Video: Learn How To Play Guitar Fast With Less Effort Using Correct Fretting Hand Technique
Want to play guitar fast with killer technique, cleanliness and consistency?
Having correct fretting hand technique is essential.
Good news is, you don't need to be an expert to understand how to correctly position your fretting hand for the best results.
Learn how to instantly make playing guitar fast easier using the fretting hand positioning in this video:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
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The #1 thing to pay attention to as you work on your fretting hand technique is…
Your fretting hand thumb.
Whatever problems you have in your fretting hand, your thumb is likely part of it.
For example:
If you have issues with stretching – your thumb is likely to blame.
Make sure it stays behind the neck of the guitar (aligned with the middle finger and pointing up towards the ceiling). This makes it much easier to spread your fingers on the fretboard.
That said, there are times when you can have your thumb over the neck of the guitar are:
- when you are doing string bends and vibrato, or
- when you are playing on the high (in pitch) frets. For example: past fret 14.
Moving on:
If you have issues with position shifts – your thumb could be to blame as well.
Make sure the thumb stays behind the middle finger when you shift positions.
If you struggle with finger independence of the fretting hand – pay attention to your thumb position as well.
If you let your thumb slide to be behind the index finger, your fingers become likely to lift off the strings.
But when you bring it back into its proper position, the fingers will get closer to the strings.
Now that you know how to improve your fretting hand technique, it’s time to improve the rest of your guitar playing, put it all together and reach your other musical ambitions.
If you want, I can help you with this in Breakthrough Guitar Lessons.
Here is how it works:
You tell me about your guitar playing background, your musical strengths and weaknesses, your previous guitar lesson experience (if any) and of course: your unique musical goals.
Then, I go to work for you. I read your evaluation form (twice) and begin creating your guitar lesson strategy.
Unlike other guitar lessons, you don’t get generic, cookie- cutter lessons from me. Everything I teach you is personalized to you.
We’ll work on transforming your guitar techniques, music knowledge, phrasing and overall musicianship, so you can finally put it all together and become a real musician (not just a guitar player.)
Along the way, I’ll be here for you every step, to help you master your guitar lessons and continually improve.
I’ll hear (and see) you play a lot more than a typical guitar teacher might.
For example: in private lessons a teacher would only see or hear you play once per week. The rest of the time (in between your lessons) you are on your own.
(This is how bad habits often form without you realizing it. Habits that can take months to solve.)
When you work with me, I'm most active in helping you in between the lessons (when you need my help the most).
Here is how:
- You can show me your playing every single day if you want – just post a recording of your playing on my student forum.
- You can also send me recordings separately for in-depth feedback on your playing and practicing on a regular basis.
- You can ask me questions and show me your playing every week in live video Office Hours. I hop on Zoom for an hour to help you with whatever you feel stuck on. You show me your playing (and ask about your guitar playing challenges) during this time and I help you.
- Every week I do live video training classes where I can see you play guitar as well and give you more personal help with your playing.
- Depending on what you write in your feedback form about each lesson (I ask you to leave me feedback about each part of what I teach you) I sometimes may ask you to send me a yet another recording of your playing. This way I get to see you play whatever you struggle with and can adjust your lesson strategy (if needed) to help you improve faster.
All you have to do is practice what I teach you for at least 30 minutes per day. Do that, and I can almost guarantee you’ll surprise yourself by the progress you can make.
Look at the results my guitar students are achieving:
"Tom Hess very quickly and consistently got me really massive results as a guitar player."
I had been studying on my own at that point... I had been studying on my own for about 5 years, and from other guitar teachers really hadn’t gotten anywhere as a guitarist whatsoever. And Tom Hess got me more results in the first couple months than I’d had in all those previous years, so basically everything that Tom Hess is delivering since then has been consistent with that. So, he’s got proven results.
Leo Smith, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
“I just love guitar lessons with Tom, he literally takes the time to make a specific lesson plan and sends you lessons as you need it.”
My last lesson I took with a local guitar teacher before joining Tom, I was struggling with a sweep picking pattern, which was the 5 string root major, I was really struggling to get the rolling technique down. I took it to my guitar teacher and I was like “Help me with this, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” This is his exact phrase: “At high speeds, it doesn’t really matter if you can play it clean or not, no one can hear it anyway.” At that point, I was just like, “Ah man.” But thankfully, in that same message, he mentioned Tom’s name. Then the doors opened. That very night, I went home and looked at every single lesson Tom had, had my guitar in hand, every YouTube lesson on you know “correct motions”, “play this over chords”... just applied it instantly, and it was instant results within an hour... just from his free stuff. I was like, oh man, I’ve got to do lessons with this guy.
