5 Ways to Practice Guitar – Without A Guitar

Originally posted to S&R blog.

You love guitar. That is more than likely why you are here at Sustain & Resonance. And if you are anything like me, you would rather be playing guitar than doing basically anything else. Unfortunately, you cant play guitar everywhere at anytime. Rob Scallion did a fantastically comical video on [guitar] in inappropriate places. But for those of you who want to play guitar at nearly all hours of the day, this post is for you.

So how does one practice guitar when no guitar is available, no room to play, or you are doing other tasks (such as working a day job) that will not allow you to pick up and shred for all hours of the day? I am glad you asked because here are 5 ways to practice guitar without a guitar!

1. Hand Exercises

2. Finger Tapping Method

3. Visualization Approximation

4. Air Guitar/Visualization Method

5. Take A Break

Hand Exercises

While guitar is my passion, I am also a big fan of staying healthy and lifting weights. While I’m not John Petrucci, both pumping out solos and iron, I know that in order to improve your guitar skills, you need to work out those muscles. Just as an athlete hits the weight room while training for a race or a game, guitarists also need to exercise their hand muscles both before a big show and on a regular basis.

Just like at the gym, the best way to give your hands a workout is through resistance. This can come through many different forms whether it’s a stress ball, a standard grip/forearm strength device like this gripper, or even the Varigrip by D’Addario. I personally would recommend the D’Addario; it’s small and easy to store, its lightweight and it has adjustment wheels to change the resistance of each finger. As I type this post at my desk, I have my hand exerciser with to work on my finger and hand strength.

Before we look at our hands, lets first look at our arms and how they affect our guitar playing. Lightly grab your forearm below your elbow and then clench your fist into a ball. Feel your forearm tighten and flex? These are the muscles we need to work out.

Ok so how does this help me guitar-wise? Glad you asked! While still holding your forearm, take the clenched arm’s hand and slowly practice alternate picking. Notice how those same muscles tighten and loosen while you alternative pick? The muscles you are feeling are called the: brachioradialis, flexors and extensors and they are a key part to your guitar playing. So we want to strength and endurance train these muscles so that we can use them to their full advantage when we are playing.

Stress Ball: The stress ball (a tennis ball or a racquet ball will work as well) is not a new concept. Invented in the 80s to help overworked and stressed out corporate americans get through their day jobs until they could shred on the guitar at home – okay that part is made up – uses a simple but primitive concept to help relieve stress. This rubber ball is squishy enough for the user to squeeze the ball but firm enough to give the hand some resistance.

The best way to utilize a stress ball for guitar work out is to clench it in your hands and give it a squeeze. Squeeze it as tight as you can then release when you can’t compress the ball any further. Well call these “ball clenches”. This is a good starting point to begin to strengthen your hand and forearm muscles.

Next, we’ll take the ball and clench it as much as possible but do not let go of your grip. Hold the compressed ball for as long as you can. Well call these “Compressed Holds” This exercise will help with your hand endurance under pressure for those long and strenuous passages.

Now let’s switch it up a bit. To practice quickly changing from chords to long legato passages we need to be able to turn on the heat or slow down our playing at any given moment. To practice this, take your ball and halfway compress it slowly. Once, it is halfway pressed, release it to its full shape and immediate compress the ball as tightly as you can and then release. Well call these “Half-Whole Compressions”.

Now for the final workout, we will do the same exercise as the Half-Whole Compressions but instead of immediately letting go of the ball once we compress it either halfway or fully, we will hold the compression for as long as we can. Take the ball, slowly compress it to about the halfway point and hold it here for as long as you can. Once you can’t compress the ball any longer, release. Count out to three, then compress the ball all the way and hold for as long as you can. This will develop both strength, endurance and agility. We will call this the “Endurance Squeeze”.

For a complete workout: use this guide as a template. This is a circuit so you will do all four exercises all the way through. Take a minute break then repeat for 5 cycles. But remember, if you feel pain or any discomfort immediately stop. These exercises should create resistance but should not cause any pain.

The Stress Ball & Forearm Strength Device workout:

1. Ball Clench: 10x

2. Compression Hold: Hold as long as you can

3. Half-Whole Compression: 10x

4. Endurance Squeeze: Hold as long as you can for both the half and whole compression.

Gripper: This device has been an icon of the strength and weightlifting community since its inception in the early 1900s. The way this device works is by a piece of metal that is bent and twisted into a spring with two parallel handles. When the handles are squeezed resistance is created. The closer the handles are from one another. The more resistance is applied to the hands.

The exercises are exactly the same as using the the stress ball so I won’t go into depth on them, simply look above. The only difference is that instead of compressing a ball, take the hand exerciser in one hand and squeeze the two handles together. To switch things up, have the springs on the top for one set and on the bottom for the next. This will create two different resistance workouts. I have called this reverse the workout guide below. It doesn’t matter which way you hold it first, just switch it up the second go around.

