Critique my hand positions!

I'm not a teacher so I can only comment based on my own experience as a student.

Your finger positions aren't much of an issue, but the way you've got your wrist bent could be trouble ... especially the first picture in the G set - man, that looks painful!

I think if you angle the neck upward a bit, and straighten your wrist, the index-finger tilt will go away.

ditto. straighten that wrist.

It would be easier to tell you what's wrong if we could see a whole-body shot. But something is obviously wrong.

Your wrist is bent on every single chord. It should be pretty straight from the elbow to the knuckles on the back of your hand.

From the E chord picture I'm guessing you hold your fretting elbow against your side. If you move it out, that will help with the finger angle, so start there. But it won't correct the wrist - so you also need to fix something else.

Yep, that wrist is a little drastic.

Re the pinky, mine used to have a drastic bend towards the bridge, but is straightening out with practice and concious effort to get it straighter.

Thank you for all the tips! Regarding a couple of details:

I never really noticed the degree of bend in my wrist until I took these pictures. Wow! Shocking, isn't it?? I'll see what I can do about making that straighter.

Elbow at the side - yes, indeed, my elbow is fully attached to my side. I'll try to move it out a bit and see if that helps.

I'll see if I can get a whole body shot up later, too.

Thanks again!

-Kirk

Check out these pics of famous players and look what they have in common.

Jimmy Page

Slash

Billy Joe Armstrong

Duane Allman

Now, it's pretty easy to see that all wear their guitar very low. Most teachers will tell you this is a bad habit. And it probably is. But let's face it, it just plain looks cool to wear your guitar low. And judging by your photos I would guess you wear the guitar low too. That's ok.

But notice that all these players angle the guitar up to almost a 45 degree angle. That is the difference. Angle the guitar up and it will straighten out your wrist. You will also notice that you have far greater reach, especially at the low frets.

In your pics it appears (from what I can see) that you wear the guitar low but also level. This is what is causing your wrist to bend so much. I have even seen players that point the headstock down toward the floor. Bring the headstock up like these players. They are not doing it just because it looks cool, they are doing it because it makes playing easier and more comfortable.

Wes

Slash is the man.

Man I just noticed Duane has some freakishly long fingers especially his ring finger or else I'm not seeing it right but it looks like it's a good 1/2 - 1 " longer than his middle finger.

Neztok said:

I think Tom Morello looks like he's playing a guitar instead of playing with himself:

Tom Morello wears his guitar fairly high which most teachers would say is the best and proper position to wear the guitar. But for some players this is uncomfortable. I have tried to wear the guitar high like this and found it very uncomfortable, especially for my picking hand. It seems I have to hold my arm up unnaturally and it gets tired. And it really did not improve my fretting hand at all that I could tell. For me (and I realize everyone is different), it is far more comfortable to wear the guitar low. My picking hand naturally hangs in the correct position and does not get tired. I have far greater reach by angling the guitar up like these photos.

Angling the guitar will also bring the elbow out a little from the side. Your elbow should be in a very natural position, not pushed into your ribs, or jutting out at an angle. Look at the photos above.

As far as the index finger, it is okay to use the side facing your thumb, especially on barre chords. You do not actually lay your index finger on it's side, but maybe about halfway. This will also give you far greater reach with your other fingers.

Pay attention to the angle of the wrist. It is a habit really. On some chords, especially barre chords, or fretting on the bass strings with a wide stretch, you have to bend the wrist some. But you do not want the angle to be extreme, it can cause you physical problems later on. Straighten your wrist a little until it becomes a habit.

As my old guitar teacher used to say, "don't velcro your left elbow to your hip!" Get that elbow out away from your hip - as Wes said, tilting the guitar really helps you do that. If you keep your guitar level and try to move your elbow out so your forearm is perpendicular to the fretboard - ouch! With the guitar tilted, you don't have to push your elbow out as much.

Agreed, you cannot determine how I was holding the guitar from the picutres. In this case, I was sitting down, and as someone mentioned, I do indeed have the neck of the guitar parallel to the floor. I take this position to be "casual" style, and someone on another forum suggested I sit in classical style. This would angle the neck of the guitar up at about 45 degrees. Another thing I'll likely do is move the strap up a bit so that the guitar is supported a bit higher.

At this stage my plan is to reorient my guitar and sitting position into more of a classical style, move the elbow out a little to help straighten the fingers, and try to flatten out the wrist somewhat. I'm hopeful that the reorientation of the guitar and my elbow will have a significant effect on my wrist. I'll let you know what happens....

By the way, the other thing I notice about Jimmy Page, Slash, Armstrong, and Allman is that they all have millions more $$$ than I do. I wonder if that is impacting my wrist?

-Kirk

This is a completely separate point from everyone else, but have you tried playing the G chord with your middle, ring and pinkie fingers? (middle on A string, ring on low E, and pinkie on high E)

It makes the transition from G to C a lot easier, and it's good exercise for your pinkie.

I have not tried the G chord in that form. I'll give it a shot and see how it feels...

So I tried a whole variety of reorientations - move the elbow out, put the guitar in classical position (45 degree angle), standing, sitting, and the angle of my wrist just doesn't change. I do notice that if I flatten my wrist out, I end up with a wrap around grip on the neck - like holding a Coke bottle.

Also, I looked around for various beginner videos and to be honest, in about 90% of them, the instructor's wrist is bent similar to mine. Even in the pictures posted in this thread, it appears to me that Slash and Duane Allman have similar bent wrists. Here are some more links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ATggw3ucg Look around 3:48 on the timer at his G chord
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNhJcXVMgvE&mode=related&search= Around 1:10 is a good example, and I admit most of the rest he has a very flat wrist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNXPwGU2AK4&mode=related&search= Around 0:17 to 0:20 is a good example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTCqLpKJBTg&mode=related&search= Around 0:15
http://www.guitarprinciples.com/Guitar_Technique/sitting.htm Guitar principles is a reputable site, right? Check out the wrist on this guy in the picture.

And many, many others. I'M SO CONFUSED!! Or maybe my OCD is just a little high.

-Kirk

As others have said it is hard to tell from just a pic of your hand. It appears you have the technology, get a shot of yourself playing these chords and post it. So far it's a little bit like trying to fix a golf swing with a picture of the grip on the club.
Robbie

As a point to emphasize this just this week my teacher told me to shorten up on my strap, raise my guitar a bit and have the neck angled more toward my left shoulder. This did two things first it put more of the guitars weight of the strap so my hands were free to play notes rather than support the guitar. It made playing scales etc. so much better and took the awkward bend out of my fretting hand. I also don't tend to cheat as much ie. tilting the guitar to peek at frets but takes some getting used to.