Posted by ルーシー LUCY on Dec 30, 2023
So I've been practising guitar consistently for a grand total of... two days. Within those two days, I have been looking and listening to a bunch of videos and shorts online from assorted guitarists — primarily BERNTH. I wanted to focus on fretting technique, practising the seven modes and efficiency. This is what I've gathered so far:
Stretch before you start playing
Before I started, I knew I wanted to focus on stretching my hands beforehand. From the little time I spent, on the blue moon, doing some rubbish thumb stretches before practising, it truly helped me fret and stretch easier. I found this blogpost from Seymour Duncan, one of the mainstream pickup manufacturers, and it was surprisingly useful.
This is the stretch routine I practise, largely informed by the blogpost:
1. Place palms together in front of chest, then push hands as far down as comfortable with. You should feel your bottom wrists stretching. Count to 10.
2. After doing no 1, rotate wrists to point downward as far as comfortable with. You should feel the sides of your forearms stretch. Count to 10.
3. Pull left arm across chest, use right forearm to hold in place. You should feel your tit & inside of arm stretch. Stretch as far as you're comfortable with. Count to 10. Switch to right arm, held in place by left forearm. You should feel your tit & inside arm stretch. Stretch as far as you're comfortable with. Count to 10.
4. Pull left elbow behind head with your right hand. Left hand should touch the left shoulder, but pull as far as you're comfortable with. You should feel the bottom tricep stretch. Count to 10. Repeat with right elbow, pull behind head with left hand. Right hand should touch right shoulder, but pull as far as you're comfortable with. Count to 10.
5. Push left thumb back with right hand. Position thumb up or down until you feel the thumb side of the palm & your forearm stretch. Push as far as you're comfortable with. Count to 10. Push right thumb back with left hand. Position thumb up or down until you feel thumb side of the palm & your forearm stretch. Count to 10.
6. Pull back each digit on left hand, minus thumb, with right hand. Count to 8, instead, for each finger. Pull back each finger on right hand, minus thumb, with left hand. Count to 8. Stretch as far as you're comfortable with! Remember to pull each finger back until you feel your palm and/or bottom forearm stretch.
7. With your right palm, and minus thumb, pull back all left hand fingies until you feel your left palm and bottom forearm stretch. Stretch to your comfort point. Count to 8. Pull back all right hand fingies with left palm until you feel your right palm and bottom forearm stretch. Stretch to comfort point. Count to 8.
8. Relax left forearm and scrunch it against the upper arm. The left hand should be parallel to your chest. Grab the left hand with your right hand, and pull. You should feel a slight stretch on the top forearm, the side where the back of your left hand is. Pull to whatever your comfort point is. Count to 10. Relax right forearm, scrunch against upper arm, let right hand be naturally parallel to your chest. Pull on right hand with left hand, you should feel a slight stretch on the top forearm. Pull to whatever your comfort point is. Count to 10.
9. Interlock your hands and push them out palm-first in front of you at an angle. Fuck around with the angle and stretch until you feel your wrists and forearms stretch. Stretch as comfortable as possible; sacrifice some stretch for comfort, if you must. Count to 12. For future stretches, continue to find the perfect spot where wrists and arms stretch — always go to your comfort point and never more.
10. Put your arms behind you, interlock hands and push them out palm-first behind at an angle. Fuck w the angle and stretch until you feel not just your arms but your chest stretch. Always go as far as you're comfortable with; sacrifice efficient stretch for comfort. Count to 12. In the future, continue to search for the perfect angle. For both steps 9 and 10, you may not feel it at first but you eventually will if you find the right angle.
11. Shake out your arms and hands. Keep hands and arms loosey-goosey. Try to move your shoulder joints rather than all of your arms. Make your wrists and hands really move while trying to not directly move them. Count 5 or 10, whatever. Go for as long as 15, if possible.
If you did all the above correctly, you should really feel that your hands are a lil slinkier than usual. You may not get it on the first try, and it may not prevent injury, but it does set up your body for playing guitar.
When you're done ofc, do repeat the routine. Best to do it.
Practise finger independence, esp w ring and pinkie
I struggle with utilising my ring and pinkie finger, esp in a guitar setting. I searched a bit for how to curb this problem, but it was frustrating.
There is no such thing as true finger independence; our fingers are all connected in some fashion. In particular, the ring and pinkie are connected and are used way less than rings and middle digits. Despite this, you can stretch both your ring and pinkie to be more 'independent'.
I pulled this exercise from this video, which is pretty cool and has genuinely helped me with stretching!
- With your fretting hand, respectively pair the index & middle, and the ring & pinkie, together. Outstretch those pairs away from the middle. It should look like the Vulcan sign: 🖖
- Close your fingers. This time, bunch your middle & ring finger together and outstretch your index and pinkie away from the middle & ring pair! You should end up with two fingers in the middle, and a finger on each side stretching away from the pair.
I personally repeat this back and forth 10 times after doing the stretching routine. It does help, and I bet doing this consistently may just help with finger independence when fretting.
