Guitar Technique: Right Hand Position

Shoulder, elbow wrist and their placement

shoulder and elbow

Let’s first look at the anatomy of your arm, shoulder and wrist. (Again, most importantly you should relax) With your forearm draped over the lower bout of the guitar, your shoulder should be unflexed. Neither should it be rotated forward or backward. So basically your elbow should be aligned with your shoulder to the side and not gravitating forward or pulling backward. Your shoulder shouldn’t be higher or lower than the other.

forearm and hand

Your forearm should be placed on the lower bout of the guitar so that your hand is over the sound hole.
Depending on the size and shape of your arm, you may need to adjust. And you’ll find that you get
different tone in different areas of the sound hole, whether you move forward or backward. The important
thing is that you’re comfortable and you can move freely and not awkwardly.

right wrist, hand and fingers

good

right hand guitar technique

top view

Now for the tougher part: the right
wrist, hands, and fingers. Anatomically
speaking, the most appropriate position
for your wrist and hand is completely
straight. Look at the image to the left.
Try to stay aware of your wrist because
it may have a tendency to start to angle
downwards as in the photo the right.
This is not too good for the tendon at the
bottom of your wrist.

no good

right hand guitar technique

side view

The distance between your wrist and
the sound board should be about as the
picture shows. Again the straight line
is the best. Realize, however, that all
of these positions are dynamic. They
change constantly. These are just the
base positions that you should always
return to.

fingers

The stroke: When you stroke the strings,
try to emulate the picture on the left,
moving through the strings from the big
knuckle joint Try to avoid the claw as
shown in the right picture.

FINGERS

Take a look at the fingers. You have 3 joints in each, 2 of which perform independently of each other, all of which can move forward and backward, and even one of which can move in a circular motion. Together this offers us an incredible range of movement for fingerpicking. And you have 4 of these! Think about that. Each of your fingers can behave as independent little soldiers. That means 4 fingers in 8 directions. All you need to do is train them to move like that. No problem right?

THUMB

Your thumb is the most versatile of all the fingers. It has the biggest range of motion. Consequently there is a debate as to what type of attack one should use: the circular motion or the direct, downward motion. To be honest with you I don’t think either is incorrect. I’ve use both techniques depending on what the situation calls for or what kind of mood I’m in. Take a look at what to practice and what to avoid:

Practice
• attacking the string in both directions: up and down trying to gradually increase speed
• Using different parts of your fingernail to attack the string to affect different tone
• With every finger on open strings:

Up down up down up down, etc...

Once you try these, try to mix them up. Use the index and the middle, then the middle and ring, etc...
This will help get your fingers used to the correct movement: moving from the knuckle (hand) joint and not the finger joint.

Avoid
• Bending the thumb or fingers at the second joint. This will be inevitable to some degree but try to use the muscle in the hand to strike as opposed to the joint

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