Video Question: The Pinky Anchor

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Date: January 5th, 2009 | Length: 2.45 | Instructor: Steve Eulberg

Bgremel asked "A comment and a question. I played a lot in college (late 60's), and picked my guitar up again a year ago. Never had a lesson and hacked along quite nicely - strumming and fingerstyle. Found Jamplay by accident and decided to learn how to play, as opposed to hack. The first lessons were old news to me, but I still learned some good things. Looking forward to improving my playing. So far I've already gotten my money's worth and I'm only to lesson 4! I find the advertising before each lesson an irritating waste of my time - I've already signed up. How can I skip these things? Secondly, how can I skip through lesson segments to view the part(s) of a lesson I want to review? For example if I want to review something in the 3rd video segment of a lesson, how do I skip the first 2? Finally, in the videos your right hand fingers never touch the face of the guitar. For strumming this is fine, but I always anchored my 4th finger on the face of the guitar. This provided a positive reference for the location of the strings for my other fingers. Bad technique, or OK? Thanks Bob" 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:

Guitar Action - April 28th, 2008 (2 minutes, 13 seconds)

Jdemail78 asks, "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

Changing Strings on a Floyd Rose equipped guitar - December 15th, 2008 (6 minutes, 70 seconds)

Chingolingo wrote: "Hi i know you probably heard this question a million times but i recently purchased a new schecter with a floyd system, and since i never had one i was hoping if you could explain in a video how to change strings and tune the guitar thanks. Keep Rocking!!!!! \('o')/" View Response

Playing With Backing Tracks - February 5th, 2008 (5 minutes, 27 seconds)

Garfield asks, "This might be a dumb question but how does one learn to play along with the backing tracks? Thanks" View Response

Help Changing Chords - April 25th, 2007 (1 minutes, 00 seconds)

Danny91 asks "Well i've been having a problem and its kinda hard for me to change between chord to chord like im up to lesson 3 in beginners and im watching steve's lessons and he teaches great but i have a problem switching chords when im strumming so is it possible if u guys could send me a practice tape that will get my speed up and that i can change chords while strumming because i stop strumming when i change it cause im not fast enough so if it possible help me out . thanks" 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