Never spend more than a few seconds getting the pick out of your guitar again! Here’s how! DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE EXERCISE to Play Guitar By Feel.
If you’ve ever dropped your pick in your guitar you know how absolutely frustrating it can be to get it out.
Try this: Hold the guitar up by the neck, like it’s a sign. You’ll hear the pick fall down to the shoulder of the body. If you move the guitar in a quick tight circle you can get the pick to one side or the other and know right where it is inside the guitar. Then slowly lift and turn the guitar up over your head so that it is level with the ground.
There is a piece of wood called a brace which is inside the guitar next to the sound hole that prevents you from just sliding the pick out of the sound hole, so you’ll need to get the pick over that.
Just make a slight bounce or hop with the guitar and the pick will hop over the inner brace and jump right through the sound hole.
 Have you ever noticed how sometimes it’s harder to play when you look at your hands, especially with a song you already know?
If it’s a tune you already know, you’ve already memorized it. A lot of times if we sitting here, we’ll be playing something and just making tons of mistakes and we’re like, what’s going on? I already know this song.
And then we look away, or we close our eyes, and there it is. It comes right out. It’s this sort of magic thing, right?
It’s pretty weird the way this works and the way this happens. But it does, and you know it does. You’ve probably had this experience. If you haven’t You will, because that does happen.
How The Magic Happens
We see our heroes do this thing. We see them playing well and then they close their eyes or they look off. And then all this music comes out and it sounds so good.
Now, I can’t really get a caliper out or a slide rule and, scientifically prove what I’m about to say, but after 30 years of practicing and teaching guitar, and practicing meditation and watching what happens in the mind whenever we’re doing things, I firmly believe that what’s going on is that we are reducing distraction when we do that.
Obviously. Right? You probably figured that out. But the thing is, it’s not that we reduce our distractions so that we can concentrate and think about the notes and where our fingers go. No. What happens when we close our eyes or look off is it connects us more with two sense perceptions. What we hear, And what we feel.
And these two things together makes the whole thing simpler. Much simpler.
Let Yourself Play
Whenever you’re connecting to your sense perceptions, to what you hear and what you feel, that allows you to still be present, still play, but not get in your way. Because you’re not analyzing what you’re doing so much.
You’re being there, with it, and letting the training come through. That way you can actually play better. That’s why it works. And it’s just fascinating. It’s like a magic trick. It’s scary, a lot of times. But you can practice it on your own at home. You can even take a short little piece like what I just did with the opening of Michelle here by The Beatles.
More Like This
If you’re interested in things like this, I would love to let you know more. Click in the link below in the description. It’ll take you to a free PDF you can download. It’s called Awesome Tone is Literally at Your Fingertips. Because it is. It’s right here.
If you want to nail a hammer-on, you need to feel just how much work is done by the bones in your fingers.Â
This is a technique is a major part of the guitar’s sound and to use it with the least effort you really need to get hip to how most of it is done by the bones.
Check out the video below for some good tips on how to get just the right angle to maximize this techniques’ fluid tone and lightning speed!
Why do they say to lower your thumb?
The truth is, it’s less about the thumb and more about the way that moves your palm under the neck, the space that creates and the way that improves the angle that it puts your fingers in. Watch the video below to see how much easier it makes things for your fingers.
Bored with playing the same predictable rhythms when you’re improvising? Break it up using the rhythms in names.
Say these names aloud and feel the rhythmic pulses in them, especially where the stressed syllables are:
Jimi Hendrix
Nirvana
Elliot Easton
John Lee Hooker
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Grateful Dead
Queens Of The Stone Age
Florence And The Machine
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The stressed syllable is the downbeat. Now try this:
Pick 1 and play a scale using the rhythm of that name.
Pick 2 and play a scale mixing the rhythms of those names.
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