A checklist of guitar tips that will improve your left hand technique and increase your guitar playing speed.
- Keep your fingers as close to the fretboard as possible whilst hovering above the strings. If you look at some Metal guitar players who shred a lot, you’ll notice that their left hand only do micro movements, and they don’t lift their fingers up very high at all. The less distance you have between the strings and your fingers, the faster you can play – Simple!
- Apply pressure on the guitar strings using only your finger tips when playing lead guitar. This will increase your overall accuracy and also allow you to play faster.
- To be able to fly around the guitar neck and play fast, your hands have to be free to move and NOT be anchored down. Try as much as possible to have only your thumb and fingers in contact with the guitar neck to increase your freedom of movement.
Blues Position
In the past, guitar players used to grasp the neck of the guitar with their entire hand. This caused quite a few physical injuries to people who played for long periods of time. This technique also reduced the maneuverability of the left hand making it hard to play fast.
Modern Rock and Metal players prefer to have their thumbs placed on the back of the guitar to give the hand an anchor. This in turn speeds up playing incredibly.
For my own personal style of playing, I mainly stick to the Metal guitar method but when I go for string bends or vibrato’s, I will quickly switch to the Blues position of grasping the entire neck because my fingers are weak. Keeping this grip and my fingers rigid, I am then able to use my wrist only to bend or vibrate the strings.
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