Ukulele Warm-Ups and Effective Finger Exercises
Warm up those fingers and get ready to play!
Why Warm-Up Before Playing?
It’s worth spending a few minutes doing a little bit of a warm-up before you start playing your ukulele. These simple exercises will help take any stiffness out of your fingers, avoid possible finger strains and may also help to improve your speed, fluidity and technique.
It is easy to forget to warm-up before you play, but your hands, fingers wrists and voice, when properly warmed up, will give you more energy and enable you to practise and perform for longer periods of time.
Hand Warm-Ups
Clenched Fist - make a fist and relax (repeat).
Still Hand - hold your strumming hand limp and just move your fingers up and down, holding your thumb and wrist perfectly still. Follow this by keeping your fingers perfectly still and moving you thumb up and down. Practise on the other hand.
Stop Sign - put out your hand flat as if telling someone to halt or stop.
Down Sign - as above, but point your fingers to the floor.
Table Push - push down with flat fingers on the edge of a table, as if playing the piano.
Pray Push - push hands together as if praying.
The Big Squeeze - squeeze a tennis ball or bean bag several times.
Stiff fingers? Oh dear, you need to warm up next time.
Playing Warm-Ups
Up and Down - climb the frets with your fingers and then go back down to where you started from. This will develop your finger strength and develop your speed and stamina.
Roundabout - try playing circles of chords using different strumming patterns: G, C, D, C for example or A7, D7 and E7.
Chord Pluck - play arpeggio exercises by plucking the individual notes of a chord in a repeating pattern. Start slowly and speed up.
Voice Warm-Ups
If you are singing, it is also a good idea to practise a few voice exercises too. Here are a few to get started:
Bubbles (lip trills) are a great starting place. Gently place your fingers against your cheeks and vibrate your lips together, keeping your neck and throat relaxed, don’t push!
Breathing - get your breathing balanced by long breaths in and out, allowing low and relaxed breaths. Then try short sharp breaths to activate your diaphragm. Do all this with an open and relaxed throat, this helps your larynx (voice box) to be in a relaxed state ready for singing.
Head voice scale - on an ‘ee’ or ‘ooh’ sound – a light scale helps keep your voice relaxed, open and working into the high register.
Chest voice scale - on a ‘na’ sound – a lower scale in chest voice (speaking voice) helps with full-bodied resonance.
Singing is good for you!
The most important reason for warming up before you play and sing is to get yourself into a relaxed state. If you’re relaxed, you are much more likely to make the most of your ukulele practice or performance.
Hope our expert tips have helped to get you all loosened up and ready for action!
Happy strumming 🙂
Find more expert tips and practice techniques with our useful guides.