I remember when I first started out with lessons, I instantly jumped on the forum to greet myself, and it’s amazing how there’s like 30 responses. Just like, “Hi welcome.” and stuff... “Hi Dan, great musical tastes”. That made me feel really at home and welcomed into Tom’s forum and community. Every time I’ve had an issue when I was first starting out be it like theory or technique, there’s always been someone there who’s helped. Otherwise it could’ve been this potentially awkward process where I’d have to wait a whole week to get an answer from my teacher, who even then may not have answered it correctly and may have never solved it. Whereas there are guys on there who have been with Tom and have been through exactly what I’ve been through. They know exactly how to help, in what order, what information you need... it’s just a friendly atmosphere really.Dan Mayhew, Stowmarket, UK
“I found Tom Hess on the net through articles, and I read quite a few of those before I went to Tom’s website. Even though I’m not a metal player at all, and Tom is obviously a metal player, I could still see that his ideas and way of teaching could really benefit me. So I pretty much signed up for online guitar lessons with Tom straight away once I’d gone through the website, and it’s just been a real eye opener with the way he teaches…”
... the integration of concepts that he’ll give you and having a really structured strategy… not just week to week lessons, but things that - you can see from one lesson to the next - really develop and continue to work on your technique and your theory and aural skills and those types of things. So I’d played a long time… 20 years before I really caught onto Tom, and I’d had a lot of lessons, and I’d taught and played but I can really see improvements in my technique, sweeping, and picking which weren’t strong parts of my playing.
I feel like Tom has a good gauge of where you’re at as a guitar player and what you need, and there just seemed to be so much more stuff in the lessons week to week than what you’d ever get in an hour or so in a one on one lesson… way more. So yeah I think that and the forum. I think, I’d pay the money just for the forum. That alone would be fine… I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. So that alone is massive!
The price for the lessons, that’s nothing... nothing. You know, I think it’s, pretty cheap to be honest. I don’t mean that in a bad way, cheap. Cheap is not a good word, but I just think it’s great value… awesome value. I mean, you know, you could pay that for one-to-one lessons and you just don’t get the same results and support of the forum and the content and the strategies.
Other teachers I’ve had have been good players, and some have become good friends too. But when I’ve started lessons with Tom I’ve got something to compare that to and a lot of it is just sort of teaching songs from week to week… a lot of the lesson will be left up to you… you’ll go to your lesson and they’ll be like what do you want to do today? At the time I said, oh do this song or that song, but with Tom you start to realize that you know, there’s more to it… the goals and you know he’s sort of more in contact with what you want to be able to do as a player, because he’s asking you the questions and then setting up the strategies, so I find that really good.
Yeah I can see more results in 18 months in a lot of areas in my playing than you know 20 years. So it’s sort of, you know, would’ve been great 20 years ago to have met Tom.
Simon Candy, Melbourne, Australia
“I was self-taught, and I thought I am so good because I can do this by myself. I wasn’t looking for a teacher but I knew I was looking for something on the internet, and Tom’s lessons came up. I knew instantly that was the way to go. ”
Tom assigns the lessons based on the hundreds of questions you have to answer before you get to be a student. It’s just amazing how he does it. Every single PDF I received has been such a good value. I know if I practice exactly what he says I cannot fail. It helped me realize I can become whatever I want to become. Just set my goal and I know his lessons and way of teaching will get me there eventually. So far so good... I’ll continue doing this as long as possible, and eventually I’ll become a professional player. I’d just like to thank Tom, he’s so thorough, so professional and such a great teacher... and a good person. I want to keep on working with him.
Sigve Solbakken, Bergen, Norway
“Before I found Tom to take online guitar lessons, I was exposed to a lot of information, but it wasn’t necessarily in the right order. So, Tom is the teacher who saw what my weaknesses were just by answering simple questions and was able to get me the information I needed in the order that it was supposed to be learned in.”
Tom knows my weak points so he provides lessons to, not turn them into strengths, but just make them so they’re not my main weakness. Without that I don’t I would be anywhere near the level that I am today.
Rhythmically it’s definitely more solid… I can manipulate rhythm more to what I hear in my head. I had a tendency to just naturally write things in time signatures that aren’t common like 4/4 time, and besides rhythm, just theory in general. For around a decade or so I played without any traditional lessons, so I didn’t have any knowledge of theory or why stuff that I thought sounded good, sounded good. So he’s kind of given me the tools to know why what I like sounds good.
Derek Rush, Indiana, USA
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