Bad Left Hand Position and Changing Bad Habits

Neil replies to questions from our members.
goldleaf
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Sun May 10, 2009 10:23 am

From mark

Hi Neil,

I have the bad left hand position that you describe as the baseball grip.

I play a lot of chords using my thumb hanging over the neck.

How would you suggest that someone who has played a long time goes about correcting this problem?

At the moment I have been selecting a few songs and making sure that I use the correct position for these. It of course feels awkward to do this and as soon as I stop concentrating I revert to my normal hand position.
Neil's response

Changing a bad habit is one of the hardest things for us to do. As a guitar player who wants to progress, it is important to be willing to do exactly that. Unfortunately, most bad habits eventually lead to plateaus and prevent progressing.

One way to break a bad habit is to work on it in a new song, or many new songs, before you apply it to old songs. This can be an effective approach for some people. Others need the 'cold turkey' approach of consciously watching every move and really concentrating on changing the habit no matter what they are playing. This can be exhausting and hard to keep up for a very long time but can work as long as you spend some time every day working on it.

I will address this in other post in the near future and would appreciate comments from the rest of the community on the subject of changing bad habits.

Neil


haoli25
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Sun May 10, 2009 11:48 am

Good advice Neil. It's always been easier for me to break bad habits with new songs and techniques. Thank goodness for 'muscle memory'.


machoy4617
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Sun May 10, 2009 5:20 pm

Hi

Neil why is it do hard as you say for guitarist to change bad habbits. Surely with work you can change anything. Can I ask what you mean by bad habits eventually lead to lead to plateaus and prevent progressing.


Tom


chacho
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Fri May 15, 2009 5:55 pm

Hi all,
I'm not an expert by any means but I thought for a beginner you start off with the thumb behind the neck and as you progress and get better you learn to hook your thumb over to mute say the low E string for a Amin or E chord for example.
This was how I was taught. It seems to work so you can strum all the strings and stop the unwanted string from sounding.
Any thoughts from the experienced guitarists out there.


AcousticAl
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Sun May 31, 2009 9:27 pm

Hey chacho,

I'm no expert either- but from what I've seen on Neil's videos- he doesn't seem to recommend bringing the thumb over like that. That would give you bad hand positioning (baseball bat grip?). I think he just plays the strings he needs and doesn't hit the ones he doesn't. Easier said than done, I know...


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