The morning was spent re-stringing my Ibanez RG460. It was the most played guitar for the last 2 weeks or so. Those D'Addario .009s are something; they sound real crispy when fresh. This got me playing unplugged for a while, just to enjoy that moment. It's like wearing a nice pair of fresh socks; you just want to keep wearing them till it's time to stop walking. Anyway, I just wanna share the benefits of playing unplugged as a warm up routine (if you want to try something new):
- playing without amplification compels us to pick a little harder to make ourselves heard, especially with a solid body guitar. This would make us pick 'properly', it makes us put in a little more effort & control to discipline our picking hand.
- ditto the fretting hand; we push down our digits harder to make every fretted note heard & not pick a muted note.
- playing without distortion & especially unplugged, makes us think differently. Shredding is pointless because it makes us tired very quickly. We end up playing 'nice', melodic arrangements because we subconsciously tell ourselves to give into a different objective- one which doesn't emphasize technicality but a routine that avoids mistakes.
- finally, when we plug in, we feel things are much easier to play & we continue playing with less tension coming from both hands. We automatically tell ourselves to ease up a little & realize that those moments when we play without a proper/ dedicated warm up session, we were actually exerting more force than necessary. In addition to affecting our motor skills, it's taxing our minds & tired minds manifest more mistakes than the ones in control.
1 comment:
whoa... that top
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