i learned so much today!! I never really paid much attention to how i held the guitar. My fingers are kind of long so i never really worried about my thumb not being on the back of the neck, it alwasy just hung out on the other side. I got pretty good over the years, my guitar ego was stroked and i didnt give a shit how a held the damn thing. Then today i was trying to play this example in a magazine and realized that physically i couldnt do it. The magazine said about the thumb thing, ive heard it millions of time but like i said i didnt care until now. I put my thumb behind the neck and in a few minutes realized that it made a drastic improvement. I also learned that if i hike the guitar further up towards my chest, as if i were sitting, i play better. I feel sorta dumb for playing wrong for a few years but i also feel really happy that i fixed it sooner rather than later. Has anyone else conquered their bad habits?
my name is mud
Oh I hear where your coming from. I have played for a lot of years off and on. I came back some time ago to what I now know is a serious ON.
The reason I know it is serious is because I am playing better than I ever played and enjoying it more than ever for one reason. When I came back this time I realized all I remembered was the bad habits and decided to break it all down and start over again from the beginning. One major thing was exactly what you are talking about with the fretting hand technique. Now that I got out of the habit of choking the neck I don't even have to think about it anymore and I can concentrate on other things. I had never realized how much trouble the fretting was giving me.
The moral to the story is that is is very important to pay attention to "good technique" in everything from fretting to picking.
The really nasty thing about bad habits is they're always lurking just around the corner!
When I first began to play, I developed some bad habits (by teaching myself). Then I got a teacher, and worked hard to correct them. It took quite a bit of effort. Every once in a while - always during performance, never in practice - I'll catch myself going at something the wrong way.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
Playing powerchords with my index, middle, and ring fingers instead of the right way(index, ring, and picky fingers). I didn't really see anything wrong with it, but he said it was a bad habit. But, two other bad habits that I need to work on are alternate picking(I don't up pick, sure, I upstroke, but I need to uppick too), and getting my fingers to be independent, like when I'm doing scales for instance, I move my hand to fret a note with my middle finger, when I could of done it with my pinky without moving my hand.
Stairway to Freebird!
I know what your saying Tom. I was lucky that I had not plsyed for awhile and realized right away some things were not working right. Teltale signs like muscle ache in the hands etc.. I was able to correct them pretty quickly but always have to keep a mental checklist to make sure I don't fall back.
I've tought myself everything but finding those Jamie Andreas articles really helped me get a good start. It really helps to have a good start to guitar playing (for example I have no problem with the "floating hand technique", alternate picking, relaxed barre chords, and guitar position since I started out correct).
A hoopy frood knows where his towel is....
Same here, trying to learn the proper technique on playing not the slop style I originally learned. But as Tom mentioned, bad habits die hard and always for me in front of someone else! I still have to work on the barre cords as I am still grippig the neck to hard. Wish I had learned the correct method from the start.
John M
when i started learning, i read about keeping your thumb out of sight behind the fretboard as the being the proper way, but that it was acceptable to do what felt comfortable as a lot of accomplished players do. Well, it felt comfortable for me to have my thumb sticking out on top in whatever direction as i held on in this tight grip so yeah, i've developed this habit now. I recently got an instructor and he gave me this fingerstyle blues swing excercise to work on - it requires picking base and melody lines out of chords and fretting alternate melody notes with my pinky while maintaining the general chord shape- i struggled with this until i slid my thumb down behind the fingerboard and found i could move my pinky so much easier this way. I don't know if it was a deliberate point on my instructor's part, but I'm now trying to use this lesson to unlearn my bad habit as this is the only way i can play the piece properly.
