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Hi my name is Nate Savage. In this guitar lesson we’re going to be talking about the fundamentals of your left hand. Now I’m going to show you several things that you need to remember and they’re not hard and fast rules but they are good guidelines for good technique.
So let’s talk about just a few of those things real quick. The first thing you’re going to want to remember about your left hand is to relax. Always be relaxed so you don’t hurt yourself, so you don’t have problems with tendonitis or soreness the next day after you get on practicing, so make sure you can relax.
The second thing I want to talk to you about is the placement of your finger; where is it on the fret. Let’s say I’m playing a C note on the A string on the third fret. If I fret this note right here, you see it’s in the middle of the fret and you really don’t want that, you want it to be as close to the fret as possible, not in the middle or towards the back. If you play in the middle or towards the back [Demonstration] and a kind of buzzing sound, and you play right up against the fret, then you get a nice clean sound.
So those two things: be relaxed; have your finger really close to the fret and the other thing I want to talk to you about, the last thing that you need to remember is that your thumb behind the neck of the guitar right in the middle. That’s a general guideline, you don’t want to have it hanging over the top like this. So those three things, if you remember them, they should set you up for some really good writing hand technique.
So we’re going to learn an exercise now, there’s no shape to it, so you really don’t have to worry about shapes with your left too much. You can really just focus on getting a good sound and having good technique with your left hand. So all you’re going to do is we’re going to start on our G string, on our G note on the E string on the third fret, the index finger, play that note. [Demonstration] Go to the next fret, the fourth fret with your middle finger; play that note. [Demonstration] Go the next fret, the fifth fret with your third finger and play that note. [Demonstration] And that’s it. You’re going to do that on all six strings up and you’re going to come back down taking the same thing.
And one thing you want to remember for your right hand is to use alternative picking’ always use [Demonstration]. Even when you change strings. If you finish with a down stroke on one string, you should start on the next string with an up stroke. So let me play the whole thing for you and give you an idea of what this should sound like.
[Demonstration]
And that’s it and you don’t have to spend tons of time on this, you know, a five or ten minutes a day, just to get you a good idea, get a good start on your left hand technique.
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