[jorgemac]

Thumb placement on the back of the neck also affects the angle of your wrist. I usually like to strum and pick, in practice sessions, with my right leg crossing my left knee and leaning back away from the guitar Face. I use a well supported office style chair with lumbar support and a head rest and the back of my head almost touching the adjustable head rest. The guitar position is at about a 30 degree and away from my stomach area. It is not flat up against my body.

I’m 6′ 2″ with fairly long arms. I am not bent over looking at the fret board, staining my upper shoulders. My arms and wrists are loose, not tense. My arm is coming over the fret board between the strap button area and the upper curve of the the top of the guitar high up on my forearm. My elbow is not touching the top of my guitar.

My pinky finger is either touching the guitar top or close to touching the top and moves with the rest of my hand when I am strumming chords lightly touch the guitar top. When needing to keep time that pinky will sometimes tap the guitar top for a light percussive tone. Almost all of my 4 and 5 fret barre chord thumb position is close to the middle of the neck back and when I fret past the 5th fret is slowly creeps down closer to the treble bottom of the neck

When I start practice my eyes are usually looking down at my guitar, just to orient all of the “working parts”, but soon as I start to get into a groove my head and upper body will start “dancing” and my left foot bobbing in time to the sounds. My eyes may be closed or slightly open.

One of the hardest things learning guitarist have to overcome is being self conscious of how you appear to others while playing. If you can overcome that it will loosen you up and allow you to play freely. I play a lot looser when not in front of other people. Still have to play a while to loosen up in front of folks

It all takes time and a heck of a lot of just getting used to playing guitar.

[jorgemac]

The more you play the more you learn to minimize un needed arm and wrist action.

One the the ways i learned to easily find the right string to pick and the notes to actually strum was by having my Pinky(when not using it) lightly anchor on the top of the guitar right below, or sometimes touching the treble E string. It helped me to only use the amount of arm and wrist motion needed at that moment of picking. I do practice a lot with my eyes closed and have kind of developed a “feeling” for picking he right string with having to look at it. All of it takes time.

i also try to warm up using the therapeutic squeeze ball and the Chinese metal balls a few times a week.

[jorgemac]

when I lived up in Northern Cal I was a regular every year but That was at the original location. Haven’t been to it since it switched locations and also I retired and moved further south from the Bay Area. it was an excellent festival and much music jamming in the evening.

Another good summer festival in N. Cal is the Kate Wolf Festival. Plenty of music jamming there also. Lot of music scene action in NorCal summers.

[jorgemac]

Way too many Guitars amps pedals books, cd’s. I live on the central Cal coast and visit S.F. a few times a year, as I have family up there. Always looking for pickers to jam with.

[jorgemac]

Martins are great guitars, I have a 000-28EClapton I bought in Oklahoma City, I think I 2009 that I dearly love, 000-15M that has a wonderful tone and an Sc-13 that I purchased at Gryphon soon after they came out. I love the playability of the DC-13 but I do wish it had better quality wood. Its tone doesn’t compare to to the other Martins. I’m thought of asking Martin to make me a custom SC-13 but am afraid of the price.

I do have A Taylor 12 string that I don’t play much, a Nylon 712 that I do play a lot, and another 712. You are right about the tone of the Taylor vs the Martin. If you want old school tone Martin is much better. Too bad cause the playability of the Taylors is outstanding.

My Favorite’s currently are all 3 of My Larrivee’s and my Yairi FYM66 all mahogany. I have a hard time putting the Yairi down. Fantastic tone, build quality and playability. Also Have A Yairi Parlor Pym66 all mahogany that I can noodle on propped up in bed. Try to find a Yairi fym66HD used if you want an complete folk style guitar.I had to look for over a year until I finally found one.

[jorgemac]

Fantastic Guitar store. They are online also. Every time I drive up north to visit family I try to set time aside to visit their shop.

