In this lesson I'm going to share with you the four most important aspects of
technique for beginner guitar players. They are posture, how to hold the guitar.
You're fretting hand, how to hold the strings down and create clean notes.
You're picking hand how to hold a pick and address the strings and last but
certainly not least overall tension management.
Now this lesson is probably the most important lesson you're ever going to have
because of two distinct reasons.
This is going to make playing the guitar physically easier and it's going to
prevent you from being injured while playing the guitar and for each of these
aspects of technique,
I'm going to give you some checkin points to make sure that you're doing it
correctly because even, I mean, I've been playing guitar for a while,
I still kind of am at fault in some of these areas and I still check in as I'm
playing to make sure I'm doing it as good as I can.
This is just one lesson in a series where I'll take you from zero to guitar
player in 30 days by teaching you the four super fund skills.
That'll get you hooked on guitar. Before you get started.
You'll need to download the tabs course guide and 30 day checklist to get yours.
Just click on the link in the video or visit 30 days to play.com so let's start
with posture. There are three important aspects of posture and first,
let's focus on the guitar itself. How do you hold the thing? Well,
I want you to take the waist,
this indent in the bottom and place it on your right leg.
If you're writing your left leg, if you're a lefty,
I want you to keep it parallel to the ground and straight up and down.
I don't want you to be angling it this way and I don't want you to be angling it
that way. Straight up and down.
And I say this because it will actually influence other aspects of your proper
posture or the proper posture that we're striving for. Now,
I will say this in terms of holding the guitar straight up and down,
there are going to be times when you're going to want to look at the strings,
make sure your pics hitting the right string.
That's okay as long as you check in and then return it to its proper,
a sitting place. Okay? So that's very important to keep in mind.
It's okay to look. It's okay to move, but remember while you're playing,
you want to keep it straight up and down.
The next thing that I want you to be aware of is your back. Okay?
So we've got the guitar. Now we're going to move on to your back.
I want you to almost act like your a Tim, the tool man, Taylor's neighbor.
You know Wilson, when he was peering over the fence to talk to Tim.
If you've ever seen that show, it's okay.
Just imagine like you're looking over a fence.
That's the kind of lift I want you to have in your back.
I don't want you to feel heavy in your back, right?
I don't want you to be rounded. I want you to be nice and straight, up and down,
like almost as if your back is a string and somebody's pulling you up, okay?
The last and final checkin point for your posture is going to be your shoulders.
Okay? I don't want you to hold tension in your shoulders.
I want your shoulders to be nice and relaxed, not necessarily back,
but just nice and relaxed.
If you find yourself crunching or hunting or kind of lifting your shoulders,
that's a bad thing.
Let your shoulders drop and have that back being nice and straight.
So you've got the guitar straight up and down your back,
like string and your shoulders nice and relaxed and dropped away from your ears.
Now let's move on to your fretting hand.
This one's extremely important because this is going to help influence how your
notes sound on the guitar. So when you fret,
it doesn't matter which finger you fret with, whether it be your index,
Middle Ring, or pinky.
I want you to fret on the very tip of your finger in the sweet spot.
So I'm going to use the second fret of the d string here as my example.
So I want you to be right on that fingertip and I want you to have your finger
where you're fretting the string right next to your intended fret.
Okay? If you're too far behind the fret, you're going to get some buzzing.
It's going to sound a little wonky, and if you're on top of the fret,
it's going to sound fuzzy or muted. You don't want either of those things.
You don't want a buzzy note, you don't want a fuzzy note.
You want a nice clean note,
so it'd be right next to the fret and on your fingertips.
Now the other thing to keep in mind with your fretting hand is I want you to
have proper arch in your fretting fingers,
whether you're using a your just a single finger for a single note or a full
cord, okay?
And how you achieve this is by number one fretting on your fingertip.
But number two,
keeping your fretting palm close to the bottom edge of the guitar neck.
Okay, here's what happens when you keep it further away.
See how flat my finger is? You don't want a flat finger.
You want a nice arched finger. And again, to do that,
just bring your palm closer to the bottom edge of the fretboard.
That'll introduce the proper arch you need to get in the perfect fretting
position. So again,
fret and the sweet spot and have good arch or arc in your fingers. Next,
let's focus on your picking hand.
Now one of the questions that everybody asks when they're first starting,
I asked it, you're probably asking it as well as how do you hold a pic? Well,
I want you to pretend like you're holding a TV remote, right?
You're about to watch. Well, Tim, the tool man,
Taylor or the Simpsons or your favorite show,
I want you to place the pic right on the front part of your index finger,
kind of on that first section right after that,
first and farthest knuckle from your, your main knuckle right, right here.
And then I want you to go ahead and secure your thumb on top of it.
Much like you're pressing the button on the remote control,
make sure the pickup point is perpendicular to your thumb and there you have it.
That's how you hold a pick properly. Now that you're holding the pig properly,
I want you to address the strings properly, right?
And a lot of times there's this a feeling like you have to flap the strings or
just kind of take this running lunge at the strings. That's not true. In fact,
picking should be of a very minimal effort.
So essentially what I want you to do is rest the pic and I'm going to use the
open d string here for my example.
Rest the pick on the string and then let the weight of your hand follow it
through the string, right?
I don't want you to feel like you're walking or pulling away from the strings.
I want you to let your,
the weight of your hand make the pick follow through the string so it's resting
and then it releases.
The last and final thing that I want to focus on in terms of technique is
tension management. And if you maintain proper posture,
this is going to help big time.
But overall what I want you to know is that tension creates injury.
Tension creates buzzy chords. Tension creates fuzzy notes.
Tension is all bad. I want you to be as relaxed as possible.
Now I know when you're trying something that's difficult or you're trying
something new for the first time, there's this tendency to kind of tense up.
I want you to fight that as much as possible.
You're never going to get it perfect right off the bet,
but once you're aware of it, you can ease up.
That tension and common tension areas are your jaw, right?
You can clench your teeth and kind of grit your whole face and make kind of that
guitar face or you can hunt your shoulders,
which we already talked about in the posture,
or you can feel like you're white knuckling the pic or white knuckling the
strings while you're friending them. If you feel yourself doing that,
take a second recheck in with your posture and check the guitar.
Check your back, check your shoulders, take a breath and then try again.
I can assure you that if you keep these four essential technique tips in mind,
guitar playing is going to come much easier and much more pain free,
which is awesome and what we all need.
This is just one lesson in a series where I'll take you from zero to guitar
player in 30 days by teaching you the four superfund skills that'll get you
hooked on guitar. Before you get started,
you'll need to download the tabs course guide and 30 day checklist to get yours.
Just click on the link in the description or visit 30 days to play.com.