Page 3 - Fretband Vol.1

Guitar

Posture

While practicing poorly can harm your growth as a player, improper positioning of the body and
hands during play can leave you with permanent physical damage. This is not the outcome that
you want for yourself. So lets learn the proper mechanics of body and hand positioning.

Body Positioning

If you are sitting, make sure that both feet can comfortably touch the floor. Your gui-
tar should be placed in your lap sitting directly over the leg of your strumming hand. Your back
should be kept straight with only a natural curve. Avoid the temptation to lean too far over the
guitar as this will fatigue your back muscles. Your fretting hand will grasp the guitar on the neck.
You should not try to support the guitar with this hand, instead hold the guitar aloft by keeping it
against your body with your strumming arm. The neck of the guitar should be either parallel with
the ground or at a slight upward angle. It should never be pointing towards the ground.
If you are standing, the strap will be doing the work of holding your guitar. You should
adjust your strap so that the guitar can be reached comfortably with both arms without having to
raise or lower the neck excessively. The guitar should not be raised too high with the strap as this
will cause the guitar to obstruct your view of the fret board.

Hand Positioning

Your fretting hand should be posi-
tioned with the thumb resting roughly in
the middle of the neck and your fingers po-
sitioned so that the tips of the fingers make
contact with the strings. Attempting to hold
the thumb too high on the neck will result
in a decreased range of motion for your fin-
gers as well as a loss of grip strength. Your
playing will improve if you keep the nails of
your fretting hand short as long nails pre-
vent the tips of the fingers from touching
the strings.
The strumming hand should be po-
sitioned comfortably over the sound hole or
pickups. The pick should be held between
the thumb and first finger. Do not pinch the
pick. Instead allow the pick to rest on the
side of the first finger closest to the thumb
and hold it in place with the thumb.
Proper body and hand positioning
will save you from a lot of injury down
the road; get it right now so that the habit
sticks.