The lighter touch

[Wyzard]

As an ex-mainly-bassist (fifteen years ago now).... up until nearly 3 years ago I still had a fierce and heavy-handed approach to my guitar playing. I also played too bl**dy loud for the maintenance of good relations with a) bandmates and b) my own hearing.

Being only able to play at home during lockdown, I started to wrestle with my heavy-handedness and volume issues. Ironically, the answer was to keep the volume on the rig high, and learn to be less heavy with both my picking and fretting. Concern for my family and neighbours made me (at first) more tentative, then latterly, just better able to play dynamically.

It's been a 2-3 year journey, but I've got Covid to thank for it .

 

[Warmart]

I totally understand this situation. I will put part of it on my job life as a meat cutter for 30 years...packing 200# quarters of beef over your shoulder will give you a forklift type attitude. OH&S has rules now that preclude lifting that much in the workplace. I used to bench 250# with relative ease, it sticks with you. In the dojo and in the ring I was the proverbial Mr Plywood for many years, and until I got serious with the grappling arts of judo, jiu-jitsu and aikido I never found the "soft" side of combative training until very deep in my martial studies. Being a commercial pilot helped me become more gentle with my hands, muscling an aircraft and fighting the trim is no way to keep passengers comfortable in rough air. Took quite a lot of flight hours to be fingertip control adept on the yoke.
I'm still very much a "vice-grip" on the fretboard a good amount of the time and I have to really work on being more delicate even with my picking and strumming techniques. Having a death grip slows down your movement/dexterity, stiff muscles/joints are slow muscles/joints.

You are making it nigh impossible to "keep up with the Joneses", sir. Meat cutter, heavy lifter, martial artist, commercial pilot! OMG, that's pretty awesome!

What helped me stop gripping so hard (generally) is RSI injuries to my thumb, so take my advice - learn to relax now before you cause yourself an issue!

 

[Moondog Wily]

Thanks all for the replies! I guess I did not mention in initial post that I do understand that a lot of this is a mental game and if I commit to it, I will succeed, it will just take longer than i want it to!! I will definitely be trying the suggestions here and appreciate the push off this cliff (still have a tight grip on cliffs edge)!!! I should also mention that if I had never jumped into the PRS rabbit hole, I would probably not even thought about my ham fisting (after all I like ham), but these things play soooooooo easy that the death grip is no longer needed (and to some extent never was needed but I have to give these git fiddles some credit)!!!!

 

[DogPhishHead]

When I got serious about playing (after a ten year break), I was heavily into SRV...and my right hand style showed it...just pummeling the string (.011s on a strat) and having no dynamics. It took years of getting into new styles of music to break this attack on the strings. Finally, about ten years ago I got into jam bands, particularly Phish. Studying Trey Anastasio's style was one thing, but this video finally put it in focus...his light, controlled picking hand. He uses an Adamas Graphite pick - 2mm. It helped me find control as too hard it really makes a mess of the sound, light and controlled (like Garcia did). This video is also my benchmark for tone.

 

[Daryl Jones]

You are making it nigh impossible to "keep up with the Joneses", sir. Meat cutter, heavy lifter, martial artist, commercial pilot! OMG, that's pretty awesome!

What helped me stop gripping so hard (generally) is RSI injuries to my thumb, so take my advice - learn to relax now before you cause yourself an issue!

Was never meant to be self serving at all, just that I've spent most of my life being (or trying to be) strong. It can be both gratifying and detrimental at the same time.

Thanks all for the replies! I guess I did not mention in initial post that I do understand that a lot of this is a mental game and if I commit to it, I will succeed, it will just take longer than i want it to!! I will definitely be trying the suggestions here and appreciate the push off this cliff (still have a tight grip on cliffs edge)!!! I should also mention that if I had never jumped into the PRS rabbit hole, I would probably not even thought about my ham fisting (after all I like ham), but these things play soooooooo easy that the death grip is no longer needed (and to some extent never was needed but I have to give these git fiddles some credit)!!!!

I agree with the long time to succeed thing. I have comparatively a short time left with which to enjoy the fruits of this labor of love with PRS ease of play. I just hope I don't slide too far back in the gentleness when my 12 string gets here. That's a whole other rabbit hole methinks...

 

[Moondog Wily]

When I got serious about playing (after a ten year break), I was heavily into SRV...and my right hand style showed it...just pummeling the string (.011s on a strat) and having no dynamics. It took years of getting into new styles of music to break this attack on the strings. Finally, about ten years ago I got into jam bands, particularly Phish. Studying Trey Anastasio's style was one thing, but this video finally put it in focus...his light, controlled picking hand. He uses an Adamas Graphite pick - 2mm. It helped me find control as too hard it really makes a mess of the sound, light and controlled (like Garcia did). This video is also my benchmark for tone.