Here is the Gripper workout:

1. Clench: 5x

2. Clench (reverse): 5x

3. Compression Hold: hold as long as you can

4. Compression Hold (reverse): hold as long as you can

5. Half-Whole Compression: 5x

6. Half-whole Compression (reverse): 5x

7. Endurance Squeeze: hold as long as you can

8. Endurance Squeeze (reverse): hold as long as you can

D’Addario Varigrip: This last one is my absolute favorite. I have it on me (almost) all the time.

The D’Addario Varigrip is very similar to that of the aforementioned workout gripper. This one however, has individual springs for each of the fretting hand’s fingers. I absolutely love the Varigrip. Its adjustable, its sturdy, its compact. The great thing about this hand exerciser is that it works your individual fingers instead of your grip or forearm strength.

There are other cheaper options out here like the Cando Digi-Flex. However, I have found that with the Cando, it works your forearms better than the fingers as you not only have to press down each finger individually but also simultaneously stabilizing your wrist. Don’t get me wrong, this a a great workout and will do wonders. But it is probably a better alternative to the gripper mentioned below than the varigrip for two reasons: 1. The neck of your guitar will always be stable in that it doesn’t move back and forth so there is no reason to practice working the wrist stabilizers while practicing finger strength; and 2. Unlike the Varigrip, the Cando does not allow the user to adjust the resistance of each individual finger spring. This does not allow for building muscle which requires to one to add resistance.

The workout can be done exactly like the above gripper but using all four fingers at one time and with one finger at a time. Before you start using the Varigrip, try each of the four plungers and test for resistance. If a plunger is too easy to compress, use the wheel at the bottom and turn counterclockwise to make the compression more difficult. If the plunger is too difficult to compress, turn the wheel clockwise. Your plunger should be difficult to compress, but not too difficult that you cant complete 10 repetitions without stopping.  For sake of redundancy, I wont go over the exercises again (just use the same workout from above but instead of using all fingers at once, try them individually) but here are three unique ways you can use the Varigrip to workout your hands and fingers.

Finger Workout: For this exercise, match each finger up with each plunger set to the appropriate resistance. Now follow along with these patterns until you perfectly pass through each one five (5) times without messing up. This exercise helps your fingers to think outside of their normal muscle memory patterns.  With that, your music will sound fresh and less repetitive as well as your playing will notice an increase in accuracy.

1-2-3-4

2-3-4-1

3-4-1-2

4-1-2-3

1-3-2-4

2-4-1-3

3-1-4-2

4-2-3-1

1-1-1-2-1-3-1-4

2-1-2-2-2-3-2-4

3-1-3-2-3-3-3-4

4-1-4-2-4-2-4-4

This is just a start, there are many other combinations you can use to achieve a great finger exercise!

Practice Your Scales: This exercise is two fold, 1. you practice your scales and 2. you workout your fingers. The first thing you want to do is to print out one of S&R’s scale sheets. This can be either the minor pentatonic scale, the major pentatonic scale or the major scale  printout. Once you have that in front of you, assign each of the frets to a finger (if the scale is outside of a four fret range, then use whichever finger you normally would while playing the scale). Now run through the scale using the Varigrip. If we look at a traditional C shaped major scale the order of plungers you should compress should be as follows: 4-1-3-4-1-3-1-2-4-1-2-4.

You can (and should) do this for ever scale pattern you know. Pretty soon, your fingers will be stronger and you will have reinforced your scale patterns through muscle memory.

Audible Finger Exercises (playing along to music): Try this out – turn on your favorite music and grab your Varigrip. Now as the guitar player (either rhythm or lead) chugs along throughout the song, imitate their playing on the grip. If the guitar player plays a power chord, hold down 2 plungers until a new chord is played, then hold down another combination of 2 plungers. If a full chord is played, hold down 3 plunges and switch up as the chord progression changes.

If the player you’re listening to is playing lead, try to emulate that as well. Each plunger should represent a note. If a note is repeated, compress the same plunger, if a double stop, bend or a slide is heard, try to play those as well by compressing two plungers, slowly bending one, or start to bend one and finish bending another respectively. This will be difficult and confusing at first but you’ll start to notice your playing skills improve dramatically.

Finger Tapping Method

The Finger Tapping Method is the easiest and best practicing tool when you are in a public setting as this method requires no equipment and can be done literally anywhere. All you need are your fretting hand’s fingers!

To do this exercise play your fretting hand palm facing down on a hard object such as a desk, the counter, your leg or your other forearm. The fatty part of your palm should be the only part of your hand touching the surface. This position should look similar to a pianist playing the piano.

This is what your hand should look like.

Now in this position, we will do the same finger workout mentioned in the D’Addario Varigrip workout. Though this time we will use our fingers to tap out the patterns. This exercise is to develop your individual finger dexterity as well as to prepare your fingers to move in complex non-repetitive patterns. First try these exercises then try the following 10 nonrepetitive ones to break your muscle memory and make your fingers think!

