Guitar Lesson 4:

Guitar Playing Technique

The first step to playing the guitar is getting the proper technique down. Using proper guitar playing techniques you'll be able to play much better, and effortlessly. The first part to your playing is your posture. Your posture is what determines what angles your body parts areshaped when you're playing. When you're playing sitting down you want to be sitting on a firm upright chair. You also want to keep your back straight when you're playing. I know it's not the most comfortable position to play the guitar, but you'll notice yourself progressing much faster as a guitarist. Next is how you hold your pick. I notice that a lot of people that start out playing guitar hold their pick many different ways. The best way is to hold the pick between the side of your index finger and the inside of your thumb. Many people try this, and feel like they're going to drop it. Don't worry, you'll get used to it, trust me.

As for picking technique itself there are two ways - elbow picking, and wrist picking. All these terms mean is where is the picking motion coming from? When people pick from the elbow is enables you to pick faster but reduces the control, and increases the risk of injury. With wrist picking you have more control over the picking which is what you want ultimately. It also greatly reduces the risk of getting an injury such as tennis elbow (which can be caused by using elbow picking). So the winner here is wrist picking. Personally, I was never a victim of elbow picking so I've always wrist picked. From what I hear it's hard to adapt to the change so don't fall in the trap of elbow picking.

If you really want to learn good techniques to playing then I would observe virtuoso guitarists. Such as John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse, etc. You will find a lot of similarities to their playing.

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