Fretting Hand Guitar Technique Guide: Improving Your Fretting Hand Efficiency
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This guitar technique article shows you how to relax your fretting hand and make it much easier to fret notes on guitar, so that you can:
– play guitar faster
– make fewer mistakes
– play harder guitar licks and solos...
... and do it all without increasing your guitar practice time.
Best of all:
Even if you don’t want to become a shredder or play guitar fast...
Improving your fretting hand (the way I show in this guitar technique article) will make your current playing feel much easier.
(This enables you to play cleanly and accurately at your current top speeds.)
BY AT LEAST 100%
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
To begin...
Check out this guitar technique video that helps you become more efficient with how you fret notes on guitar:
Now let’s go deeper.
Here are 5 key fretting hand guitar technique principles that help you fret notes on guitar like a pro and improve guitar playing much faster:
Fretting Hand Guitar Practice Tip #1. Build Your Calluses
This is a surprising way to play guitar faster and relax excess tension in your fretting hand.
One of the simplest ways to improve your fretting hand speed is to develop your fretting hand calluses.
Simply put: the softer your calluses are, the more force you have to use to push the strings down.
This extra force makes you more tense and hurts your guitar speed.
Conversely, the firmer your calluses – the less tension you need to push the strings down and the faster you can play.
Simply making your calluses stronger will give you a (small, but noticeable) increase in guitar speed.
“But Tom Hess, I already play guitar every day! Why do I need to worry about calluses?”
Answer: The thickness of your calluses depends as much on ‘what’ you play as it does on how much you play. So, if you play a lot of scales, arpeggios and single-note guitar licks that don’t require much force from your fingers... and/or you use lighter gauge strings, your calluses are likely not as strong as they could be.
How do you practice to build thicker calluses in your fretting hand?
Answer: practice string bends, slides and vibrato (including double-stop vibrato) with all 4 fingers. Spend 10-15 minutes per day practicing these techniques and you’ll notice your calluses getting stronger within days.
When this happens, you’ll notice that you can fret notes on guitar with a lot less effort and it begins to feel easier to play guitar fast.
And if you ever take a break from playing guitar, focus on rebuilding your calluses ASAP when you get back into playing and practicing your guitar technique.
Do this by doing a lot of string bends, slides and vibrato... and your speed will come back very fast.
Advanced callus tip: fret barre chords with the edge of the index finger instead of the flat (fingerprint) part. The side of your index finger has less skin to compress. This means, you’ll have an easier time playing clean barre chords (and avoid having the string get caught in one of the creases of the fingers).
Fretting Hand Guitar Practice Tip #2. Learn The Two Thumb Positions
To truly master your fretting hand technique (and play guitar fast, if that is your goal), you need to focus on two thumb positions during your guitar practice:
Fretting Hand Position #1. The ‘thumb-behind-the-guitar-neck’ position. It’s used for playing advanced guitar techniques, fret notes on guitar that are far apart (e.g. more than 4 frets). It’s also very helpful for keeping the fingers closer to the strings (i.e. controlling the infamous flailing fretting hand fingers in your guitar technique).
You probably need a lot of practice in this position if:
– you struggle to reach the notes in some of your guitar licks that require stretching.
– you wonder if your hands are too small to play guitar. (Psst! They’re not. You’ll see proof of this in a moment.)
– you want to play guitar fast
Here is what this hand position looks like when you fret notes on guitar:
Fretting Hand Position #2. The thumb over the top of the neck position
This position is used for bending strings, doing vibrato, and for playing (some) open chords on guitar.
Here is what this hand position looks like when you fret notes on guitar (during string bends and vibrato):
Notice how the side of the fretting hand’s wrist (where the index finger meets the palm) presses into the bottom of the fretboard. The elbow (of the fretting hand) should also be further away from the body than it normally is when you fret notes on guitar.
This gives you a lot of stability and leverage and helps with bending strings consistently in tune.
Your guitar practice goal is to get clear on when you should use which of these two positions to fret notes on guitar and switch between them... sometimes – in the middle of a guitar lick.
Question: “Tom Hess, what if I struggle to bend guitar strings in tune even when I'm in the proper “thumb over” fretting hand position? What can I improve about how I fret notes on guitar?”
Answer: Try this guitar practice strategy to improve your string bending guitar technique:
Play the note you intend to bend up to as a regular (unbent) note to get its sound into your ears. Then, bend the string from a lower fret (1 or 2 frets below). Bend the string slowly and stop the moment you hear it reach the target pitch.
Then drop your fretting hand down and repeat the process again, until you can consistently bend the string in tune.
