proper left (fretting) hand position

[mrniceguy715]

i've been playing a little over a year. Teaching myself and progressing a little slow but getting it. The hand up is the fretting hand I know I am doing it wrong cause it gets uncomfortable in a hurry. I try to warm up with the finger thing where you run thru every combination on every string and i stumble through it and move on. as I start learning more complex things on start not thinking bout the hand I find my fingers coming off the strings too far. I'm using too much pressure. This is slowing me down and hurting mr and making unwanting finger noise. What I'm asking is what are some excercises to help break the bad habits I have developed? And could someone let me know how to obtain the safe left hand position?

[Dave Muscato]

Check out the Christopher Parkening Guitar Method, Book 1. It's for classical guitar, but the idea is extremely similar. There's also a good exercise on the Pumping Nylon DVD by Scott Tennant - again, for classical guitar. I might be biased, since I started on classical guitar, but the technique I learned from that is invaluable to me today. One of the main things Scott talks about on his DVD is pressure on the strings. There are a lot of good reasons to use as little pressure as possible - intonation and fatigue being just two of them.

Try this exercise: Pluck a string, but mute it with a finger on your left hand, as though you are about to fret a note, but just not pressing down hard enough to do it. Keep plucking 1/4 notes, and each time, apply *slightly* more pressure with your left hand, until you find the absolute minimum pressure you can apply while still getting a solid note out. Practice doing it that exact pressure until you do it without thinking, all up & down the fretboard, and with all fingers. You'll find that you can probably lower your action, too, if you play with correct technique, which then leads to less fatigue, fewer mistakes, better intonation, etc. It just takes practice, that's all.

One more tip: spend a lot of time practicing slowly. Don't worry about running up & down the fretboard and all of that at first. It's more important to have perfect technique. Once you have that down, then go for the fancier stuff, but you have to build up to it. There are few things more annoying than a show-off bassist (or guitarist) shredding like crazy with awful technique, string-noise, etc. If you watch the really great ones - Eric Johnson on guitar, Matthew Garrison on bass, for example - you'll notice almost zero string noise, and very little lateral movement on the fretting hand except when changing positions. This comes directly from classical guitar technique.

Hope this helps,

Dave

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by mrniceguy715

i've been playing a little over a year. Teaching myself and progressing a little slow but getting it. The hand up is the fretting hand I know I am doing it wrong cause it gets uncomfortable in a hurry. I try to warm up with the finger thing where you run thru every combination on every string and i stumble through it and move on. as I start learning more complex things on start not thinking bout the hand I find my fingers coming off the strings too far. I'm using too much pressure. This is slowing me down and hurting mr and making unwanting finger noise. What I'm asking is what are some excercises to help break the bad habits I have developed? And could someone let me know how to obtain the safe left hand position?

You need a teacher!!

Nobody here can see what you are doing, so will just be guessing!

Whereas - maybe half an hour with a good teacher could sort out your left hand problems for good!

You really need to be in a face-to-face position with somebody seeing exactly what you are doing or you will never get this sorted out!

[mrniceguy715]

I have had sessions with two teachers. on could really play but couldnt really teach well, and he just said whatevers comfy. thats why i never went back. the other was a bass second kinda guy so I am still looking for a teacher