Guitar Basics, chapter 7

By Darrin Koltow

Welcome back to Guitar Basics. Let's resume by talking about the "Black Sheep" of the family of fingers that is your hand: the Thumb. Specifically, what's the role of the thumb in changing chords?

Once you've been playing for a while, you'll take it for granted how easily you can switch chords. If you're playing in open position, and moving from the G major chord to the C major chord, you'll keep your thumb in place, which is the correct way to make the change: it ensures your fingers "see" where they need to go.

Once you've reached this skill level, you may watch a beginner play, see her thumb, and cringe: she is making a valiant attempt to move from G to C, maybe while playing a Blues or something, and that thumb is sliding around as though she were finger-painting with it.

You show this beginner the correct way to make the chord change. You tell her to do this:

*Keep your thumb *planted* in one place, whenever possible, so your fingers can find their way around.*

Specifically, in open position playing, keep your thumb directly behind the second finger, and midway between the top and bottom of the guitar neck -- the widest part, in other words.

After you tell her this, you demonstrate it. Then you sit back and watch her begin to play the G to C change, feeling confident she will do the right thing."

And that thumb is still sliding around! You can advise and show her again and again, but the message doesn't seem to get through. At least, it gets through to the brain, but not to the fingers. Why does this happen and how do we get the thumb to stay put?

Try this: assuming you're teaching someone else, once you get the student's thumb positioned correctly, put some masking type on either side of the thumb. Call this tape the "no thumb" zone. You can even draw little skull and crossbones on the tape, or some mildly unpleasant goo, like toothpaste, green Jell-O, or a bit of that Twinkie casserole that didn't quite work out. Okay, I'm getting carried away, but the skill and crossbones on the masking tape idea is pretty nifty and useful. Try it.

Bad habits

This little drama with the thumb points out a problem all guitarists have: breaking bad habits. What do we need to know about breaking bad habits? First, let's have some examples.

One of the worst habits in playing guitar is repeating the same mistake over and over, whether it's a certain part of a song, a scale or some other exercise. And "worst" here means it slows the growth of your skills. It makes sense if you think about it: try stomping on your left foot with your right foot, and "hope" that eventually, with enough repetitions, your right foot will stop stomping your left foot, because it's not supposed to do that.

See, your foot, and your fingers, which are messing up repeatedly in playing a scale, have *good intentions*: *they want to see a positive result*. Another good example of a bad habit reflecting a positive intent, is the monkey who puts his hand in the jar to get the peanuts that are there, and gets his hand stuck on the way back out, because his slim hand is now a fat fist.

We're all like that well-meaning, hungry monkey at various moments. Maybe we're a *lot* like that monkey in that we're only aware of the harm our well-intentioned bad habits are doing to us a small portion of the time.

The solution? *Get aware of what you're doing when you play.* How to do this? When you find your attention wandering, bring it back by singing along with what you're playing. Better still, *stop playing* and even put the guitar down for a moment. Then, sing through what you want your fingers to play, close your eyes and see your fingers slowly moving through the pattern you want them to execute.

Forget that this may sound new-agey or too Tony Robbins. It's just practical stuff that only a handful of people seem to talk about. Jamie Andreas talks about visualization, which is what we're getting into here. And you may already know that visualization is a critical factor in the success of the top athletes. Don't believe me: read this article on Tiger Woods:

http://www.vigormagazine.com/lib/Mtl/Mtl-Tiger.htm

Getting aware

Habits, since they're unconscious things, can be changed by applying *conscious* thought. When you feel engaged by something, or drawn to something, or excited by a tune, you're not under the spell of a habit -- at least not fully. You are aware of the moment. In this state, you can get a crystal clear picture of where your skills are in relation to where you want them to be.

What are specific ways of getting aware of the things you're doing to build your skill?

For one thing, write down exactly what you're doing, especially when you're stuck on something. "I'm constantly hitting the #5 on this major scale, instead of the natural five. It's like my second finger is bullying my first finger into doing nothing, which is messing up my scale playing."

As many of the articles on MaximumMusician.com will tell you, and as many other guitar teachers will tell you, writing is a problem-solving tool. When you write, you're teaching yourself, and exploring ways around obstacles without even realizing you're doing it.

Here's another way of getting aware of the specific actions you're applying to learn guitar: sing. When you sing, your attention can't wander as far as it can as when you're just playing without singing. In singing, you naturally want to sing in tune with what you're playing, so your mind is busy making adjustments to your vocal chords, based on what it's picking up from your ears, to make that happen. Translation: singing is just plain more fun than simply playing. At least, it often is, and if you don't have hang-ups about your voice.

On Good Habits

Not all habits are bad. Here are some habits that can help your guitar playing:

Play slowly, especially when learning new material. Play everything as though you were going to perform it for an audience, whether it's a song, scale, or strumming exercise. Play as early in the day as possible. Your mind is freshest in the morning, and most eager to learn then. In fact, I've found that going to bed a half-hour earlier and waking up a half-hour earlier leaves more quality time for building my chops in the morning.

Use a metronome. This is related to the tip about playing slowly. Don't just play slowly, play in tempo. Use a metronome for that.

Focus your problem areas. In other words, work to your weaknesses. It might feel great to be able to play a certain part of a tune because you play it well; and so you'll want to keep up that great feeling by playing the smooth part again and again, while the parts that aren't so smooth only get a few repetitions. Reverse that situation, and play more repetitions -- quality, conscious repetitions -- of the problem areas.

There are many more positive habits you can work into your playing. We may describe some next time.

That's the end of this episode of guitar basics. Look for more here.

Guitar Chords (GC) builds your chops and helps you identify the most important chords by ear. GC shows you how to substitute and combine chords; play Jazz, Rock and Blues progressions; transpose songs; put chords to a melody; apply fingerpicking, alternating bass, arpeggios, and much more.