Guitar Tutor Tips from Douglas Lichterman

04/19/2022

GUITAR PLAYERS: BRACE UP!

I love the scene at the end of a famous Samurai film where the heroes are making their way back home from battle. One of them has lost two legs and one arm, and he’s dragging himself home by his sword with his remaining arm. The other one, who is walking, looks down at him and sternly says, “Brace up!”, as if to imply that he’s still alive after all, so things could be worse. You’ve got to love that Japanese warrior spirit!

Many people tell me they think the shape of their hands adversely affects their guitar playing–for instance, having fingers that are too short or too large. I always point to Leslie West (the excellent guitarist from Mountain who had enormous hands) in both cases as an example of why not to worry about it. While the hand with long, slender fingers is considered ideal for playing guitar, fact is, people with every shape of hands are making great music every day.

And then there are people like the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who had a severely handicapped fretting hand with just two usable fingers and still managed to play passages that confound people today. Check out a video of him playing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANArGmr74u4

So, please be assured that your desire to play guitar and be great at it will overcome what you might perceive as your own physical shortcomings (no pun intended!).

And if anyone needs further inspiration about overcoming physical issues to play guitar, check out this guitar player–he doesn’t even have arms! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyIzAzmMyFk

04/10/2022

HERE ARE SOME GREAT TIPS

For your fingers, that is.

Most fingerstyle players would prefer to fingerpick using their natural nails. This method gives you the most direct contact with the strings, and natural nails have a good attack and produce a good tone on the string. But natural fingernails wear down, crack, chip and tear which makes them undependable. Murphy’s Law says anything that might go wrong will go wrong, and this is particularly true of fingernails. If you are a fingerstyle player with an important gig or recording session coming up, you are statistically likely to break a critical nail right before go-time.

Problem – meet fingerpicks!

Fingerpicks are steel or plastic picks that attach to the ends of your fingers and thumb. They enable you to pluck the strings fingerstyle whether or not your nails are in good shape. When you first put them on they feel alarmingly foreign, but they feel quite natural once you adjust your fingerpicking style and use them awhile.

One big drawback to me of most fingerpicks is that they cover your fingertips. This eliminates direct contact with the string and also adds an annoying sound as the hard surfaces touch the strings. So I was very happy the day my bandmate in New York City turned me on to Pro-Pik Finger-Tone fingerpicks.

The unique shape of the Pro-Pik F-Tone fingerpick allows the front of your fingertip to touch the strings while the loop-shaped pick provides the attack of a fingernail that never wears down! The sound they produce is by far the closest to natural fingernails that I’ve ever heard and the adjustment time for playing with fingerpicks is considerably reduced. Despite their fragile appearance, these fingerpicks are strong and long-lasting. The only way I’ve ever damaged one is by accidentally stepping on it!

Having bionic fingertips increases your confidence because you don’t have to worry about damaging your fingernails while you play so you can attack the strings harder, producing more volume and increasing your dynamic range.

The fingerpicks come in Medium and Large sizes. The Mediums easily fit my somewhat slender fingers and still have room to adjust larger. They also offer your choice of single-wrap or split-wrap bands. I recommend the split-wrap for maximum adjustability and the firmest fit.

NOTE: Accept no substitutes! There are cheap Chinese knock-offs of these fingerpicks around. I tried them and they're the worst.

Pro-Pik also makes a matching metal thumb pick and a metal-plastic thumb pick. The plastic version produces the most natural thumbnail sound. For the record, I use fingerpicks on my first two fingers and use my natural thumbnail to play. But I encourage you to try out both kinds of thumb picks when you begin your Pro-Pik experience.

See them here:

https://www.deeringbanjos.com/products/propik-fingertone-fingerpick?utm_term=&utm_campaign=**LP+-+Shopping+-+Catch+All&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_tgt=pla-296303633664&hsa_grp=60425897945&hsa_src=g&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_mt=&hsa_ver=3&hsa_ad=306520712797&hsa_acc=7878380374&hsa_kw=&hsa_cam=1614061369&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgMqSBhDCARIsAIIVN1V3xQFLHuOl9KypxQ-FFTFgdD4IBxAHBAQ96cV6KH9UZHlYBrbGKeMaAkfrEALw_wcB

03/25/2022

HIGH STRUNG

Most open tunings call for the re-tuning of the existing strings on the guitar to notes other than the standard E A D G B E. “High stringing” calls for a different approach—the notes of the strings stay the same, but the bottom four strings are replaced with strings that are one octave higher than usual. This tuning is also commonly known as “Nashville tuning”.

Nashville tuning makes the guitar sound more homogeneous because the span of notes is reduced from three octaves to two. The resulting sound has a charming shimmering effect that reminds me of a harpsichord. You can hear the sound of the Nashville tuning on your guitar right now by fretting the E A D G strings over the top of the neck with your first finger on the 12th fret. That’s the sound of your open strings in Nashville tuning.

I don’t recommend tuning your only guitar to this tuning, but if you have a second steel-string guitar sitting around, this tuning provides a fun alternative with plenty of creative possibilities.

In the olden days, you had to buy a whole set of 12-string strings to get the high-octave E A D G strings. But nowadays, D’Addario has given us their EXL150H High-Strung Guitar Strings that provide the exact six strings you need for this tuning for just $5.49 per set. You can see them here:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EXL150H--daddario-exl150h-nickel-wound-electric-guitar-strings-010-026-high-strung-nashville-tuning

03/20/2022

03/20/2022

Hi Everybody - Sorry that I haven't been posting here recently, but since I see that many people visit this page I'm going to rectify this. Stay tuned for a new series of Guitar Tutor Tips!