Left hand/fingers/elbow position electric guitar

Hi,

I’m struggling with what is the best position/direction of the left hand, the left fingers plus thumb, and the left elbow on a electric guitar in such a way that is best to learn to speed up solo playing with relaxed fingers.

Sometimes you see the tips of the fingers directed towards your body, sometimes up, sometimes with the pinky curled and the rest is not, is the thumb equal to the index finger, ring finger, etc. I know I have to play the note against the fret, and with the tip of my finger, but not what is the direction of the fingers. I’m afraid that if my fingers a to tensed in the beginning, and I learn my way through the lessons, I will learn with an incorrect and perhaps overly tensed hand/finger/elbow position.

Is there perhaps some information or a lesson available about this position information?

Warm regard,

Bart

In general you should aim for the most relaxed & natural position for efficiency of motion.  That might slightly change depending on the musical line you are playing.  For example you might find that you need to slightly adjust your approach if you are playing on the lower strings versus the upper strings.  Or the lower, wider frets versus the upper, more narrow frets.

I've got a bunch of tutorials on playing fast lines.  Almost all of them mention proper physical motions & mechanics in some way.  Depending on your skill level you might want to start with these exercises on the major & minor scale patterns.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/2643/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/2646/ 

If those are all easy, then try these on visualizing repeating octaves of diatonic patterns across the fretboard.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/419/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/898/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/899/

And after those, or if you just want to just jump to the shredding, these deal specifically with the mechanics of playing fast single note lead lines in a rock style context.  The first one in particular deals with a lot of the basic mechanics of stay relaxed & having natural efficiency of motion while playing fast lines.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/287/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/928/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/929/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/973/

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/980/

Hope that helps!

Hi Christoper,

Thank your for your advise. Working on it.

Another question on the open chord lef finger placement. Somehow my fingers seem to be too thick or too sweaty because somehow with a open G or C chord I always touch/demp the other strings. So putting my fingers on the E and A string then the A an D string gets demped. I change the angle of my hand, but does not work, and I try to press the string with the tip of my finger, but somehow I cannot bend my fingers enought to get a 90 degrees angle,  or my fingers slide away to the middle of the tip away from the nail. 

Do you perhaps have any solutions like, are my strings perhaps too old/slippery, it's been a very long time that I changed them? Or a more expensive one, is the neck of my guitar to small (Fender Squier) and should I get my self another guitar with wider neck :-)? Or are there perhaps exercises to make fingers bend enough so I get the correct angel to play these open chord G and C, or...? 

Looking forward to any tips.

You're welcome!

It's difficult to know for certain about your finger placement issue without a picture or video.  Yes, it's possible your Squier neck has too narrow string spacing.  I have a few Strats & Squiers all with slightly different string spacing.  Some are narrow enough that I also can't quite get certain open string chord voicings to all ring.  But the same voicings are easy on a different guitar with wider string spacing! 

An easy way to check that isto try other guitars that you know have wider string spacing.  Some electrics, most acoustics & classicals.  A visit to a local music store to ask about this & play a few guitars would also give you more information.

I have 2 tutorials designed to help improve strength & dexterity.

Trill Drills is a series of exercises that focus on all fretting fingers.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/1829

Building Pinky Strength & Dexterity is a series of exercises focusing on your pinky.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/1292

Hope that helps!

Your tip on checking on another guitar worked for me, because on my acoustic guitar, with more space between the strings, I had same issue. So after that,  and checking a basic tutorial of Caren Armstrong (The Basic Chords: Position and Placement), I found out my nails on my left hand were a little little little bit too long :-), I couldn't see/feel it at first. And now I can play these open chords as well without demping other strings. 

Good deal!