This week’s tip is something you may have never thought of, but it is critical to your guitar playing.
Many guitarists ignore or neglect their picking hand. I know this from personal experience. For a long time, I didn’t think I had problems with my picking hand.
I was wrong.
I’m going to give you a tip that has helped me tremendously, but first I want you to do something so I can prove a point.
Put your right arm straight out in front of you. Now make a fist and turn your wrist to the right, outward, away from your body as far as it will go. Now pretend your trying to pick a guitar string with that hand.
Not very comfortable, right?
If you did that correctly, your wrist was very limited, tense, and is not free to move easily. If you bring your wrist back to the middle, you’ll notice it can relax and move freely.
If you’re like many guitar players, you probably bend at the wrist when you’re picking.
If that is you, this needs to be corrected.
Get your guitar and look at the position of your right hand, wrist and forearm.
It should be a straight line.
Maintaining a straight line when picking is critical to being able to play freely, quickly, and with serious speed.
Even if you don’t want to shred, you still need to be relaxed and mobile when you play.
Bending that wrist is not going to allow that freedom.
Practice this:
1. Make sure your right hand, wrist, and arm make a straight line as you rest your pick on the 1st string.
2. Pick up and down on that string for one minute (use the wrist to move the pick, not the arm)
3. Change to the next string but make sure you maintain a straight line.
4. Repeat for each string.
In order to do this, you have to move your ARM when you change to the next string. DO NOT bend at the wrist to reach the next string. Your whole arm should move when you change strings, not your wrist.
This may feel strange at first, but it will pay big dividends in the long run.
Trust me. Do this and you’ll be much freer, be able to relax more, and be more accurate with your picking hand.
