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When you are making and strumming different chords, it’s important to keep your fingers curved up and over the other strings to prevent muting (a dull or clunky sound). It can be difficult at first, because your fingers might not want to cooperate, and with some chords it might feel like you’re stretching your fingers too far.
There are a couple of things you can do to make this comfortable for your fingers:
1.) Make sure you’re sitting up straight and holding your guitar straight out.
2.) Try to use just enough pressure when pressing down your strings. Too much pressure and you’ll fatigue faster, and your fingers won’t cooperate.
You should be able to slip a pencil or pen through the curved part of your fingers. That’s a pretty good gauge of how much clearance you’ll need.
Finally, you know your chords sound good when all the strings are ringing out clearly and crisply, and there are no clunky, dull, muted sounds on any of the strings.
Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox
The lines going across the page are the strings. From the top line down, the strings are 1(thin),2,3,4,5,6(thick). Keep in mind that when you are reading tab, the bottom line is your top string on your guitar.
The numbers are the frets that you play. A zero means to play the string “open” with no fingers pressed down.
Click on the image to enlarge it. (You might have to click on it again in the next page).
Much Respect
The Musician’s Toolbox
No matter what pattern you are strumming, keep your down and up motion consistent. One practical thing you can do is to set an up “ceiling” and a down “floor.”
On the way up, make sure your wrist doesn’t go higher than your “ceiling” which could be any visual marker you choose. (Maybe the top curve of the body of your guitar, etc).
On the way down, make sure your wrist doesn’t go lower than your “floor” which could be maybe the lower curve of the body of your guitar.
This will at the very least give you a range of motion that you shouldn’t exceed when strumming, which will then improve your consistency.
Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox
I know, it sounds like I’m just being really profound. Like I’m a ninja, or perhaps a little green dude with large ears and a propensity to fight with light sabers. But, no, actually this has everything to do with music.
Slow down your practicing (using a metronome of course) and make sure that you can play the part you’re working on without having to think about it too hard. When it becomes second nature, THEN you can speed up.
The more consistently you practice purposefully and slowly, the faster you’ll get faster. Therefore:
Slower equals faster.
May the metronome be with you, always.
The Musician’s Toolbox