Fretting Hand Guitar Practice Tip #3. Control Flailing Fingers
Flailing fingers make it very hard to fret notes on guitar with accuracy and control. This makes it extremely hard to play guitar fast.
However...
Flailing fingers are quite simple to fix if you understand a few simple fretting hand guitar technique tips:
1. Use an open fretting hand position (with the thumb position discussed above) as you practice guitar and play your guitar licks.
2. Worry less about the ‘flailing pinkie’ – focus on the index finger much more. Fact is: most guitar players (including those who can play guitar fast) have the pinkie finger flailing quite a bit further from the strings than you might realize.
The reason you might not be noticing this is because you probably only watch them play guitar from the front (e.g. how you see everyone’s fretting hand in a YouTube video). But if you stood behind them and watched their fretting hand guitar technique, you’d see a lot more movement in their pinkie finger.
Instead of worrying about keeping the pinkie closer to the strings as you fret notes on guitar...
3. Focus on relaxing your fretting hand fingers more than on keeping them close to the frets.
It’s much easier to relax your fretting hand fingers when you fret notes on guitar than it is to force them to stay closer to the fretboard.
4. Use fingers 1 2 3 on the highest (in pitch) frets as you fret notes on guitar and play guitar fast. The reason is: because the frets are closer together, it’s harder to cram the fingers into the frets up higher on the guitar fretboard than it is on the lower frets. This is why you see many guitar players (especially those with larger-than-normal hands) not use the pinkie when they fret notes on guitar on the highest frets.
(Side note: this is why having larger hands is not always the blessing many guitar players think it is.)
Watch this video which lays out a simple way to practice your guitar technique to get flailing fingers under control once and for all:
Fretting Hand Guitar Practice Tip #4. Tension Control Overall
Part of what goes into controlling excess muscle tension in your fretting hand fingers (when you fret notes on guitar) ... is controlling overall tension in the rest of your body (and guitar technique).
Here are several proven guitar practice tricks for developing a relaxed guitar technique that makes it very easy to play guitar fast:
1. Do a tension audit when you practice guitar. This means: systematically check your body for tension as you play your guitar licks, looking to relax:
– your jaw (and the muscle under your tongue)
– your shoulders (this is often where much of the muscle tension in your fretting hand and picking hand starts)
– your stomach
– your thighs
– your feet (if you’re curling your toes when you play guitar, you have way too much tension there).
Watch this video that demonstrates how to do a tension audit in more detail:
Question: “Tom Hess, at what tempo should I do a tension audit during my guitar practice?”
Answer: This depends on many things (such as: the lick you’re practicing, your overall level of guitar technique and your level of experience controlling excess tension when you fret notes on guitar).
That said, the best way to find the right guitar practice tempo for your tension audit is to find the top speed where you can go through the audit process, while playing the notes correctly.
2. Exhale. Yes, exhale right before you’re about to play guitar fast. This guitar practice tip is as simple as it sounds... and it’s a fantastic way to develop a more relaxed guitar technique and fret notes on guitar without excess tension.
3. Exaggerate your fretting hand tension (and tension in all areas of your guitar technique) in the opposite direction.
This counterintuitive tip means exactly what it says.
You tense up the parts of your body (that you have a hard time relaxing) more than they are already tense for a few seconds... and then let go of that extra tension. The benefit is: when you let go of the (exaggerated) tension, you will feel more relaxed than you would be if you simply “tried to relax” in the usual way.
Fretting Hand Guitar Practice Tip #5. Develop Hand Independence In Your Guitar Technique
This means: learning to pick through the notes of your guitar licks with a lot of pick attack, while keeping your fretting hand relaxed (as you fret notes on guitar).
To develop this skill, start by fretting a single note. Do tremolo picking on that note and vary the amount of pick attack you use (from soft, to moderate, to aggressive pick attack). As you do, focus on keeping the fretting hand equally relaxed (even when picking with a lot of power).
This is the starting point for developing fretting hand independence as you fret notes on guitar.
Side note: you don’t need a lot of power (or tension) in your picking hand to articulate the notes with a lot of pick attack.
Watch this video that shows you how to articulate the notes clearly without much tension:
Now that you know how to improve your fretting hand technique, I want to help you master the rest of your guitar playing, so you can reach your goals, and impress everyone who hears you play guitar. I show you how in my personalized Breakthrough Guitar Lessons. Unlike generic, one-size-fits-all guitar courses, my lessons are customized to you, your skill level, your strengths and weaknesses, and who you want to become as a guitar player. I’ve taught thousands of guitar players to play like pros (while practicing less than 1 hour per day) and I can help you too. Click the button on the banner below to learn more.
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