Exercise 1:

1-2-3-4

2-3-4-1

3-4-1-2

4-1-2-3

1-3-2-4

2-4-1-3

3-1-4-2

4-2-3-1

1-1-1-2-1-3-1-4

2-1-2-2-2-3-2-4

3-1-3-2-3-3-3-4

4-1-4-2-4-2-4-4

Exercise 2:

1-2-4-3-2-3-3-4-2-4-1-4-1-3

2-4-4-3-4-2-1-4-3-1-2-4-2-1

3-2-4-3-2-1-1-1-1-4-2-3-1-3

4-4-2-3-2-1-4-3-1-4-1-3-4-2

3-1-2-4-2-4-3-1-2-3-4-1-4-2

4-1-4-2-4-1-3-4-2-1-3-2-1-4

3-2-4-4-1-3-2-1-3-2-1-3-4-3

3-3-4-2-4-3-2-4-2-1-1-3-4-2

2-1-3-2-3-3-2-3-3-3-3-2-3-1

4-3-2-4-1-4-4-1-3-2-4-4-1-4

By no means is this list exhausted in terms of combinations. You can literally create any number of combinations of these type of exercises and I encourage you to do so. To add an additional level of difficulty, use your other hand (picking hand) and altpick (with or without a pick) on the surface synchronized to your fretting hand.

For the next exercise in the Finger Tapping Method, we are going to visualize chord shapes while we listen to music. Turn on some music you enjoy and with your hand in the same facing the surface position, begin to tap your fingers to the guitar parts. For double stops, press two fingers down. Press a finger down and slide it either up or down for sliding. And for pull-offs or hammer-ons, tap one finger and tap either on closer to your thumb for hammer-ons or quickly pull it off to another finger to represent pull-offs.

You can also take this concept for rhythm and chord passages. Press more than one finger down and hold them down until the next change, then switch up fingers. They don’t have to be the shapes closest to the actual shapes you would play on guitar, but rather training your ear and fingers to change shapes when the song changes chords. For example: if the song is Am, F, C, G, for a hold down 1-3-4 for Am, then when the song changes to an F chord, press down, 1-2-3, for a C hold down 1-2-3-4 and G hold down 1-2-4. After you try that a few times, start picking along to the song on the table with your other hand.

The idea of this exercise is to train your mind and fingers to recognize and visualize what is going on in a song. This will help you transpose your favorite songs by ear as well help improve your techniques and rhythm.

Visualization Approximation

This isn’t much of an actual exercise but more of a passive learning experience. If one looked at my desk, you’ll notice a lot of trucking materials pinned up on my particle board but you’ll also see two music documents: the circle of fifths and the CAGED theory pentatonic major and minor scales. Click here to download them for yourself

The reason i have them here is not only to show others that I love shredding licks but also to help my brain learn them by having them constantly in my sight even if it’s subconsciously. This sounds crazy, I know but this works. Its the long term effects we are going for not a short gain.

Check out our resources page here, print out the material you want to learn by this method and pin them up in a place you will see often throughout your day. After a while, those patterns will become engraved into your mind for easy access while you shred. Obviously, you can do any pattern or progression you are working on, the key is to have it in your eyesight often throughout the day.

Air Guitar

I probably lost a few people who are thinking: “Air Guitar, really that’s your big secret for practice while you are away from your guitar?!” Dudes & Dudettes, I hear ya. It seems crazy but hear me out on this one because this onen can literally be done anywhere.

So this tip helps with remembering songs more so than learning new ones. I usually do this one when i’m either on an airplane listening to my favorite music or anywhere else and I want to practice a bit.

First choose a song you know how to play on the guitar and press play. Now pick up your weightless wonder and being playing the song along to the track in the air guitar fashion. The trick to this is not to just endlessly noodle through the song but really try to play the song as if you were holding and playing a real instrument. This technique helps solidify what you already know about a song while away from the instrument.

Pro Tip: if you have a keen ear and can pick out notes from a song you don’t know how to play, try air guitar playing them as well. This way you can practice the notes and positioning when you’re away from the guitar. Next time you pick up your axe, see if you were right. You’ll get better as you practice this.

Take A Break

Yes taking a break from guitar will in fact help your playing! When we play our instruments, we use our body’s muscles. As weightlifters need to rest their muscles in between sessions, us musicians need to do the same when it comes to playing; especially if you have been shredding insanely fast.

Taking a few days off from playing will not only let your finger, hands and arm muscles recover from the high demands of your instrument playing, but also your mind will have time to marinate what you learned during your last practice session. When we dont give our mind enough time to digest what it’s learned, we wont retain it nearly as much as if we gave our brain time to let the lessons sink into our memories.

Taking a break also will help revitalize your love for the instrument. If you find yourself getting frustrated with the guitar because your technique isn’t improving, give it some space. I guarantee you after a few days away from it, you’ll be itching to pick it back up. I have found usually my playing improves after a few days off due to my revitalized passion for playing.

What do you think? Were these tips helpful? Which ones did you try? Which ones did you like? Which ones did you not? Let us know in the comments below.

Until next time, let the music play!

-S&R