[jorgemac]

When I first started, the web site I used to use Was the Frank Ford Fret.com site

Frank was one of the original owners of Gryphon Guitars(spelling?) In Palo Alto and did all of the repair work on all types of instruments. He started the Frets.com website and it has a huge amount of information all type of guitar repairs and what causes that weird buzzing noise your guitar is making.

Sadly Frank passed many years ago but the web site is still up. It is a 90’s style web site with out a lot of bells and whistles but is very informative. I go to it all of the time when I’m stuck on a vexing issue on one of my instruments. Check it out. Rule of thumb, If your guitar costs less than $750 and is from over seas it is a good chance that the nut and saddle is not bone.

[jorgemac]

I remember in the 3rd grade i just had to practice my math tables over and over to start to acquire a feeling for them.

this is no different. A few minutes of just Strumming up and down one any chord or the open strings will help tremendously. five minutes a day will change your guitar picking in a couple of weeks especially if you use a metronome set very slow. Slow is good on guitar exercises, especially in the beginning.

I’ve been playing forever and i still start out Tony’s play along on each lesson at 1/2 speed.

i don’t need to but i know that it builds up the play back accuracy better to always start slow.

.

[jorgemac]

Wow that would be special to use your father’s last pick. Sweet.

[jorgemac]

Thanks Pete, like all good things in life you have to learn to adjust to modern changes.I didn’t realize You tubes progression had affected TACers so much.

I have a love hate relationship with them. Their success seems to have come with some contempt for it’s old timed used. I assume $$$$’s have something to do with it.

[jorgemac]

I use a heavy 1.5 pick and have 2 fingers on the back and thumb on the front but , only, between 1/8th to 3/16th of and inch of the pick tip visible and striking the stings and play so much that i have good control of the tip, Also have a couple of Blue tips but don’t use them much.

A lot of times when doing down strokes my middle finger tip actual touches the string before the pick tip does. this doesn’t seem to affect my tone, unless I want it to, and and I take this anomaly and develop different sounds with it. I try to use this as a different way to strike the strings and achieve a different tone. I have actually used that nail tip to get that different tone, on down strokes. If you play enough you can try to do something with the different way you play as you don’t have to please anyone but yourself. That finger nail can help partially mute a string to get a different tone.

Also I noodle a lot, sometimes forever or so it seems. When you are retired and don’t have to account for your time any longer you learn to stretch out in different directions. This means that I am discovering different tone/sounds, mutes, etc. All of this creeps into your playing, over time, when pickings tunes.

Maybe someday I’ll actually know what the heck i am doing on a guitar.

[jorgemac]

I don’t know if i can help with this but on the left hand side of the the next to last item is titled quick start method. Click on that and review it. Hope that helps .

[jorgemac]

I played Electric guitar, poorly, forever before I wised up and switched to Acoustic guitar. Electric picking allowed me to form many poor fingering habits ,just because it was easier to “cheat” fingering posture on electric’s. On electric my palm was allows kissing the back of the neck which flattened out and took most of the arch out of my fingering. Since I have “seen the light ” and pick almost exclusively acoustically I have been able to develop better guitar fingering patterns. Moved the palm off of the back of the neck, adjusted my thumb position, so that much of my Hand in now above the fret board. More finger arch equals more finger position control.

If we would have all taken classical guitar lessons from a qualified Classical guitar teacher for our first 6 months of learning we would have eliminated a lot of our fingering issues. If i had only known…

[jorgemac]

Follow Pete’s advise and make sure you are only touching/fretting the strings with your finger tip, close to where your finger nail stops and top of your finger tip. See other post as Pete suggests.

[jorgemac]

If you are playing and practicing “tight” that is part of the problem. When i am doing something new on guitars i tend to hunch over and tighten up my hand and arm muscles and place my palm too close to the back of the neck.

I know that i do this and now make myself relax, sit back , place my thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and make sure i can see the palm of my picking hand above the fretboard, for my size hand, about a half of and inch. this puts more arch in my fingers and so i hold the strings down at a much better angle that doesn’t mute other strings unless I want it too. It takes practice to do this unconsciously, just like every little learning step to play guitar. Good Luck.