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bad habits own up.


baldbloke

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Primarily a (wannabe) fingerstyle player. Planting the palm of my hand on the bridge. Didn't know any better when i first picked up a guitar. It just stuck. It's useful sometimes for muting but most of the time it makes learning a new tune more difficult. Using random fingers for picking the strings. Practiced thumb on 654 strings and pmi on 321strings (ok 123, 456 may be your perspective) for a while. Discovered it was a real advantage but still fell back in to the bad habit ( moot point though) It'd be interesting to find out what bad habits others may have? I am assuming that Mr Django, mr Johnson etc non-conformant (?) fingerings are the exception rather than the norm here.

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Exception here. First, your "habit" puts the hand at a severe disadvantage to maintaining a decent attack. That's gotta be tough. What were once habits are not necessarily now vices (vises?), though, like you say.

 

On fingerpicking, generally speaking, I'm no traditionalist but only in deference to where it compromises function with form. The latter has always stymied good sense but who am I to make that call right?

 

If you keep a free-floating right hand you'll learn to use it well. People defend poor form, though, so I expect a rash of that in reaction to the rest of this story.

 

Do not plant the picking hand in any manner. If the claim is made that it gives stability I say bunk. I call that compromising good technique. People who plant their pinky fingers do so at the cost of full finger extension and plucking flexibility, not to mention tonal losses everywhere between the fretboard extension and the bridge.

 

If you're going to smoke cigarettes, lose the filter and do it right or just smoke a cigar or pipe. And, inhale otherwise it's pointless. You get the idea.

 

The floating hand will be stable enough to pluck the guitar strings. They're guitar strings, not cables. It takes more effort to pick your nose than pluck guitar strings but you don't anchor your hand for that. Let it hover over the string towards the front of the sound hole.

 

The fingers do not have to be perpendicular to the strings. They need only have the attack angle necessary to sounding them without sweeping down their lengths, or sliding from too acute an angle. Bare flesh won't be as susceptible as fingernails to sliding.

 

Economy of movement is the precursor to developing speed. The less the fingers move, the faster you can move them, IOW. Showmanship being a video-borne impediment upon guitaristas as large, it has made a mockery of good technique. I call that a form of white collar crime but that's me. If you look focused and are executing good form you will always be in the pocket, classical posturing aside. That last part we can comfortably see through for what it is and dispense with it. Your lower back and shady side will thank you.

 

Stay loose. The guitar won't jump out of your hands. Brace it with your body or hang it from a strap but be sure to be comfortable.

 

______________

 

My 1st problem is economy of movement and too many fingers wanting to work. I started out learning with the thumb and four fingers because I thought 1) It was correct and, 2) it felt right so (1) must be the way of it. My 2nd problem is development of my left hand (fretting) was sacrificed during the development of the right. Now, I'm working to fix that, slowly. Also slow in coming is the reduction of the number of fingers used when fingerpicking. I started out assigning strings to fingers and am only just now getting past that. That's coming faster than my fretting hand development. But, I'm seeing results so I'll take it. My pinky finger has been programmed to play the high E string and taking it out of the mix changes things up a lot. Unlearning is, I think, no less difficult than starting out from scratch.

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Good reply, idunno.

 

Lots of good points . I will have to read that more than once to digest.

 

Regards the floating hand: my very first lesson, (many years after starting) it was pointed out to me that the "plant" was a bad thing. I responded that I needed a reference point for my fingers. The tutor gave a wry smile that told me he he had heard that lame excuse many times before. He was right.

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My finger picking used to be better, but I've flat-picked mandolin for so long now that when I play guitar I do that hybrid pick and fingers thing (no planting, fwiw.) One of my bad habits is to pick at an angle making this scratch sound that's incorporated into the rhythm, but annoying.when it doesn't fit the song. I have to focus like crazy to avoid it, which makes playing "in the moment" more difficult.

 

Another bad habit that I've mentioned before is string snapping while soloing. I still blame David Bromberg for this. :D That's one habit I've mostly gotten under control lately, tho'.

 

By far my worst habit is not being able to stick with a fixed arrangement. I jam almost everything. If I could just bear down, arrange, memorize and play a song the same way every time it'd take me half the time to get things finished.

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"By far my worst habit is not being able to stick with a fixed arrangement. I jam almost everything. If I could just bear down, arrange, memorize and play a song the same way every time it'd take me half the time to get things finished."

 

Guilty. Not sure the inconsistency is a game stopper, though. Season to taste, dress for the occasion?

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I'm not a very good fingerpicker but it is all I know how to do (one of my bad habits is trying to ply pick style stuff without a pick - if I would just settle down and play with one I'd eventually learn how). But as far as fingerpicking - there are long arguments about anchoring or not - most players do a certain amount and I certainly do too so I'm not going to call that a bad habit. I also don't think the random finger thing is necessarily bad - for classical music or Travis picking, yeah, each finger gets assigned to a string but look at all the different techniques used by the great blues and fingerstyle guitarists - Gary Davis uses only his thumb and one finger, Leo Kottke lets his thumb wander up to the treble and fingers play the bass. Rules are made to be bent.

 

My worst fault right now is not pushing myself to learn new things. I pick up a guitar and fall into a comfortable rut of playing the same old stuff. I also have the bad habit of learning something wrong and continuing to play it wrong - Blackbird is a good example. I learned it from bad tab and that gets reinforced every time I play it badly.

 

Oh well, at least I'm playing....

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I've been playing a B7 by wrapping my thumb around the neck for decades. That and I don't make myself play stuff that's "difficult." For example, I have trouble playing a C7 properly without muting strings or missing a string so I use a capo, transpose whatever I'm playing, and play an A7.

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Buttcrust, That video is something so educational in it's own way.. I could learn from that. Truly unique slide guitar. And FFS, someone confiscate the echo device from that man. Thanks for posting. Made me smile. (Although it was a wee bit scary to see some similar charecteristic habits).

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It matters and then it doesn't. If you start out one way, by chance or training, that gives you the most flexibility going forward you'll be grateful for that chance or training. Mine was purely chance but has given me an appreciation for the ease with which it allows me to progress versus stagnate like others due to the limitations of their ways of playing. I know what works and what doesn't. It's a simple matter of physics. Constrained hands cannot fully adapt to playing the strings. But, if you've reached your own personal valhalla it doesn't matter anymore. If you're comfortable not being able to move past the restrictions your own playing puts on you, it doesn't matter. I guess. It would matter to me.

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Good point.

 

Genre. Confined to one, a method of playing may never be an issue. Eclectically, that same method may be restrictive.

 

If you have a wide field of musical interests that you want to explore then it might be important to learn a method of playing that's flexible to all of your interests.

 

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