Fingers tucked in or out?

Bidley · April 2014

Probably another one of those things, but is there a right or wrong way?

I'm talking about the fingers on your picking hand. I have mine out, and when I'm playing leady stuff I have my middle and ring ring fingers resting on the guitar, next to the strings, like a stabiliser almost. Is this 'bad form'?

randomhandclaps · April 2014

Yes. Doing this you are not using your elbow and making limited use of your wrist so you are increasing you likelihood of long term tendonitis.

Bidley · April 2014

I do use my elbow for strumming, so it's not all bad I suppose. I've tried playing 'tucked in' but it feels so wrong, it's like learning how to play all over again.

randomhandclaps · April 2014

That's cool then. Provided you aren't anchoring onto the body, whether your fingers are tucked in or out isn't really a major issue provided there is some looseness and give there. The white knuckle rigor mortis infused fist of gripping the pick so tightly it could implode is not to be encouraged.

viz · April 2014

Hmmmm. I use a loose wrist, but no elbow movement. Basically when strumming it's from the wrist, otherwise it's as though I'm muting. My 3 outer fingers are loosely extended. Does that mean longterm problems?

octatonic · April 2014

There is no 'one way' to do anything- it is all about economising movement.

Resting fingers is generally a bad idea as it takes more effort to move the hand with it anchored.

You can learn to stabilise the hand without resting in about 2-3 weeks if you keep at it.

My hand is quite loose as I play hybrid style- pick and fingers.

I tighten up the hand (a bit) when I speed pick.

When I strum an acoustic I use more elbow.

When I play alternate picking I tend to use more wrist.

Sweeping is done with a combination of wrist and elbow.

Bidley · April 2014

When I use my fingers, I pick with my thumb, index, middle and ring and have my little finger anchored. Is my arm going to fall off?

digitalscream · April 2014

Fingers tucked under for me - I rest the heel of my hand on the bottom string bridge saddle to anchor, then use loose wrist movement for picking strings and strumming, and only strum from my elbow in some limited circumstances due to nerve damage in my arm (exaggerated movement from the elbow results in something akin to an electric shock from the tip of my thumb to my shoulder).

carlos · April 2014

It's fine as long as there's no tension in your fingers. Just play and then stop to check a few times if you're consciously spreading them. They should be 100% relaxed.

ChrisMusic · April 2014

Interesting question, I had to pick up a guitar to find out what I actually do.

Basically I keep my fingers lightly curled, just above the strings; so learning to hybrid pick with middle, ring, and little fingers should come quite easily. I used to do a lot of finger picking in my past life, and when I started playing, so that's probably one reason why.

Like you I was tempted on more than one occasion to anchor on the pick guard with ring &/or little fingers, but it does restrict movement or changing techniques, so I always talked myself out of doing that. edit: It's all too easy to do it with your thumb when playing bass too.

I rest the heel of my hand on or behind the bridge, which is great for muting and gives a strong fulcrum for picking. Just moving the heel forward onto the strings lightly seems to work for me for a number of techniques, and gives a little muting control too. It is easy to engage elbow movement and muting control for sweep type stuff from this position IMHO.

All this bridge thing gets a little uncomfortable on some bridges with screws protruding, and Floyds tend to dig into my wrist and cause tendon and nerve issues, but then I didn't grow up playing them, so I guess I will have to adjust my technique to cope with them if need be.

I am with octatonic on his comments on all this.

Strategic and repeated practice seems to be fairly effective in instilling or breaking habits, just takes a bit of time and dedication, if you really feel it's necessary.

ElectroDan · April 2014

I remember Michael Angelo Batio advocating the type of anchoring mentioned in the OP, and it doesn't seem to adversely affected him.

Lately I've been supporting my index finger with the middle finger, which nips out occasionally for some chicken flavoured pickin'. ( I do have a bit of a twist to my index finger, but no pain yet thankfully).

I remember a guitar teacher trying to get me to tuck all my fingers in like a fist and pick entirely from side to side wrist movement, but it never felt comfortable.

I suppose it's an individual player thing. If Marty Friedman isn't crippled yet with his awkward looking technique, I reckon we'll be fine.

Roland · April 2014

ChrisMusic said:
All this bridge thing gets a little uncomfortable on some bridges with screws protruding, and Floyds tend to dig into my wrist and cause tendon and nerve issues, but then I didn't grow up playing them, so I guess I will have to adjust my technique to cope with them if need be.

Alvin Lee's mother made him a wrist band because he kept catching his wrist on the tunematic.

For the record: fingers splayed, which allows my hand to be more relaxed. I often play without a pick, so splay fingered is less of a changeover

richardhomer · April 2014

I was taught not to use the elbow at all - with me, it's (ahem!) nearly all from the wrist.

