Video Question: Bad Technique?

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Date: December 14th, 2007 | Length: 4.53 | Instructor: Matt Hammond

Seanman asked "I Like to mute the 6th string with my thumb on open chords like A and C because I often will hit the E string by mistake while strumming. Is this a bad habbit that I should move away from." Another benefit of being a member of JamPlay is the video response section. Our expert staff fields questions from our members and provides video responses each week.

Other Video Responses:

Shifting Chords - April 11th, 2008 (2 minutes, 20 seconds)

Dsrinath_123 asks, "Hi Steve, this is srinath here, enjoying your basic lessons. I have started learning guitar a few months back before joining jamplay, i learned a few chords and while i was doing a chord shifting i used to hit all open strings in the last beat, this is how I learned (I dont want to mention from where i learned). To explain a bit more, let me put this way, I am strumming a 4/4 eight note strum( D U D U D U D U) and two chords Dmajor and Gmajor and when I am going to shift from Dmajor to Gmajor or vice versa, I would hit all open strings at the last note(U) , but in your lesson it seems that we have to shift after the last note, i want to know whether what i am doing now is correct or not, if not please provide me some exercise to correct it. I would be very glad if my question is answered by Steve Eulberg." View Response

Fast Picking - July 18th, 2008 (3 minutes, 34 seconds)

StephenWhan asks, "Can you give any advice as to how to improve fast picking techniques? By way of example, I've been messing around with the intro to Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years" for a while now and find that I keep missing the string every 3-4 picks. Either I miss the string altogether, or I dig too deep into the preceding note and it throws off my rhythm. I've tried practicing without using my left hand and get fairly accurate relatively quickly, but as soon as I re-introduce the left and start depressing strings, I go right back to missing strings again. Slowing down, I'm 100%, so it's the tempo and length of the repetition that's throwing me off. Any and all help, as always, is greatly appreciated. Jam on!" View Response

Alternate Picking Hand Positioning - August 2nd, 2007 (6 minutes, 58 seconds)

Sohail288 asks, "Can there be a lesson that shows how to alternate pick faster and also detailing the correct posture for optimum speed." View Response

Arpeggios - March 24th, 2008 (2 minutes, 21 seconds)

Sauly asks, "I am an acoustic guitar player & singer in a band, there is only 3 of us & im keen to move on to electric thats more the direction i want to take my music. So i want to be able to cover rhythm and lead. Could someone put up some more information on arpeggio's ? I practice all the time but i just cant seem to get to the next level of soloing or fills around chords. Is arpeggio's the right direction?" View Response

Guitar Action - April 21st, 2008 (13 minutes, 23 seconds)

Jdemail78 says, "I hear a lot about guitar action but I'm not really sure what is good or bad. I had purchased an acoustic guitar that I believe had very low action (strings were very close to the neck of the guitar) and it was very easy to play but it ended up having some issues with fret buzz and other ringing sounds that I did not like and could not get corrected at the local guitar shop. I've since replaced it with a little bit better guitar and I no longer have any fret buzz nor do I have any ringing sounds but it seems like the action is higher (strings are much higher off the neck of the guitar) and therefore, for me as a beginner, it is harder to play. My question is when it comes to an experienced guitar player (which I am not...yet...) is it good to have a guitar with higher action or lower action? What would one typically prefer? Do really nice expensive guitars come with very low action making them easy to play but don't have any buzzing issues or is it a case where as you get better, higher action is ok because your better at fretting chords and notes? My curiosity with this comes from a hope that the guitar I have now, with it's strings higher off the fret board, will slowly become easier to play as I get better and I'll become ok with the higher action because it does sound better and cleaner than the one I had with the lower action. Also, please correct me if I have the "high action" "low action" descriptions backwards." View Response