Welcome to your weekly 10-second tip.
This is an important one about the fretting hand and it’s the fact that you should…
“Keep an eye on what your non-playing fingers are doing”
Do you ever watch what the fingers of the fretting hand are doing when they are not in use?
When playing, many guitarists’ non-playing fingers jump around and hop high in the air away from the fretboard like Kermit the frog on a trampoline!
- For instance, when playing a riff or scale using the index and ring fingers, do you know exactly what the pinkie is doing?
- Or when playing a chord that uses 3 fingers, are you checking what the other unused finger is doing?
In short, you should try to keep all your fingers close to the fretboard when not in use.
Why is this important?
Well, one reason is the further away your fingers are from the fretboard, the more distance they have to travel to get back to the fretboard, thus increasing the chances they will land in an incorrect spot. This means more buzzing, missed notes, and wrong chords.
Therefore, keep your fingers close to the fretboard as much as possible and watch them like a hawk until this becomes a natural habit.
For more precise help on exactly how to train your fingers to do this, check out page 44 of my book, Essential Guitar Technique, where I cover this in detail.
The book is available as the #1 book in my bundle (as all the other books build on top of this one).
You can check it out and the others in the bundle at the link below:
Guitar Domination Super eBook Bundle
Enjoy your Friday…
Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination
P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.
