GETTING YOUR HANDS TO WORK

I'm back. Sorry about the gap in my writings, I've been busy helping turn the garage into an office here on Capo Lane. I'm glad to say it's all over and I can finally get down to some work in this very professional setting...

I recently posted one of those website polls at my site http://www.guitarforbeginners.com , you know the ones where you place your internet vote. The question I asked was "What do you find most difficult about the guitar?", and the options were along the lines of: Music generally, improvising, barre chords etc. Ten questions in all.

The overwhelming vote was for "Getting your hands to work". Have a look at the results yourself here. There should be well over 1000 votes by now.

Getting your hands to work is an ongoing quest, or at least that's how it's always been with me. I've never found it easy to get my hands around certain things. Even after 40 years, I still have a problem with certain barre chords, certain single note situations -- speed has never come easy to me. I can't remember how long ago it was now, but at some stage I accepted that I was never going to get my hands to do everything I wanted them to. The physics just aren't right. Also, I suffer from stiffness, arthritis probably, and I often do things with my hands that a professional guitarist shouldn't, like renovating, like landscaping, like washing the dishes.

Daily playing is the only way to keep your hands in shape, once they're able to do what you want them to do, but how do you start out in the first place? How do you get your hand to do what your mind says to?

By sheer concentration. There's no other way. I recall hours on end of forcing my left hand to hold down a new chord or play a new riff -- of checking visually each finger and trying to find the muscle required to apply the proper pressure. I would stare at my hand, focus on the 'feel' of it all, try to etch it in my memory bank. I still resort to that kind of concentration when I'm attacking something new, especially if I haven't been playing for a while, but muscle memory takes care of most of it now.

Muscle memory is what you should strive for. In order for your hand to be fluent on the fretboard, you must teach and keep re-teaching your muscles what to do, so that you don't have to think about it anymore, so that they remember all by themselves. We do this all the time in other endeavours, such as as driving a car. Our muscles remember what to do when it's time to change gear, not our brains, but we all remember how awkward it was when we first felt a clutch under our foot? We all remember the lurching and stalling, the feeling that it was all to difficult. Repetition saved the day.

The same kind of mechanics apply to learning guitar: concentrate with all your mind for a brief spell, forcing your muscles to do things they never expected to do, and let them, the muscles, remember how to do it.

If at all possible, get some kind of help from someone who knows (so that you don't waste time doing it wrong), but practice is the only answer to keeping limber. Break it all down into easy to manage chunks, especially when it comes to changing chords. Certain changes come easy, others need to be worked on to perfect. Work on the difficult bits until they become easy bits. Don't worry, it will happen.

A good approach when getting your hands around chord changes is to make the root note of each chord the center of attention and the first thing in the time line you concentrate on getting right. If you can hit a root note early on in the change, you'll be way ahead of the guy worried about the treble notes of a seventh chord, or how the flat five fits in. Let your hand wrap itself around chord shapes from the root note up.

Remember also that you needn't always be playing six-string chords, even if the chord diagram says so. Simple chords are three-note affairs; if you find it easier to play 'condensed' versions of chords, go for it. Your ear should tell you if it's working or not.

Getting your hands to work is just that: hard work. Getting them to work so well that you can actually make music, as opposed to stringing notes and chords together, is a whole other ball game. The hard work becomes art, taste and technique come into play, subtle dynamics of light and shade can be rendered. Spine tingling, hair raising, heart breaking, foot tapping, soul wrenching -- these can all be tackled as the next level up, but only when you can get your hand to do what your heart says to.

In other news, Guitar for Beginners dot Com continues to get great feedback from those who visit. If you're looking for a plain English overview of music and the guitar, without all the gobbledygook, drop in and say hi - http://www.guitarforbeginners.com

My tune 'Storm a Comin'' is still top 15 or so at http://mp3.com/kirklorange General Blues chart. It's been there for months now. There are many free downloads, so help yourself.

PlaneTalk, the book and video, are still going out all over the World. PlaneTalk, of course, is The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book, the comic strip conversation in which the pro explains the 'trick' to keeping track of all things musical to the guy who gave up trying. With the Aussie dollar at 50 US cents, now is the time to buy. For you Americans, it's half price! If you're familiar with the basics and you've become stuck, this is the package to free you up. You'll never look at a fretboard in the same way again.

Check it out at http://www.lorange.kirk.net and enter the contest to be in the running for a book/video/cd package worth $100 Australian.

Until next time, all the best from Tamborine Mountain.
Kirk

http://kirklorange.com
http://lorange.kirk.net
http://guitarforbeginners.com
http://mp3.com/kirklorange