The chromatic warmup

Every practice session from now on opens with this. It warms up both hands, trains the one-finger-per-fret habit that most technique assumes, and gives you a number — a tempo — that proves you’re improving even on weeks when it doesn’t feel like it.

The pattern

Assign one finger per fret: index on fret 1, middle on 2, ring on 3, pinky on 4. Play those four frets in order on the low E string, then do the same on every string up to the high E:

    1 = index   2 = middle   3 = ring   4 = pinky

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---------------------------------------------|

Form checklist, in priority order:

• Fingertips just behind the fret wire — not on top of it, not back in the middle of the fret. This is where notes ring with the least pressure.
• Fingers stay down. When the middle finger plays fret 2, the index stays planted on fret 1; by fret 4, all four fingers are on the string. Lifting early wastes motion and hides weakness.
• Thumb behind the neck, roughly opposite your middle finger, not hooked over the top.

Your pinky will feel like borrowed equipment. That’s normal for every beginning human; the warmup exists largely to fix it.

With a metronome

Set the metronome to 60 BPM, one note per click. Sixty clean notes per minute sounds slow and is exactly right.

The governing rule — for this drill and every drill after it:

Speed up only when every note at the current tempo is clean. No buzzes, no dead notes, no rushing ahead of the click. If it falls apart, drop back down.

Raise the tempo in small steps (4–6 BPM). Clean at 60 today, 66 next week, and you are measurably, loggably better — which is what the tempo column in your practice log is for.

Picking

Use alternate picking: strict down-up-down-up, every note, including when you cross to a new string. For a week it will feel clumsier than hitting everything with downstrokes. Push through — alternate picking halves your hand’s work and is the habit every faster piece of music assumes you have.

Moving up the neck

The full warmup travels: play the pattern across all six strings starting at fret 1, shift your whole hand up one fret (index now on fret 2), play back down the six strings, shift up again, and continue as far as comfortable — frets get closer together as you go, which is its own useful practice. Up to position 5 and back is plenty.

Three to five minutes, start of every session, tempo logged. Then on to whatever you’re actually working on — warmed up, in time, and one BPM closer.