Little note on warming up and stretching

I do warm ups before playing by playing a gentler song such as Always With Me, 
Always With you and then work into a more fast paced song that has a lot of 
stretched out solos that requires some stamina to get going :)

There is one great exercise that seems so simple and basic that you may overlook 
it at first, I got this from an inteview with Joe himself once and its great! 

Try playing this simple repeating exercise up and down the fretboard to warm up, 
slowly and evely getting all the notes to sound out and picking each string with 
an opposite stroke :- that is, pick the first note down and then use the pick up 
on the next so you get alterante up and down picking...you see what I mean? 
Have a look!

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---------------------------------------------------------

then back down on the next fret up:

E|--5--4--3--2---------------------------------------------------------
B|-------------5--4--3--2----------------------------------------------
G|------------------------5--4--3--2-----------------------------------
D|-----------------------------------5--4--3--2------------------------
A|----------------------------------------------5--4--3--2-------------
E|---------------------------------------------------------5--4--3--2--

And back up on the next fret and so on :)

Hope that looks alright on your screen! You can play with patterns to get your fingers 
stretched:

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

You'll find that by the time you get up a couple of frets you can feel the 
strain in your hand as you exercise those muscles :) Don't over do it but
it is a good one to practice before you warm up, just be careful not to hurt
yourself!

Frank - 12/14/98