That is an EXCELLENT video, up close and in focus! Thanks for sharing that!! Hoping to see Phish this summer!!!

 

[Moondog Wily]

I just hope I don't slide too far back in the gentleness when my 12 string gets here. That's a whole other rabbit hole methinks...

See one of my problems is, the first guitar I bought was a Martin 12 string (D12-20)! The higher action and double amount of strings definitely interfered with me developing a light touch!! I still have that guitar, and it sounds even more beautiful 30 years later, but about 2 years ago the neck started separating and I have not yet had it fixed!!! Can't wait to see your new 12 when you get it!!!!

 

[CandidPicker]

About a decade ago, my doctor diagnosed me with early-onset carpal tunnel from excessive computer time, and ham-fisted guitar practice and gigs.

Since then, my approach to guitar practice has lightened up regards my grip, 1) because I learned how to play acoustic guitar EBEABE with a capo that utilizes chord intervals and open chords, 2) I thought it wise to switch to .009 gauge strings on my electric guitars to enable a lighter grip, and 3) I made a conscious decision to hold the guitar in a more relaxed fashion, with my left fretting hand not so tight, and my right strumming/picking hand, enabled for a wider range of techniques relaxed.

It may not be the best decision I could make, but certainly not a bad one. You can't expect good results to come from bad decisions, but perhaps the tricky part is realizing that if one addresses the problem correctly, it might help produce better results next time.

 

[LunarRock]

Its another volume one, but try a always on boost pedal (I use a compressor set low for sustain) to bring up the volume

It you are already at the re-fret stage, could go stainless and make them harder, but will change the sound of the guitar

Maybe switch to softer than fret strings to make them the sacrifical element

Are my strings wearing down my frets?

Hello and welcome back to the next instalment of the Strings Direct blog. In this entry, we’re going to talk about the relationship between your frets and your strings and in particular how they can affect one another. Your frets and your strings are like two best friends. They have a very...

www.stringsdirect.co.uk

 

[aphantomvaper]

When I got serious about playing (after a ten year break), I was heavily into SRV...and my right hand style showed it...just pummeling the string (.011s on a strat) and having no dynamics. It took years of getting into new styles of music to break this attack on the strings. Finally, about ten years ago I got into jam bands, particularly Phish. Studying Trey Anastasio's style was one thing, but this video finally put it in focus...his light, controlled picking hand. He uses an Adamas Graphite pick - 2mm. It helped me find control as too hard it really makes a mess of the sound, light and controlled (like Garcia did). This video is also my benchmark for tone.

Can't speak highly enough of the Adamas picks. They don't wear out either!

 

[JasonE]

I have revisited this topic a few times in my playing. I know for me, if I start gripping the neck too hard, it really slows me down. I set my guitars up with a low action. I really don't need to press all that hard on the strings to fret them. I have to remind myself of that every so often. One thing that helped me was to do some much longer practice sessions. If you are squeezing hard, your fingers will get sore. Keep playing. It starts to sink in that you can't press hard because it hurts but you can still play if you lighten up on the neck. This process has helped me reprogram myself a few times over the years. If I am playing frequently the lesson seems to stick.

I just saw that someone mentioned volume. This is another good one that I have used. Louder volume tends to make me lighten up. The opposite is true as well. When I am having trouble hearing myself at a gig, I play harder and it causes me to grip harder. I just have to be careful to not start a volume war trying to get things working. I usually start looking for ways to reposition my amp to get my ears in the beam.

 

[60s Pop Man]

I have spent the last few hours (rabbit hole alert) on the interweb, researching ways to lighten up my touch on the guitar. Wondering if anyone has any suggestions ;~)) That is enough said, but will add a bit of description now to detail some specifics, what I have already tried, what I have not tried but am going to try etc.

Although I have been "playing" guitar for over 30 years, it was not until 2021 that I really grabbed but bull by the horns. I played more in that year than the rest of my life combined. I am on a similar track for this year. At the beginning of 2022, I decided to get a grip on my ham fisted death grip and have made a lot of progress. I would say that I used to be 100% ham fisted, and am now at about 60-70% of the time ham fisted, which is certainly an improvement. I blame my ham fisted technique in part on guitars that had high action that forced me to use a lot of pressure to be able to fret chords/notes properly. Of course, my lack of actually spending any time with my guitars was an issue as well among other things. One of the things that is pushing me to address this more intently is, I have a couple of dents in my 1,2 and 3 frets on my 594 HBII, and I know that part of that is due to Mr Ham and his fist grip! This is a result of ~1500 hours of of playing in the 18 months I have owned this guitar (and I acquired it as a brand new item that was "born" less than 30 days from the time I became the owner). I don't want this happening to my other guitars, nor do I want it to continue at this rate on this guitar (fret job every two years, ouch), so looking to find additional ways to lighten up my grip. Here are my observations as well as my techniques/methods I have tried or read about.

