We got a question here that says, “Hey Walt, when I play chords, sometimes the strings will make a buzz sound because my other finger is on it. Can you tell me how to spot that?” Now, I am here with the classroom. And so the whole community here, we all agree on the same thing. What is happening is that you probably are not pressing hard enough on the string? There are three things that you have to understand when you are playing a chord. The first thing is that your fingers should be not super close like not all on the frets but you want them to be relatively close to the fret. If I were playing a chord, I will put my finger right here and I want to put it here. Put it close to the fret and that is going to make it a lot easier for you to play. When you play the guitar, when I push down on the string, it is not my finger that stops the strings, it is the fret. My finger just pushes the string down and the frets will stop it. So whether my finger is here or here, or here, it is all going to sound the same pitch. Because what happens is that when I play this note right here, it literally shortens the string. The string starts here and it ends here.
What does that mean for it to be lengthened? Well, the longer the string is, the lower the pitch is going to be. The shorter string is the higher pitch that is going to be. So if I put my finger right here, the fret stops it and now we have this pitch, really high up there right? Let us make the string a little bit longer so instead of two feet long, let us make it three feet long. And now we have this. A little bit lower. Also, the thickest of the string – that is probably what you have encountered there. Let us say that you are playing in E major chords right here, it sounds good for several reasons. The biggest reason is I am putting all my fingers in the right spot obviously. But also, I have all the strength. So if I get a sound of the string, maybe make it a buzz sound like you are saying, it is probably because I am not pushing down hard enough. If I do not push down hard enough, I am going to sound like this. You can hear that rub.
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