Picking arm and fretting thumb movement

[Dan Shipway]

First I wanted to start with an update on my playing since I havent been on here in a good while.

Recently (within the last month/month and a half maybe), I have noticed that I have made some monumental progress with my playing. One of the biggest issues I had was having was tension and motion of the picking hadn't and since then this issue is almost non existent. I changed shape of my picking hand, albeit to a very strange one, and worked on reducing the size of my picking motions and this helped dramatically with getting rid of tension and playing more accurately. I can say now that I am starting to become the guitarist that I aimed to be and always wanted to be and it is such a great feeling.

Now for the question part.

Whilst there are multiple issues that I have been able to sort out, one issue that has persisted is difficulty with moving parts of my body which make direct contact with. This mainly occurs with the forearm of my picking hand and the thumb of the fretting hand (not as much as the forearm). I find that the movements are not natural and feel very concious like I am saying to myself "move now" instead of it being a natural fluid motion.

I understand that there is meant to be a level of friction there to stop the arm from sliding around everywhere but it seems like my arm is almost sticking to the guitar body.

 

[William B.]

I think try to practice with the arm not stuck to the body sometimes, it's great your seeing improvements!
There's a lot of ways to practice auto moving, probably a good one is practicing with a metronome and going at different times.
Hopefully this helped some, sometimes I don't fully understand.

 

[mericksonmusic]

I am curious how you were able to get rid of the tension. I have been working on that for a while now and can’t seem to stop tending up. Any tricks?

 

[Dan Shipway]

Whilst trying to sort the issue i noticed a few things that I am working to rectify and wondered if you guys could offer advice on

The first is the positioning of the guitar when i I am seated. I notice my right arm tends to pull the guitar towards my body which means that it cant really move anywhere. This I am planning to solve with a foot stool as I have tried it with regular household objects and it seemed to seat the guitar nicely.

The second issue which is the main issue that is still ongoing is tension and pain in my arm. My wrist is absolutely fine but Holding my arm in the position needed to play guitar and not anchoring it on the body is just wearing it out really quick since its having to be held up for long periods of time. I have never had the best upper body strength so is it something that needs to be worked on or is it a technique issue that needs to be looked at?

 

[Dan Shipway]

I am curious how you were able to get rid of the tension. I have been working on that for a while now and can’t seem to stop tending up. Any tricks?

Hey man, apologies for the late reply.

For me it was all about realising the amount of movement that is actually needed and the amount of force that is needed to make a not ring. As you reduce both of these things you will notice that you start to relax a bit more and from there its all just remembering how it feels so you can keep doing it.

 

[William B.]

The first is the positioning of the guitar when i I am seated.

I was noticing a problem with this for me too when I was practicing last night.
I'm trying to keep it across the front better and sit more straight, it's helping me but today is only day 2 of taking notice.
A problem for me is that my picking hand looks like it's hovering over the frets 18-22 instead of around the bridge area when doing this adjustment.
I may try something to raise my foot as well.
it's like the scapula is sticking out
Sometimes I switch to sitting like classical cause of getting uncomfortable

 

[Dan Shipway]

My guitar is almost more to my side and not perpendicular to my leg because I cant get it to sit right otherwise. It seems a lot more natural positioning it in a way that it conforms to my body than trying to fit my body around it

 

[William B.]

perpendicular

is that face towards the front ? cause I've been playing mine like a bit slanted and that's what I think caused issues and now since last night thinking about facing it to the front more like across the lap

 

[Dan Shipway]

yeah, I have mine more slanted since that allows the stomach contour to rest on my body