Hi! How you doing? Justin here.
Today we're gonna talk about posture and how to hold your guitar.
Now, if you're right-handed,
or if you're left-handed learning to play guitar right-handed,
which is also an option,
I would recommend that you put your guitar on your right leg.
Whether your playing acoustic or electric. It doesn't really matter.
It's possible to put the guitar on your left leg, like this.
This is kind of a, more of a classical approach.
And there are some minor advantages to do with the access on the higher frets,
but to be honest,
as a beginner you're not gonna really reap the benefits of that kind of stuff.
So I really recommend much better off putting the guitar on your right...
if you're right-handed, you're gonna put on your right leg, OK?
This arm will help hold the guitar in place.
Now, if you've gotten an acoustic guitar,
you'll probably find that your arm actually sits on the top of the guitar.
If you're playing electric guitar, your forearm sits on the kind of the front,
the top and the front of the guitar. Now, it wants to grip a little bit on that.
What you don't want is the weight of your whole arm on your shoulder all the time,
because it makes your shoulder real sore.
So you want it to be, your arm to be resting somewhere.
If you're wearing a long-sleeve shirt or a jumper,
you'll find that you won't get much grip with the forearm.
Definitely, if I play with a long-sleeve shirt or a jumper,
my shoulder gets a little bit sore,
from having to hold the weight of my arm all the time.
So, probably you wanna at least roll your sleeves up, or wear a t-shirt, whatever,
and trying get used to the feeling of this arm being relaxed.
OK? Being relaxed is gonna be a theme that we revisit quite often with the guitar.
Because a lot of the things, technical things,
really rely on you being relaxed as possible. As much as you can.
Now, the holding of this arm
and the curvature of the bottom part of the guitar,
should help you make the guitar feel quite solid.
This kind of guitar's got a bit of a cutaway in the back there,
which probably sits into your body as well, into your torso.
What you don't want is this hand to be holding up the guitar at all. OK?
So, the guitar is held by your arm and that cutaway resting on your leg,
or a strap, if you wanted to use a strap, you could use a strap too,
But this part of the guitar is not supported by this hand.
You're not gonna be able to play your chords and change chords and all of that
while you're supporting the guitar neck. OK?
So, what you wanna do is just experiment a little bit, put the guitar...
on the right leg. Put your arm down, see if you can, you know,
get used to the feeling of the guitar
and making sure that this hand isn't supporting that neck.
Now... there's a few things that beginners do all of the time
and I'm guilty of it myself.
One thing that you don't wanna do is to lean the guitar over.
The reason that you don't wanna lean the guitar over is because it also means that
you're gonna bring your wrist around like this.
And you're gonna end up with getting probably quite a sore wrist.
All the tendons in your fingers run through your wrist.
Can also cause some problems with carpal tunnel syndrome if you overpracticed.
Unluckily for beginners to get that kind of thing,
but doing this would be a real, you know, that's a really bad idea.
You definitely don't wanna be leaning the guitar over.
In order to look at you fingers, which is something you're gonna wanna do,
you're probably gonna to find yourself doing this a lot.
It's always something I say to beginner guitar players: Don't lean over like that.
You're gonna give yourself back problems and neck problems. Don't do it.
It's really, you know... Until I started learning myself left-handed,
I watched myself back and I'm doing it all the time.
And if try and sit up, I find it really difficult.
So, what I would recommend is to try and not to do this as much as possible.
Like craning your head forward to look at your fingers.
You're gonna do it to a certain extent
because you need to see where your fingers are going.
You need to make sure they're in the right places, on the right strings,
all of that sort of stuff. Just try to keep yourself in as good a posture,
like an upright posture, as you can. OK?
Try and keep your back straight, sit up. For me,
I've been playing guitar a long time and I know that it's really important if you're
playing a lot of guitar to keep your posture good or you will end up with a
sore neck or back problems.
So, try and keep yourself upright, try and avoid what I call "craning", like this.
But, you're probably gonna find you do all that a little bit,
no matter how much I tell you,
because it's kind of necessary to see where you fingers are going.
This guitar we're lucky, specially the first lessons are not super easy.
So, be forgiving with yourself.
Don't worry about it if you're doing it too much.
But just bear in mind that you probably want to be sitting up
as straight as you can for your practice sessions.