Originally Posted by: JeffS65Kasperow > Relax...yep....that is the ticket. Some guys even barely touch the strings. I'm a little more heavy handed in some ways (I love a deep and digging bend) but being able to let physics do the work and not your hand is really important.

I've taught a coupla people in my day and I noticed that to a person, they all wanted to give the neck a death grip. I'd tell them to do an experiment: Hover your hand over the low E string (second fret) but don't touch it. Start picking the open string. Then slowly lower your finger on to the string (which will flat out at first) but continue to apply very light pressure only until the string rings true. Then stop. You will realize how little pressure it takes to make the string ring.

I just tried this, and it's true. It doesn't take a lot of pressure to fret a note cleanly. I'm starting to improve a lot in that aspect, which is actually very important, as it means I waste less energy, which by extent means that I'll be able to go on for a lot longer than if I play like I used to (which often got pretty close to "choke the guitar to death"...)

I also, for some unknown reason, managed to play a couple of christmas carols by ear just now... I don't know why. I haven't heard them since christmas and it's a little out of season, I'd say... Approximately 9 months or so... But on the bright side, I managed to play something I heard in my head just fine :)