[Lukefright]

Ok so I'm new here, but I thought I'd post a few useful warm up exercises that I use. They are all chromatic scales and ok, they sound terrible when your just playing them but if you take five minutes a day to do these using a metronome then I guarentee you'll notice the difference!

When starting I suggest you go at about 100bpm using semi quavers and build up the tempo slowly. Go back down the scale too.

Exercise One (Everyone knows this one)

E-----------------------------------------1-2-3-4
B---------------------------------1-2-3-4--------
G-------------------------1-2-3-4----------------
D-----------------1-2-3-4------------------------
A---------1-2-3-4--------------------------------
E-1-2-3-4----------------------------------------

Exercise Two

E-----------------------------------------1-3-2-4
B---------------------------------1-3-2-4--------
G-------------------------1-3-2-4----------------
D-----------------1-3-2-4------------------------
A---------1-3-2-4--------------------------------
E-1-3-2-4----------------------------------------

Exercise Three (String Skipping)

E-------------------------------------------------------1-2-3-4
B----------------------------------------1-2-3-4---------------
G-------------------------1-2-3-4---------------1-2-3-4-------
D---------1-2-3-4----------------1-2-3-4----------------------
A-----------------1-2-3-4--------------------------------------
E-1-2-3-4------------------------------------------------------

Exercise Four

E-------------------------------------------------------1-3-2-4
B----------------------------------------1-3-2-4---------------
G-------------------------1-3-2-4---------------1-3-2-4-------
D---------1-3-2-4----------------1-3-2-4----------------------
A-----------------1-3-2-4--------------------------------------
E-1-3-2-4------------------------------------------------------

Exercise Five

E-----------------------------------------1-2-3-5
B---------------------------------1-2-3-5--------
G-------------------------1-2-3-5----------------
D-----------------1-2-3-5------------------------
A---------1-2-3-5--------------------------------
E-1-2-3-5----------------------------------------

Exercise Six

E-----------------------------------------1-3-4-5
B---------------------------------1-3-4-5--------
G-------------------------1-3-4-5----------------
D-----------------1-3-4-5------------------------
A---------1-3-4-5--------------------------------
E-1-3-4-5----------------------------------------

Exercise Seven

E-----------------------------------------1-3-4-6
B---------------------------------1-3-4-6--------
G-------------------------1-3-4-6----------------
D-----------------1-3-4-6------------------------
A---------1-3-4-6--------------------------------
E-1-3-4-6----------------------------------------

You can also practice using these patterns down one or two strings, for example:

E----------1-2-3-4----------1-2-3-4---------1-2-3-4---------1-2-3-4
B-1-2-3-4----------1-2-3-4----------1-2-3-4---------1-2-3-4--------
G--------------------------------------------------------------------
D--------------------------------------------------------------------
A--------------------------------------------------------------------
E--------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sure there any many other variations of this so make up your own! I hope this has been useful to someone please feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions.

Luke