{"id":312,"date":"2020-05-30T23:48:18","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T23:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/?p=312"},"modified":"2020-05-30T23:48:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T23:48:18","slug":"to-watch-or-not-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/2020\/05\/30\/to-watch-or-not-to-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"To Watch Or Not To Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When you\u2019re first learning to play\u00a0guitar<\/strong><\/u><\/a>, you might find yourself constantly hunching over watching either your chording hand or your strumming (picking) one. \u00a0Of course you need to do that when you\u2019re very new to playing because how else are you going to get a sense of where the strings and the\u00a0frets<\/strong><\/u><\/a>\u00a0are?After awhile, however, you may find yourself at a disadvantage if you are habitually watching your hands. \u00a0How can you read chords and lyrics or tablature and watch your hands at the same time? \u00a0Well, you can look back and forth, but you\u2019ll likely lose your spot on the page pretty easily. \u00a0 And once you\u2019ve firmly established this habit, it\u2019s pretty hard to break. \u00a0I\u2019ve had some students who\u2019ve come to me after having played for awhile, with the habit of watching their hands. \u00a0That\u2019s pretty much the first habit I try to break them out of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Eric Clapton NOT looking \ud83d\ude42<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, after awhile, you don\u2019t need your eyes for playing guitar any more! \u00a0You won\u2019t believe it until you try it. \u00a0Even with my beginner students, I work to get them to stop watching pretty soon in the game. \u00a0They don\u2019t believe they can do it either, until they try it a few times. \u00a0The fact is that your fingers have muscle memory<\/strong><\/u><\/a>\u00a0and they will begin to remember the shapes of the chords pretty quickly. \u00a0They might not always hit the right string or the right place on the fret, but the shape will be there. \u00a0Certain chords will come more quickly than others\u2026for instance and \u2018A\u2019 chord where you place all your fingers in the second fret, is easier to find without looking. \u00a0 A \u2018C\u2019 chord does not come as easily to some, so this one will take more work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a habit of watching your chording hand, try it out.  Discipline yourself to move between two chords that you know fairly well.  You\u2019ll be surprised at how many times your fingers will hit the right spot without the need for looking.  If you MUST look, look AFTER you move, not AS you\u2019re moving.  This will help you to get out of the habit too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now of course you\u2019ll notice that there are dots on the neck of your guitar indicating certain frets. \u00a0Most guitars have fret dots on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th frets. \u00a0Those dots are there to help you see your way to another fret, especially when you are playing up and down the neck. \u00a0And this is because sometimes you need to look in order to hit the right fret. \u00a0Classical guitars do not have these fret dots, but most other guitars do. \u00a0And when you watch Eric Clapton<\/strong><\/u><\/a>\u00a0play, sometimes he looks down so he gets to the right fret, although most of the time he doesn\u2019t have to look at all. \u00a0So there are certainly instances where glancing down helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the sooner you get out of the habit of looking, the sooner you will be liberated!  How many times have I seen a guitar student\u2019s fingers go to the right chord, and then look and second guess themselves?  The eyes and the thinking can actually GET IN THE WAY of playing more smoothly!  When you don\u2019t have to look any more, you will be depending on your muscle memory and your touch rather than your eyes and your thoughts, and that\u2019s a lot faster!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So do yourself a favour and break yourself of the habit of watching your hands\u2026and the sooner the better \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IJ<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re first learning to play\u00a0guitar, you might find yourself constantly hunching over watching either your chording hand or your strumming (picking) one. \u00a0Of course you need to do that when you\u2019re very new to playing because how else are you going to get a sense of where the strings and the\u00a0frets\u00a0are?After awhile, however, you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}