TAC Family Forums

Share your wins, get unstuck, or see how others use the TAC Method to create a fulfilling guitar life!

  • tailsawaggin

    Member
    January 14, 2022 at 3:17 pm

    Good suggestions indeed, and I’ll add two more. The first is so obvious it’s easy to overlook, but it’s this — rest. I know we all feel like we want to get good, and we want to keep working at it, and those are good things, but we also have to be reasonable about it. Nobody starts prepping to run a 5k by getting off the couch and running a 5k, after all.

    Another thing that helps me with my death grip is staccato playing. By that I mean hold the chord for just one count and let off, so instead of squeeze strum strum strum strum strum strum strum strum release, it’s squeeze strum release, squeeze strum release, etc. This does a few good things — it helps build the synch between the left and right hands, it reduces your fretting hand’s time under tension, and it tends to lead to squeezing more gently overall. I think we all respond to buzzes and dead notes by squeezing harder, when what we really need it to squeeze more cleanly.

    My US$0.02, hope it’s helpful. 🙂