Observations:
1. On slower material (let's say Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, etc.), I have almost zero problem maintaining a light touch.
2. If I think about what I am doing, I can lighten the touch, but decades of playing with a much tighter grip has me reverting to the ham fist when I don't think about it. I also have a problem with having to think about it as I then generally start to make other mistakes.
3. The more intense a song gets, the more likely I am to start gripping tighter (and of course, this is sometimes necessary).
4. I started working on lightening my touch because of hand/fingertip pain starting to pop up after long/intense sessions.
5. Started working on lighter touch about 6 months ago and have made some progress as noted above but still have a lot of work to do.

Techniques/Methods:
1. I have tried playing stuff with NO thumb on the back of the neck. It was liberating to know that I could actually do that, but it is certainly not my preferred technique or example of my best playing.
2. I have tried to consciously reduce my grip when I feel Mr. Ham Fist squeezing the life out of the guitars neck.
3. I have read about turning up the volume on amp so that you are forced to touch lighter and will try this.
4. I have read about "just practice" and at 4-6 hours a day, I am there.
5. I have read about playing more slowly to develop the muscle memory of the lighter touch and will be implementing this (although I generally do this anyway after my girl goes to sleep and I need to take things down a few notches every night - no secluded practice place at this point and very open architecture in this house).
6. I have read about keeping fingers closer to the fret when making notes or chords and will be ensuring I am doing so whenever possible.

Any advice/suggestion/thoughts on this appreciated. My apologies if there is already a thread like this at this forum! I did do a search to see if anything popped up but after a few pages of search results, I did not find anything. If there is another thread, I will certainly consume it! Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge/techniques!!!

Hello,
You homework conclusions - Techniques/Methods - are spot on.

The short story is that application of these new methods will rewire your brain and calibrate your muscle memory.

Regarding: 2. I have tried to consciously reduce my grip when I feel Mr. Ham Fist squeezing the life out of the guitars neck. Yes, you will have to employ mindfulness in your practice.
Practice for shorter periods where you are able to apply good light touch tecnique. You will need to stop and rest before your forearms begin to turn green and rip through through your shirt sleeves. This requires mindfulness.

Definitely yes to #s 5 and 6.

This new approach to practice will require committment over time to achieve real change - modified brain wiring (sensory and motor systems) that instruct your muscles to apply the least amount of force required and no more.

Moving with tense muscles is a form of internal friction like flooring your car's accelator pedal while also pressing on the brake pedal. The resulting heat will prematurely wear out the brake pads. (Bodily tissue becomes stiff with excessive and prolonged tension which reduces real speed.) Even just concentrating on the accelator, a heavy foot will result in speeding tickets. It's amazing how little pressue on the pedal is actually required to be in control and to slow down/speed up when necessary.

In 2006, I went through this process for a whole year. It never really stopped as the better methods of practice are now the norm. So, slow practice without tension, gradually increasing speed with no tension, and taking breaks at the first signs of tension.

Another thing learned from classical guitar is to identify the bumps in road, and apply segment practice where I work through those bumps beginning with a note or two just before the bump and notes into the next section that flow smoothly. Practicing the problematic segments for a week or so before resuming performance practice of the entire piece has produced amazing results me. Nothing magical, just the outcome of smarter practice. And yes, segment practice that begins slow and with a light touch.

Best of luck!

 

[CVS]

I have had this problem as well (and still have to some extent). I was wearing frets out quickly for a while. Turns out it was my "grip". How did I fix this? I started by recording myself. I could just tell that there was tension in my body when I listened to the playback, especially on songs that I had trouble playing. I think that tension in your body plays right into tension in you left and right hands. What did I do? Two things - 1st I made it a point to add dynamics into my soloing, even if it meant slowing down on solos. This also helped make my solos more melodic. Second, I worked primarily with open string chords and easy to play bar chords with a goal of fingering them as lightly as I could get away with. It took a while but slowly things started changing and I "relaxed" a lot more in general. It's not perfect yet, but getting slowly better.

 

[aphantomvaper]

These days my hand is off the back of the neck and my thumb barely touches when I'm fingering for the lightest touch. Still a work in progress. For chording I wrap my thumb over the top for the low string and have a handfull of neck for less stress.