I hold the pick (if I'm using one) between thumb and fore-finger, with my fore-finger bent back on itself, below the thumb. This enables the pick to be held pretty much parallel to the strings and leaves the middle and ring fingers free for hydrid picking.

When I'm not using the remaining fingers, they stay tucked in.

Often I don't bother with a pick and use my whole hand (except - usually - my fourth finger).

randomhandclaps · April 2014

Below are three videos. The first is Shaun Baxter, the second Dave Kilminster and the third is Guthrie Govan. I was taught for a long time by the first two so had a great opportunity to pick their brains about their methods and reasoning. My reasons for selecting those three particularly is they all know each well, have spent a lot of time comparing techniques and all three are well respected guitar teachers also. Without trawling through hundreds of videos I wanted to find examples where you can see -

The movement of the elbow
The movement of the wrist
The lack of movement by the fingers alone
The lack of tension in the ring and little finger
The lack of anchoring

Shaun Baxter is obsessive about hand positioning and the fluidity and balanced dynamics of his playing is phenomenal to see. I would struggle to believe there is a better technician on the planet. That said, his ability to play any rhythm or alternate styles is amazingly dwarfed by (as saying lacking sounds too negative) his lead techniques. Dave Kilminster on the other hand is amazingly good a virtually everything. He tries every style, every technique (even those not associated with guitars) in both lead and rhythm disciplines.

With regards to Michael Angelo Batio he is really targeting one thing in speed and certainly could not be considered to have as wide a playing pallet as the three mentioned. Whether his technique causes him any issue we do not really know as it would hardly be good for business for him to come out and say he needs constant physiotherapy. Like Marty Friedman (whose technique I know give most technicians graphic nightmares) if it works for him and his career is built on it then he would be unlikely to change or have the time to and it may just be that their body allows for it without too many ill effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6oJlaayeQE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy-kLnLLW50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2llLs4D5PA

viz · April 2014

Yep, that's 3 great guitarists all right. I love shaun baxter, and his interviews are really interesting too. Jazz Metal is amazing. I would say they all use very little elbow movement, 99% of it is in the really fluid wrist movement, no?

randomhandclaps · April 2014

viz said:

I would say they all use very little elbow movement, 99% of it is in the really fluid wrist movement, no?

But there is almost constant movement and adjustment in the elbow (that not to say the wrist isn't being used extensively) and the elbow is not locked by any means. Obviously they aren't playing big strumming patterns and the balance of wrist to elbow would shift considerably if they were. The main point being that even in tight and fast picking these player's techniques come from the muscularly supported areas of the arm, in the elbow and wrist, and not generated by anchoring and using the cross motion of tendon supported finger. If you watch the Shaun Baxter clip the only time his hand makes solid contact with the guitar body is during a tapping run where the movement of his fingers is a natural back and forth and not sideways, then when he uses a big right hand pull off his hand leaves the guitar and his wrist takes the strain.

viz · April 2014

Yep, agreed, nothing's locked, that's for sure. And even when these players do mute on the bridge, they still have loose wrists (and elbows).

ChrisMusic · April 2014

What an excellent set of examples @randomhandclaps, I had to play them a second time as I was enjoying the playing too much to watch the right hand stuff

Guthrie's thumb is always on the move, wriggling around like some demented thing. I would love to know what he is doing, and why, and how with all that movement he doesn't dislodge the pick. He is such a natural, the guitar just seems an extension of his body in the way he interacts with it. Poetry in motion.

ChrisMusic · April 2014

Having just posed the Guthrie question, I've peen playing around with the pick, and if you hold it like Justin Sandecoe shows in the vid on the other picking related discussion (i.e. thumb parallel to guitar body and one finger perpendicular to the strings) then you can get a surprising amount of pick rotation emulating what is visible on Guthrie's video. Is it just that, or is he picking with the thumb movements. Not sure if that's entirely it though? Back to have another look (or three)

randomhandclaps · April 2014

Another interesting point about Shaun and his technique is how he taps. He is an obsessive about eradicating unnecessary or harmful movements from his playing. I still hundreds of tutorials explaining tapping as hitting the fret then pulling down - this in itself although incredibly common practice depending on how it is executed can be incredibly straining on the fingers. Watch Shaun's tapping passage and you'll notice he pulls ups. Again his elbow and wrist are doing the heavy lifting whilst his fingers are solid and supported.

