Learn

Technique.

The physical skills. Nothing here is about the instrument you own.

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Holding it

Thumb behind the neck, roughly opposite the first finger, not hooked over the top — hooking the thumb feels secure and silently limits your reach for years. The neck sits in the web between thumb and first finger. On the right hand, the wrist stays loose; a locked wrist is the most common cause of a picking hand that cannot speed up.

Fretting

Press just behind the fret, not on it and not in the middle of the space. Behind the fret needs the least force. Use the tips of the fingers on chords so the strings either side keep ringing, and keep the fingers close to the strings when they are not being used — distance travelled is time wasted.

Picking

• 01Downstrokes only — learn the rhythm before you learn the speed
• 02Alternate picking — down up down up, even when crossing strings. Slower at first, twice as fast later
• 03Economy picking — alternate, except when the next string is in the same direction
• 04Fingerstyle — thumb on the bottom three strings, fingers on the top three

Barre chords

The barre is not a strength problem, it is a leverage problem. Roll the first finger slightly onto its side — the bony edge, not the soft flat — and pull the elbow in towards your body so the arm helps the hand. If the top string buzzes, the finger is too flat. It hurts for about two weeks and then stops hurting, and that is the whole of it.

Timing

Practise with something that keeps time and will not slow down for you. A metronome, a drum loop, a backing track. Playing fast is easy; playing in time at any speed is the skill, and it is the one that decides whether you can play with other people.

The habits that decide how fast you improve

• 01Slow enough to be right — practising a mistake at speed teaches the mistake
• 02Short and daily — twenty minutes a day beats three hours on Sunday, by a wide margin
• 03Change one thing at a time — speed or accuracy, never both at once
• 04Play with other people early — it exposes timing and listening faster than any exercise

Chords · Practice plan · Skills index