Building Better Guitar Position Technique
Introduction
As a guitarist, you’ve got a lot on your mind.
Your fretting hand is trying to get your fingers on
the right frets and sound the right note as clearly
as you can. Meanwhile, your other hand is struggling
to hold a pick, strum in time, or pick with your fingers
and hit the right strings. Your brain is also working
to memorize chord progressions or remember (and sing!)
lyrics or to simply keep the rhythm steady.
We’re so used to seeing guitarists perform in
wildly exaggerated styles during concerts or in videos
that we forget most of the theatrics are part of the “show” and
not part of the actual playing. Guitar mastery starts
with finesse. And we often lose sight of tiny details
that, given a bit of attention, may improve our playing
in a big way. Self-taught players usually (but not
always) pick up these little nuggets along the way.
But it’s never too early to counter our bad habits
by learning some good ones. They not only will help
you play comfortably and cleanly, they can also keep
you from falling into bad habits that you’ll
regret later on.
Stand at Attention!
Your parents may not have had guitar playing in mind
when they told you it was important to sit (and stand)
straight, but they couldn’t have given you
better advice. Good playing starts with good posture.
You want to sit or stand so that your fretting hand
can move freely up and down the neck without strain
or reaching too far. Your other hand should be able
to comfortably reach all the strings with a flick
of the wrist.
Remember that the ultimate goal is to be able to get
your fingertips on the frets so that you can sound
clean, clear notes. To do this, you need to pay attention
to the little things you might do that hinder getting
the best possible finger position.
Some guitar players
learn the classical style of sitting:
See Pia Gazarek - Offermann:
The instant advantage of this position is that your
fretting hand is ideally placed to finger notes and
chords.
The downside of the classical position is that it’s
not always comfortable, particularly if you play a
bigger guitar like a dreadnought. So if you play in
a more conventional style, with the neck at an angle
closer to 90 degrees from your upright position (sometimes
referred to as “folk” position), take care
not to use your leg as a wrist rest.
Doing so makes
it more difficult to arch your fingers comfortably
over the strings. Plus, you’ll find yourself
with an incredibly sore wrist after repeated practices.
When you play folk style (acoustic or electric), you
want to have your fretting hand about chest high so
that it can easily roam about the neck. Don’t
hunch over your guitar. Sitting straight will help
you get a better position for your fretting arm.
See Dave Matthews standing:
Dave Matthews sitting, with Tim Reynolds:
Using a guitar strap when you’re sitting as
well as when you’re standing is another way to
ensure good guitar positioning and posture. Plus, you’ll
have fewer worries about your guitar slipping away
on you. Try to not tip the face of the guitar back
toward yourself. Yes, you really want to see where
your fingers go on the neck. But when you tip the guitar,
you’re putting a lot of strain on your wrist
and, again, your fingers won’t be able to arch
well and get a good position. So after you look to
see where your fingers go, set the guitar straight
and get playing.
Loosen Your Grip
Try this experiment:
1. take a blank sheet of paper
2.
pick it up so that your
thumb is on one side and your fingers are on the other.
3.
hold
the paper up to the light, thumb facing you and the
silhouette
of the fingers coming through the paper.
You see
that your thumb positions itself somewhere between
your index and middle fingers. It’s where your
fingers tend to fall naturally, and it’s where
you want them positioned when you hold the guitar
as well.
Ideally, you want the neck of the guitar to lightly
rest on the thumb. You don’t want to grip it
like a baseball bat. Gripping the neck hard pulls your
fingers down and away from the strings, away from their
optimal position. An easy way to spot-check your grip
is to see if you feel the lower edge of the neck along
your palm. You should almost always have some space
between your palm and the neck. If you can feel the
neck pressing into your hands, then you definitely
need to ease up on your grip.
Target Your Strumming, Aim Your Pick
Just because you have six strings doesn’t mean
you need to play them all every time you strum. Help
develop a great habit early on by learning how to zero
in on the strings you want to play. On chords like
E, Em, and G, as well as most barre chords, you can
freely strum across all six strings, but when playing
position chords like A, Am, and C, it sounds better
if you start your downstroke on the fifth string.
For
D and Dm, try to start on the fourth string. Targeting
your strumming like this helps you develop picking-hand
discipline that will stay with you forever.
Similarly, you don’t have to hit all the strings
on your upstroke. When you hit the bass strings on
your downstroke, they’re going to ring out for
a long, long time. So when you make your upstroke,
just hit two or three of the high strings. They’re
all you need. Also, striking only a few strings will
allow you to get your hand cocked for the next downstroke.
Forward, March!
As you get better at fingering chords and strumming,
you’ll find that you can often “cheat” a
little—maybe you’ll not need to be in
perfect position to finger notes, or maybe you’ll
be able to hold the guitar slightly lower or higher.
As you learn, try to keep your motions and movements
simple and to a minimum. This will help you to quickly
get better at your instrument. When you’re
confident that you can play, then you can be as theatrical
or stoic as you’d like.
Taking time with these
little details—posture, guitar position, fretting
grip and thumb position, and easy, fluid strumming—will
pay off big-time in the long run.
