Why You're Touching the Wrong Strings
One of the most frustrating parts of learning the guitar is hearing that sound of extra strings ringing. You meant to hit the “A” string but you accidentally hit the “D” string. It really is infuriating.
It’s important to recognize that this is a picking-hand problem. Your picking hand is not very accurate.
Here are a few tips for diagnosing and resolving the problem.
Possible Causes of Pick-Hand Inaccuracy
Beginners: are you playing the wrong guitar?
Hopefully this advice mostly applies to beginners, as switching from right-hand to left-hand guitar is not easy after you’ve already learned how to play.
But it’s worth asking if you’re playing the wrong guitar. If you’re left-handed, but playing the standard right-handed guitar, you may have this problem.
There’s a reason why the right-handed version of the guitar has the right-hand picking the strings, and the left-hand guitar has the left-hand picking them. That’s because as your technique develops, it becomes critically important for the picking hand to be accurate.
Are you mostly concentrating on your fretting hand?
If you’ve mostly been worried about playing the correct notes and patterns with your fretting hand, and you’ve mostly been looking at your fretting hand while you play, then it’s no wonder that your picking hand is starting to fall behind. Address this by spending some time working on picking etudes. Memorize the etudes, and watch your picking hand while you play them.
Are you playing from memory?
Reading music off of the page or tab is not going to help you improve your picking accuracy very quickly. If you want to make your pick-hand more accurate, you’ll need to concentrate just on doing that. That means memorizing challenging music with difficult picking patterns and many string skips. And practicing the music at a slow speed, ideally with a metronome, while watching your picking hand closely for errors. Focus on minimizing motion and maximizing efficiency.
Tips to Improve Picking Accuracy
If you’ve identified a problem, fix it
If your picking hand is inaccurate, this is the kind of problem that will get better on its own, but only after a very long time. And you will never have a really high-level of accuracy without working towards it intentionally. If this problem is bothering you, make it a top priority to address. That means spending time every day improving it.
You can almost never go wrong by investing time working on better technique.
Practice string skipping
String skipping puts a great deal of pressure on the picking hand to get its act together. You should patiently practice string skipping exercises until this problem improves.
Play classical etudes
Play classical etudes, even if you think they’re boring. Find one or two great etudes and get to work. Many of the players with the best right-hand technique credit this to practicing classical etudes.
Here are a few great etudes to build right-hand technique:
These etudes can help you build excellent technique by pressuring your right hand to make many accurate leaps and jumps across the strings.
To make the most of them, you’ll want to first memorize the etudes, which may mean spending less time on right-hand accuracy at first. Once memorized, you can play the etudes from memory while carefully monitoring your picking hand.
Be patient
The problem you are having affects many players, even those who have played for 10 years or more. It is very frustrating, and it is one of the problems that can make you feel like you’ll never really get a grip on the guitar. But it will improve. Your hands will get better, if you ask them to.
Think about your overall pick-hand technique
If you’ve spent 2 months or more focused on improving your pick-hand technique and you’re not seeing the improvements you expect, you may need to change your technique.
You may need a fundamental change in technique. This is a tough decision because it can set you back at first. It can actually rewind your playing to a previous skill level. It feels much like starting back at square one. But if you’re not seeing improvement in your technique, you may need to change it. It’s important to recognize when a technique has brought you to a dead end. Because you can stay at that dead end for one year or ten years. But if you’re not getting better, you need to try new techniques.
Here are a list of habits you may need to consider changing:
- Hold the pick differently. The pick should not be perpendicular to the strings, but come down at an angle. This allows the smoothest attack and release of the string, both for downstrokes and upstrokes. (More about holding the pick...)
- Don’t rest your right-hand on the fretboard. (With the exception of muted notes.) The habit of stabilizing your hand on the fretboard is controversial, and may be causing problems.
- Relax your wrist. If you’re feeling tension and difficulty in the wrist, it may be time to rethink it. Consciously project your mind into the muscles of your wrist. Are they relaxed or tense?
- Relax your grip. You avoid dropping the pick by holding it correctly, not by holding it firmly. The pick needs to flex to pass over the strings. It is a solid, impermeable object and cannot pass through the strings.
