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Touch........not much about this on the web


polishpaul

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Posted

There's endless stuff about scales, speed and blah-di-blah-di-dah, but nothing I can find about touch......ie how the player approaches the strings in what is obviously always a totally individual way.

 

Whether it's with a pick or with the fingers, touch is probably the most important aspect of guitar playing. It's probably something that's exceedingly difficult to put into words, and nigh on impossible to teach.

 

But having said that, I would be extremely interested in finding out how competent players got to the point where they now are. At the moment I'm going right back to the beginning, and doing a lot of exploration of what music can be produced with the minimum of notes/chords/theory etc, and just concentrating on different ways of string contact.

 

Hope that makes sense. Slightly esoteric, perhaps, but maybe something useful will come of the thread.

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Posted

Touch. A VERY overlooked topic. A long time ago, one of my guitar teachers encouraged me to go back through my favorite recordings of guitar players. He told me to listen for these things:

 

-are the bends in tune?

-is the vibrato even in both width and speed?

-how does he/she RELEASE the note?

 

It changed how I practice.

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To be fair - there is a fairly regular stream of discussion about bends and vibrato, which are a big piece of "touch".

 

Maybe another less-amenable-to-analysis part of "touch" is "pick attack"...

 

GaJ

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Posted

Check out jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. He used his thumb to strike the strings instead of a plectrum. Nothing else compares to that sound. Not even finger picking because the thumb is bigger and

utilizes down strokes thus producing a fatter sound. Albert King and Jeff Beck are other famous guitarist noted for their use of the thumb. Playing with the thumb really opened my eyes to getting a feel for jazz. I would use a pick and play jazz standards with correct rhythm and notation, however it didn't sound jazzy until I started using the thumb approach. I no longer use the the thumb however due to the limitation of speed.

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Posted

Check out "Guitar Principles" - link in the siggy. It's ALL ABOUT THAT - the basics of correct practice and develping correct sensatins when touching the string, fretting teh string, playing the string, releasing the string... And also about how to practice any exercise or musical piece in a way that brings guaranted results.

And as a student of the method myself I can tell you - it certainly CAN be taught.

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