So you can bring the guitar into your comfort zone.
We often approach the guitar as something we need to wrap ourselves around. We end up in awkward positions because we’re trying to hold it and play it at the same time, sidelining a lot of our energy and attention.
With a strap you can find what’s most natural to you and bring the guitar into your space, bringing it to you. Strumming, picking and fingering becomes simpler, easier and smoother and your sound gets much more expressive.
But do have them play something every day. It’s the “every day” part that does the trick.
Kids get discouraged when they have to do stuff that’s hard. If they only play every 3 days it’s always hard.
Playing London Bridge once a day starts as a small challenge. By the end of the week they’re bragging about how easy it is.
Then they get the rush that spurs them on to play longer. They are more familiar with the success that practice brings and they’re more likely to dive in on their own.
They should have been called “pop-offs”.
I don’t mean any disrespect to the great Pete Seeger who brought us modern tablature and named the pull-off, it’s just that if you only pull your finger off of the string, it may not ring. If you pop the string with the edge of your fingertip, you’ll hear it ring out.
Try it.
Play a note on the first string (bottom) and instead of lifting your finger up and away from the string, pop the string by pulling down and away, sort of plucking it with your fingertip.
We play with our finger TIPS.
I know that seems obvious, but we often don’t do it. If we spend some time getting used to this weird use of our hand, playing guitar becomes easier. The reason is this:
The bone does 70% of the work.
When the finger gradually curves to come straight down onto the string, much less energy is needed. The bones of your finger form an arch, which taps down onto the string like a C-clamp with half the effort than if we use the padded bottom of our finger.
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