Guitar Hand Position & Technique

Now you know how to hold the guitar and the names of the parts, it’s time to learn your guitar hand position!

Your string plucking hand – in the classical guitar world your fingers are known as letters.

These are -

Classical guitar playing originates from Spain. The Spanish names for the fingers are pulgar (thumb), indice (index), medio (middle), and anular (ring).

When plucking the strings your fingers should rest on the next string – see this video.

It helps if you keep your nails a bit longer than usual as it will give you a bigger area to pluck the string with.

Practice this ‘walking’ technique using ‘open’ strings (don’t put any fingers of your fretting hand on the strings).

Once you have mastered this technique on one string, try it on 2, then 3 or more. You should be able to use all of the strings.

Normally in guitar music the bass notes are played by the thumb…

The next technique uses both your thumb and fingers. Add this to your walking technique BUT you don’t need to rest your finger on the next string – like this…

You might find this a bit difficult at first because it needs a bit more co-ordination! Keep practicing, you will master it eventually.

This is the 3rd guitar beginner lesson, for the 1st or any of the others, see the beginner lessons page

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