Besides his guitar playing Shaun is an incredibly intelligent guy. Everything is approached scientifically - from a music perspective maybe a little too much at points. Shaun as a tutor is one of those guys under which young or opened minded players will feel like they are stepping back to basics then suddenly fly past their standard before working with him. He holds nothing back in pointing out base level floors in your technique. It's not a case of ramming his views down peoples throat, he can genuine back them up, explain them fully and it is said solely for your betterment. This is great for those who want to learn but used to rub some of the more staid mature students up the wrong way. I had a funny relationship with Shaun in the sense that musically I could never get into what he was doing so was not a fanboy in that sense and in many ways Dave K is far more my cup of tea from a musicality perspective. I was strong headed about what I wanted musically but frustrated at some limits I hit. In that sense Shaun was a great tutor for me and I owe him a lot as at a difficult time in my life when my only real motivation was making music he gave me the focus, discipline and skills to do so and better myself both on a playing and personal level.

randomhandclaps · April 2014

ChrisMusic said:

Having just posed the Guthrie question, I've peen playing around with the pick, and if you hold it like Justin Sandecoe shows in the vid on the other picking related discussion (i.e. thumb parallel to guitar body and one finger perpendicular to the strings) then you can get a surprising amount of pick rotation emulating what is visible on Guthrie's video. Not sure if that's it though?

That's it spot on. It's Guthrie simply angling the pick for both dynamic variation and different techniques.

Most people tend to tilt the pick forward when sweeping for example. This creates a less clean contact but makes the transition across the strings smoother. The less clean contact isn't an issue because you are not looking for the notes to sustain.

Alternatively, when playing legato passage the pick is flatter allowing a really clean contact so the strings sustains cleanly and keeps hammer-ons as dynamically smooth as possible.

My favourite element of playing guitar is how many ways you can play the same note. You can play the same note three time in a row and make it sound incredibly different. I don't really buy the set in stone tutorials (not referring to Justin's) about holding the pick like this for that and that for this. These are all micro-adjustments that comes along when learning different things and in truth the player gets to a point where they are not longer conscious on these inflections. If you asked them to breakdown each stroke they would probably be more confused than you.

Bellycaster · April 2014

I've noticed I always have my fingers tucked in, even when 16th Funk Strumming, I can't change now, even though having the fingers loose would be more advantageous to funk strumming, it doesn't seem to pose a problem so I'll just carry on.

I tend to know how to make the most of wrist movement though when 16th strumming and have an good enough usage of Elbow movement for other techniques.

It helps to position a mirror sometimes to analyse your strumming hand(Oooer). Not a Poser thing, it's just good to analyse how you play.

ElectroDan · April 2014

Any excuse to watch Guthrie or Dave K is alright with me. I can honestly say, despite years of Shaun Baxter's technique columns, that is the first clip I've seen of him playing. And no doubt he has some unbelievable ability.

With the points I made about Michael Angelo Batio and Marty Friedman earlier, I wasn't holding either up as an example of perfect technique. Just an example of how very different techniques can achieve the players goals I suppose. I remember in one interview Marty saying he was under doctor's orders not to play when he recorded Rust in Piece, due to some problems he was experiencing (iirc He stopped using large stretches of the fretting hand to help with it).

Avoiding tension seems to be the best advice. A common sense approach will probably be enough for most players, without adopting the full Alexander technique. If it feels wrong it probably is.

Bidley · April 2014

I think I perhaps somehow gave the impression that I play stiffly or I'm tense - this isn't the case

randomhandclaps · April 2014

There's no shame in playing giving you a stiffy.

Bidley · April 2014

Lol, the rest of my post disappeared for some reason.

I meant to say I just see so many guitarists with their picking hands almost in a fist, which feels alien to me. I think it's the whole hand-stabilising thing. I'll have a mess around with changing things up I think.

paisleysoul · June 2014

After years of playing 'Open hand' the last year or so i've been working on keeping my hand closed and its helped my speed and accuracy a lot, pleasantly. Took a while to get it, but as ever, the less I thought about it, the better it ended up getting!

PolarityMan · June 2014

My hand is basically either resting on the bottom strings or fractionally above it unless its a big chordy part in which case i might do the whole big elbow movement thing. Depends on the feel of the part i guess.

ICBM · June 2014

I play with my fingers tucked in, but that's because I don't use a pick and I use all four fingers. It really baffles me how someone like Mark Knopfler can do it while keeping a couple of fingers touching the guitar.

For strumming I mostly play from the shoulder I think

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axisus · June 2014

I have my fingers loosely curled in, but I don't use a plec so they all seem to come out for strumming.

EricTheWeary · June 2014

I play like a starving monkey given a banana!

When I played live I tended to grip the plectrum too hard and generally bash at the strings, a scratchplate spottled with blood was not uncommon. When I can relax more it's definitely a curled in fingers thing, a sort of gentle wank position ( doing it without a guitar to hand that's what it looks like!).I have a habit of playing lots of stuff on the high E with my second or third finger and I also do bits of chicken picken so I need the second and third fingers above the strings.

I read something with Brad Paisley once that his hybrid-chicken picken style goes out the window a bit playing live because with the adrenalin,etc, its hard to relax enough. I found that marginally reassuring.
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