Fingers tucked in or out?

Bellycaster

I've noticed I always have my fingers tucked in, even when 16th Funk Strumming, I can't change now, even though having the fingers loose would be more advantageous to funk strumming, it doesn't seem to pose a problem so I'll just carry on. 

I tend to know how to make the most of wrist movement though when 16th strumming and have an good enough usage of Elbow movement for other techniques.

It helps to position a mirror sometimes to analyse your strumming hand(Oooer). Not a Poser thing, it's just good to analyse how you play.

ElectroDan

Any excuse to watch Guthrie or Dave K is alright with me. I can honestly say, despite years of Shaun Baxter's technique columns, that is the first clip I've seen of him playing. And no doubt he has some unbelievable ability.

With the points I made about Michael Angelo Batio and Marty Friedman earlier, I wasn't holding either up as an example of perfect technique. Just an example of how very different techniques can achieve the players goals I suppose. I remember in one interview Marty saying he was under doctor's orders not to play when he recorded Rust in Piece, due to some problems he was experiencing (iirc He stopped using large stretches of the fretting hand to help with it).

Avoiding tension seems to be the best advice. A common sense approach will probably be enough for most players, without adopting the full Alexander technique. If it feels wrong it probably is.

Bidley

I think I perhaps somehow gave the impression that I play stiffly or I'm tense - this isn't the case

randomhandclaps

There's no shame in playing giving you a stiffy.

Bidley

Lol, the rest of my post disappeared for some reason.

I meant to say I just see so many guitarists with their picking hands almost in a fist, which feels alien to me. I think it's the whole hand-stabilising thing. I'll have a mess around with changing things up I think.

paisleysoul

After years of playing 'Open hand' the last year or so i've been working on keeping my hand closed and its helped my speed and accuracy a lot, pleasantly. Took a while to get it, but as ever, the less I thought about it, the better it ended up getting!

PolarityMan

My hand is basically either resting on the bottom strings or fractionally above it unless its a big chordy part in which case i might do the whole big elbow movement thing. Depends on the feel of the part i guess.

ICBM

I play with my fingers tucked in, but that's because I don't use a pick and I use all four fingers. It really baffles me how someone like Mark Knopfler can do it while keeping a couple of fingers touching the guitar.

For strumming I mostly play from the shoulder I think .

axisus

I have my fingers loosely curled in, but I don't use a plec so they all seem to come out for strumming.

EricTheWeary

I play like a starving monkey given a banana!

When I played live I tended to grip the plectrum too hard and generally bash at the strings, a scratchplate spottled with blood was not uncommon. When I can relax more it's definitely a curled in fingers thing, a sort of gentle wank position ( doing it without a guitar to hand that's what it looks like!).I have a habit of playing lots of stuff on the high E with my second or third finger and I also do bits of chicken picken so I need the second and third fingers above the strings.

I read something with Brad Paisley once that his hybrid-chicken picken style goes out the window a bit playing live because with the adrenalin,etc, its hard to relax enough. I found that marginally reassuring.  
~:>

Phil_aka_Pip

randomhandclaps said:

Yes.  Doing this you are not using your elbow and making limited use of your wrist so you are increasing you likelihood of long term tendonitis.

No. Flailing from the elbow won't get you any kind of accuracy in directing the pick to the strings you want. neither will it allow proper right hand damping.