When most beginners start to play guitar they generally approach the strumming or plucking very slowly. This isn’t surprising because, naturally, it takes a while to learn where the strings are, how to fashion the chords, and even how to physically manipulate and hold the dominant hand. After a while the player will begin to speed up their play, but there are two notable styles of guitar playing that relate to this kind of speed change, and even learning styles that rely upon the changes in speed.
Whether you are playing the guitar quickly or slowly, there will almost certainly be quite a distinct difference in the way that the hands are held, the fingers used and the guitar positioned. This may be unconscious, but the different ways of playing require quite different positions. This comes down at its most basic level to the natural way in which our muscles work. When carrying out slow movement, our muscles work one particular way, but when short sharp and very quick movements are required, our muscles work in a wholly different way, with different areas of the muscle called upon, and even different muscles altogether. This has quite an effect on the overall sound and tone of the performance, as well as its quality.
When playing guitar slowly the dominant hand is usually held in such a way that the fingers plucking the strings are not held perpendicular, but are slightly angled to the left instead. Because of this angle, the nail tends to remain in contact with the strings for longer than when a player is using a rapid technique. For quick playing, the fingers tend to strike the strings at much more of a right angle, and so the nail is barely in touch with the string at all. This means that a totally different tone of note is heard.
This means that, for many beginners, learning to play guitar at a much slower pace than a song is meant to be played, the overall sound and tone of the notes played are quite different to the way they should sound. This can create some problems, because a lot of time and effort may go into trying to learn how the notes sound, and how the hand is held. By then speeding up the performance, a number of obstacles can be experienced.
The first obstacle is of course the natural inclination of the fingers to move out from the angle they have been held at, and become more perpendicular to the strings. Any effort to conform to the original position will almost certainly result in missed notes, bad notes, and stiffness resulting in significant discomfort. On the other hand, if the hand is allowed to move round to the best position for the notes played at speed, this requires learning a whole new way of playing, plucking and listening to the quality and sound of notes.
It is for this reason that the idea of starting to learn at a slow pace and then building up the speed slowly, or even for more experience players to learn a song slowly and then naturally increase the rhythm later, there are many teachers who discourage such practice and advise that the speed is kept high from the very start. They argue that it is better to have missed notes and bad notes that are being played using the right technique, than for good notes played using a technique which will fall apart once the song is played at the correct speed.
About the author of this article:
victor epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, keyboards, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio. you can find the best marketplace at these sites for beginner guitars, guitar manuals, beginners’ sheet music, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio.
