, and find that it is more ear and mental than physical for me.

[mgoetting]

It takes me about an hour. A lot of it is mental. I have to go through boring drills, which requires discipline. Of course it's worth it.

[whippersnapper]

I go for the 1 finger per fret exercise and do that for about 15 minutes all along the neck mixing up the order.

[Tom Karol]

"If I don't play for a day, I can tell.
If I don't play for 2 days, my wife can tell.
If I don't play for a week, the audience can tell."
- Roy Buchannan

As I get older, it seems to take me longer - about 20 minutes - to warm up - and maybe about an hour to really get loose.

I have 2, "exercises," that help to get my right and left hand in synch with each other (that's the critical part for me):
1) Bach's, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." Just the melody; there's something about the steady triplets that seems to help.
2) A Chord Melody ballad or slow swing - the song varies but it's often, "Here's That Rainy Day."

[Scrybe]

It depends. Most days, it takes 10-20minutes. If the World Cup is on, it takes at least 105mins.

[derek]

Originally Posted by Scrybe

It depends. Most days, it takes 10-20minutes. If the World Cup is on, it takes at least 105mins.

So you take into account injury time?

[FatJeff]

I don't really warm up per-se, but I typically do start a practice session with the technical exercises I'm working on, so I guess that kind of serves the same purpose.

[Scrybe]

Originally Posted by derek

So you take into account injury time?

105 mins....
45=> 1st half
15=>break
45=>2nd half

hence "at least 105 minutes."

with injury time added on top of that, 130minutes. 190 if Italy are playing and we count their 'injury' time.

[C.A.JO.]

I warm up for 5 min. pr. 1 hour practice. This means 10 min. warm up for a 120 min. practice session.

Sometimes I do chromatic runs, other times it's melodic improvisation.

[Reg]

I'm usually playing so much I'm always at least simi-warm, but some times I get few days off and it takes one tune. On a side note, I've noticed that when I do warm up... play material that I want to, before some gigs, I play different than when I warm up on first tune at gig with ensemble. Different players, different tunes, different playing or style of playing. I'm really into real improvisation and interaction between players, if gig allows, and when I warm up, it influences what I play... could be good... or bad... Best Reg

[Aristotle]

It takes me all day to warm up. And only a few hours of sleep to right back to morning fingers.

[musicjohnny]

I practice technique first when I play, so that serves as my warm up. I do however, do a quick free-time warm up for minutes, then spend an hour and a half usually working on technique.