subject: Guitar Fret Hand - Helpful Tips To Get Your Left Hand Working Harder [print this page] One of the most difficult aspects of playing the guitar is getting your guitar fret hand to correspond with your guitar picking hand. For new musicians, the idea of your hands moving out of syncopation can be a bit overwhelming.
However, there are some simple ways that you can focus your mind and learn to separate the motions in both of your hands so that they can traverse the instrument independently. Here are a few guitar tips to separate your guitar fret hand from the picking hand and start developing more agility.
1. Realize your practice pace.
Every musician has their own personal working pace that is best for their development. You can't expect to start out extremely fast and to work those fingers completely without mistakes.
Think about how slowly you really need to begin and what pace it really takes for you to complete the tasks you're aiming for with your fret hand.
2. Forget about sounding pretty for awhile.
Sometimes working on just one hand means doing away with pretty music and melodies for awhile and focusing just on actions and technique. Try coming up with some obscure riffs and licks that will help you to focus the actions in your fret hand while not worrying about how it sounds.
3. Let your right hand rest sometimes.
Maybe working both of your hands at the same time is too much and you need to let your picking hand rest. When a difficult riff or technique makes your fingers stumble about, remove the picking hand from the equation and start thinking about your fingerings more.
4. Learn and practice scales.
You'll hear over and over from other professional guitarists that scales are the way to go. Not only will you develop agility with your guitar fret hand, but you'll learn note and chord relationships that are very important for improvisational soloing and song-writing.
5. Practice transitions from one chord to another.
A chord isn't considered well-played unless it is attacked firmly and released with ease. Take two chords that are difficult for you to switch to easily and go back and forth for only a few minutes.
You'll find that after a short period of focusing on just two chords, your transitions between them become much more efficient and fluent.
6. Be consistent.
Whether it's with your practice schedule, your attention to detail, or your guitar fret hand technique, be consistent with your work. Don't let your skills falter only because you're not following through as diligently as you could be.
Working through the difficult riffs and licks on the guitar is what it really takes to separate the movements between the left and the right hands. Try some of these strategies out for yourself and start using your fret hand in a much smoother manner.
