Stretch to Improve Your Guitar Playing

It’s Good to Stretch

We frequently see magazine articles that start with a statement like this one from the recent issue of the newly revamped Classical Guitar Magazine: ”5 stretches to help you prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.”  It’s a brief one page article written by October Crifasi, “a guitar instructor from LA.” She presents five exercises that stretch the tendons and muscles of the forearm, wrist and fingers. Excellent and succinct. I do similar ones several times a day and have for decades. I’m very grateful for her reminder and to see the slight variations from my own routine.

Why?

But it always strikes me as a negative vibe to start with the concept of how to avoid injury. Soundboard put out an issue on technique last year that had a similar vibe. Who wants to do something that might help avoid injury next year or next decade? What? If I play guitar 5 hours a day I might get injured? No 10-year-old can imagine that. No 18-year-old. And it’s a pretty irrelevant issue for 50-year-olds who play an hour a day at most. Yes, we experienced players know that it is a vitally important issue, but let’s all have good habits because it helps now, improves our playing today.

I don’t stretch to avoid injury. I do it to play better! I lie on the floor and do the plow (a basic yoga stretch of the back and neck) and other postures. I stretch my fingers and wrists. But not to avoid injury! I do it so I can play better. So I play with more energy and focus. More musically. I do it simply to refresh myself sometimes. My ears open and my guitar sounds better. Yes, it does in fact sound better! With more blood flow to my brain and my fingers, I have a more sensitive touch and attack on the string. Increased flexibility allows for more accuracy and the micro-adjustments needed to hit my nail properly and effectively, creatively.

The Whole Self

Paying attention to your whole body deepens the experience of practice and thus makes you a better musician. It doesn’t matter how long you play or how old you are, even a minute or two of any kind of body awareness away from, but intended for, your guitar playing will make you a better musician. Practically speaking, the more you play and the older you get, the more important stretches and general exercise become. It may help you avoid injury, but do it to improve and progress, not to avoid.

– Frank Wallace

Please visit: Classicalguitarmagazine.com and October’s site http://www.rocktober.org/