Jan
The importance of forming good guitar habits from the start
It sounds obvious but when you’re learning shortcut style and not from qualified teachers but just other people and going the self taught route it’s very easy to form bad guitar habits. Of course there is some grey area between bad habits/technique and play style but some things just shouldn’t be done – for example playing open strings that shouldn’t be played.
I’ve always been guilty of this one, particularly when playing A and D major chords in the first position (the first 4 frets). It’s really hard to strum hard and enthusiastically without playing all the strings – especially when you haven’t learnt how to dampen individual strings. But the ability and eventual habit of doing this is what separates the ‘noisy’ players from the truly skilled who can produce a clean, polished and professional sound.
The same goes for strings not sounding that are supposed to because your fingers are muting them by not having the correct positions on the notes – to be a great guitarist you have to be able to play only the notes than need to be played and make sure they all ring clearly and exactly as you want them – even when strumming fast and furiously.
Yeah you can play as loud and distorted as you want – but please… without the bum notes!
That last sentence was a note to self by the way – and to you if you’re lazy when it comes to polishing your technique.
Stumble it!