Play with the neck angled up
I don't know much about wrist pain or carpal tunnel syndrome, but you can absolutely fuck up your wirst (and your wrist) by not playing the guitar correctly. Having your neck angled upwards, towards your head or neck, relieves your tendons and nerves of sprain and pressure. It also should take less overall effort to stretch fingies across lotsa frets compared to when your neck angle is parallel to the ground.
If you're sitting, sit the bottom of your guitar against your right leg if you're right-handed. Use your left leg if you're left handed. The idea is to position the guitar towards the arm with your picking or strumming hand, not the arm with your fretting hand. Also a good mention that some guitars are not ergonomic (i.e. Telecasters), and I think offset guitars like Jazzmasters are offset like this for that reason. Depending on your guitar, you may have to fight it.
I get that the reputation with more pretentious guitarists is with technique and everything under the sun related to it... but I am inclined to believe they know this shit better than you think. All this matters, unless you want to end up with permanent wrist damage that will kill your career.
Good fretting technique matters first. ALWAYS!
I cannot stress this enough.
Gitting gud will not matter if you do not put in the effort to git gud with fretting. Picking and strumming are comparatively easier or secondary to this. How you fret determines your technique, speed, wrist pain, fret buzz, muted strings, et cetera. It all comes down to mastering fretting, and paying good attention to it.
I like this video and this video by BERNTH. There's honestly not a lot of good videos on the surface when it comes to the guitarist-sphere on YouTube (and social media); funny thing is grifts like SimplyGuitar will also poke at this! I like BERNTH because he gets straight to the good stuff, doesn't waste much time, and I've actually tried his teachings. They work for me!
So here's what I recommend, from both his videos and my personal practise:
- You do not need to press down that hard. Assuming your guitar is set up right, you should just press the string against the fret with a mild (not soft) touch. That's it.
- You should clip your nails. Strumming hand is debatable, but fretting hand for sure. You need your fingertips to fret well, nails obstruct the amount of fingertip you can use and contribute to muted strings and other things.
- Fretting technique is about finding the best curve for your fingers so you can both fret and avoid muting other strings, regardless of playing style.
- Position the forearm with your fretting hand upright. Let the hand droop down over your wrist and relax everything. Glide the thumb under the index and middle finger until you feel your forearm muscles — if you feel your forearm muscles stretch when passing under the index finger, remember when playing guitar to align your thumb on the neck with the index for best comfort. If you feel them under the middle finger, align thumb on the neck with the middle finger.
- Do not anchor your thumb when climbing up and down the strings. Let your thumb move along with your fingers so your wrist angle stays consistent, avoiding wrist pain. This takes a lot of practise to get a feel for it; ideally, it should just be like adopting a Lego hand grip and sliding it up and down the strings.
- Stay relaxed and calm. If you catch yourself putting too much pressure when fretting, take a breather and start over.
You do not need a guitar to practise
The point is to not take this at face value — you can absolutely practise fretting, runs, licks, all of that without a guitar on hand... or even in your mind! In fact, this will help you stay consistent with practising — as if you never left your axe at home.
I have tried this inconsistently while driving or at other places sometimes, 'fretting' my right forearm with my left hand. More consistently, I have vividly thought and 'practised' in my head what I would want to play. While spotty, I genuinely believe it helped with my technique at the time; without it, I do not think I would have taken as easily to guitar practise as I have today.
The infamous Adam Neely did a whole video explaining this, and it's a good watch even if you don't like Neely. His videos are usually informed, and I like that he is open to this sorta stuff. In any case, I recommend watching it however you see fit.
Have. Fun.
Practise comes in many forms, and is subjective to the person. I have seen bass videos where renowned bassists admitted they did not practise in the traditional sense — they, instead, did something else like just playing. Even as someone who playing in marching band for four years, I never practised except when trying out for the drumline.
Above all, practise should be a mix of interconnecting past knowledge and theory with personal pleasure. You can absolutely practise something like uhh... the mixolydian mode by just practising one simple riff, then changing slight notes. You can learn the fingerboard by recongising patterns and lining them with the intervals of a scale itself. You can learn strumming by just... air strumming. Hell, you can imagine if you want or do it all in your head! This barely scratches the surface of what you can do.
Going back to marching band, did me never practising hold my pit back? Yeah. Then again, I never regret doing so. I always loved learning and practising while in class — it just made me happy. I would also concede that in doing so, it never took away from my musicianship and teamwork.
But now I'm in a band, and I prefer to practise the seven modes because it genuinely makes me happy.
There will be pain.
It seems like you will experience soreness in your arm or hands and mental frustration. If your wrist is not hurting, and your technique is good, you should still feel some sort of 'pain' if you're not used to it.
This is normal, apparently. Even without the physical part, there will be mental anguish when learning and practising an instrument. The best way forward, however, is through the anguish. Practising is all about weathering the storm — weather rain or shine, you will get better if you truly believe so.
---
If you rly like this post, you reasonably can & want to support us, please consider donating whatever you'd like every month. Donating helps us stay independent and do what we like to do, without stepping on other creators or anything like that.
I hope you have a nice rest of your day.