Extensive warm-up time?

Playing Technique
#1

Does anyone else struggle with this problem: it takes me an enormous amount of time to get my playing “going”. My technique only seems to work reasonably well after minimum 90 minutes of playing. Sometimes it takes even more time.

What I mean is that only after this - say -90-120-minute period - my playing is at it’s best or near it. Does that possibly also mean that the real effects of practicing only start to happen after this period of “warming up”? How can I progress and push forward, if I am not at my best during practice sessions…

This is also obviously not very practical when it comes to recording, rehearsing or playing live. Luckily I don’t do much of these nowadays :smiley: (and what I have done in the past haven’t usually required any technical skill whatsoever)

(actually when I think about this, sometimes my best playing emerges after even longer periods of practice, say 3 hours :cold_face:)

#2

I don’t think you need to be at your “best” (best playing technically) to get something out of practice. I would argue that the way I warm up tends to ingrain the technique I have at my “best”, so even if I warm up and only play at something like 60% of my most difficult, I still feel like I didn’t waste my time. I think I can reliably play at 60% within 30 minutes, but the technique itself works as soon as I start (at a slower speed, of course).

I think expecting your “best” playing to happen every time you pick up the guitar is going to set you up for failure.

You don’t necessarily need to be at your “best” to do any of those things. Many pros mention that the gig requires them to play things that are way below their hardest playing, and it’s only a few projects that really demand their “best”.