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Right Hand Attacks for the Guitar

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The right hand, as I’ll say over and over again is what brings life to your playing. It allows you to build, to soften, basically to add a whole slew of techniques that make your music more interesting. Later on when we talk about dynamics (in the Elements Units) we’ll take some of these attacks and apply them with variations to melodies to see how we can alter the piece.

As with most technique in guitar or any other art or craft, efficiency is imperative. There are many different ways to attack the guitar strings. The mark of a good musician is to be able to determine when and where to use any given attack. Lets look at a few different attacks:

the rest stroke:

This attack is used to emphasize the beginning of a note. Its execution is fairly simple to perform isolate. But it’s a little more difficult in the middle of a piece in passing. To perform it, strike the strike and follow through the string until your finger rests on the next string. You’ll notice that the note has a decidedly clear tone. The emphasis is on the striking of the tone, the beginning. Then the tone volume decreases from then on out. B

ecause of the direction of this attack is a slightly more downward motion than say the free stroke, it creates more tension on the string and consequently the resulting tone contains an even clarity.

It’s an attack used to call attention to a note, it says, “I’m here and I stand out above my peers.

the free stroke:

As the name implies, this is the note used to create a melodic, flowing feeling. The emphasis is on the ring of the tone, or perhaps the building of the tone because no part of the life of the tone stands out really.

It says, “I’m here, I’m beautiful and look how well I play with my peers.”

The direction of the attack is more horizontal than the rest stroke. Your finger moves through the string
and retracts, then returns to its original position, ready for its next move. It’s much more even in volume, it rings.

the upstroke:

I don’t mean this in the sense of a strumming upstroke,. I mean that when you attack the string you get under it. You use your nail, pick or flesh to very slightly pull the string up away from the soundboard. The result is that the string snaps back down and gives a POPPING tone.

This attack has a similar energy as the rest stroke except that it’s not as ...proper I guess. It says, “Boom I’m here let’s get it on.” By the way sorry about my corny metaphors. But hopefully you get the point.

The strokes above deal with angle of attack to a point, but you can also change the angle of your nail or pick to change the tone.

• Parallel to the strings and you get a harsher, more solid tone with higher volume.

• Angle the attack a bit and you get a more mellow, fuller sound.

•You can slide your finger or nail lightly over the top of the string to get a more glistening sound.

•You can dig into the string to get more of a crunch.

Finger independence

The exercises I’ve provided deal less with the type of stroke you use and more on the finger you use to attack with.
This is one of the great technical challenges of ours as fingerstylists: To develop the right hand and fingers enough that they can move as independently as possible with enough control and confidence to easily play or execute what it is we hear in our heads.

There are an innumerable amount of combinations you can do to develop these skills, I’ve provided a few to help you to focus on using your fingers in different ways or to not get stuck on one or two patterns. I think that happens too much with fingerstylists. We rely too heavily on patterns to carry our songs. I know I’m guilty of it.

Anyway, try these exercises and incorporate them into your practices. The exercise may seem short but they are invaluable to developing your right hand.

rt hand guitar technique

Right Hand Attacks for the Guitar

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Guitar Theory

Elements of Music Composing for guitar