Chapter 3 – Guitar Positioning and Tuning

Now that you have learned a little bit about the guitar, you are now about to learn about how to position a guitar and tune it.

First you will learn about positioning a guitar. Begin by finding an armless chair that has good support for your back. You should sit comfortably with your back against the chair. Slouching is not good because you will develop bad guitar habits and a sore back. When sitting in an armless chair, be sure that there is a lot of room on both sides of you so you can hold your guitar properly and move your arms.

Once you are seated in the chair, you should place the guitar on your lap and have the rear of the guitar facing your chest. The guitar body should be on the leg that is farthest from the headstock. If you are right handed, the guitar should lay on your right leg. The majority of acoustic guitars will have curved indentations that are great for playing the guitar on your leg. If you are holding the guitar properly than the sixth string should be close to your chest and the first string should be close to your feet.

Your fret hand will have to be placed on the left if you are right handed and on the right if you are left handed. You should grip the neck of the guitar gently with your fretting hand. You thumb should be placed behind the guitar’s neck. The other fingers should be floating on top of the strings, slightly curled. It is very important to curl the fingers at the knuckles unless an instructor tells you not too.

Next we are going to discuss picking. When beginning to play the guitar, you should purchase a set of guitar picks. A guitar pick is a small flat tool that you used to strum the guitar. You should purchase a minimum of ten guitar picks and they are relatively cheap. There are different types of guitar picks but it is best to start with one that is not too hard or too flimsy. Picks are made of rubber, wood, stone, plastic, tortoiseshell, and metal. They are usually in the shape of a triangle but other shapes are available from manufacturers.

Once you have a guitar pick and are seated in the proper position, you can begin strumming the guitar. Your picking hand will be nearest the bridge of your guitar. You should open up the hand you will be picking or “strumming” the guitar with. The palm should face you. Then make sure the thumb is next to the index finger. Make sure that you rotate the hand so the knuckle of the thumb is facing toward you. With your free hand you should slide in the guitar pick between your index finger and thumb. That way, the pick is secure. The pick should end up behind the thumb’s knuckle.

You should hold the pick firmly and the pointed portion of the pick should be pointing away from your fist and should be sticking out about ½ inch. The hand you are strumming with should be over the sound hole if you are using an acoustic guitar or over the guitar body if you are using an electric guitar. Your strumming hand should be placed above the strings.

Your picking hand should not sit on the body or stings of the guitar. Using your wrist, not your arm, strum the lowest string downward. If the string rattles too much, do not use a lot of the pick surface or strum softer. Then pick the lowest string upwards. Try this a few times. Try to lower the motion of your picking hand by doing a short pick downwards and a short pick upwards. Now repeat the process with the rest of the strings.

Remember that holding the pick will feel strange at first. You will have to concentrate on your picking hand when you begin practicing the guitar. Your downstrokes and your upstrokes should sound the same. Also remember you will sound bad at first but this will change with practice. It takes time to become the next guitar hero!

Tuning Your Guitar

It is very important to tune your guitar. You need to tune your guitar on a regular basis if you want it to sound good and make practice enjoyable. At first tuning a guitar will be difficult but this will change over time. It is advisable that if you know someone that is a guitar player, you can have them tune your guitar for you. You can also simply learn to do it yourself. It just takes practice and patience.

There are different methods of tuning a guitar. All of the different methods are appropriate but some are more convenient than others. This is especially important if you are just beginning to learn the guitar.

Tuning a guitar involves adjusting the strings so that they play the right note. You loosen or tighten the strings by using the tuning pegs. If you tighten the pegs on the headstock, this will make the pitch of the string higher, while making the pegs loose will make the pitch lower.

Beginning guitar players may want to purchase an inexpensive electric “guitar tuner”. This is a great choice for beginning guitar players. Electronic tuners can pick up the sound of a string and let you know through a display that the note is either too low (flat) or too high (sharp). Beginning guitar player have difficulty telling when a string is not in tune by just listening so buying an electric tuner can assist in making tuning faster and more precise.

A starting guitarist who is practicing by themselves, easy and convenient tuning methods are best. However, as you become pickier or begin playing with other people, utilizing alternative tuning methods will become increasingly important.

If you cannot afford or do not want to buy an electric tuner, there are a variety of ways to manually tune your instrument. These ways are relative tuning, tuning with a piano, pitch pipes, keyboards, tuning forks, intervals and harmonics. We will go into these types of tuning in the next chapter.