GUITAR
THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNIQUE | Chris Rocha & Jonathan Diaz
So many times we get so caught up with gear and tone that we forgot about the importance of our technique . Technique is definitely very tedious and requires the most time to acquire . In this article I wanted to go into detail about it with my friend Jonathan . I believe he provides a unique perspective on this topic .
About 2 years ago I was playing guitar more than I was accustomed to . Between church services , youth group services , church rehearsals , college ensembles , private lessons ( both receiving and teaching ), spontaneous gigs , and recording sessions , I was basically playing guitar between 8-12 hours a day . Typically , that is a good thing , but I learned a very important and unfortunate lesson in proper technique and hand maintenance . After about three months with this back-to-back routine , I realized that my hands were getting very tired , and I could barely close my left hand ( my fretboard hand ). At times even making a fist on my left hand would cause too much pain . It was the worst version of tendonitis I have ever encountered . After going through all of this , I value proper fretboard techniques and believe they ’ re important for every guitarist to know . Below we will discuss what I believe are important techniques to help avoid injury and pain .
PROPER STRETCHING AND WARM UP EXERCISES Before even grabbing a guitar and playing , everyone should stretch their fingers , wrists , and arms . I tend to get really detailed and concerned for my fingers since the severe Tendonitis day . I start off my stretching each finger on both hands individually for about 5 seconds . I don ’ t apply too much pressure , but I apply just enough to where I feel the finger start to stretch . After that I will usually grab my hand and stretch my fingers and my wrists on both hands . I extend one arm straight out and with my other hand I will pull back on my top four fingers while keeping my arm straight , this will continue to stretch my fingers while stretching my wrist . After this I will make sure my hands and wrists are loose just by shaking them and leaving my wrists and hands loose , very similar to when you have water on your hands and you want to dry them by shaking your hands .
WARM UP EXERCISES FRET HAND After some stretching I start on my warmup exercises , this is also the point where I will fix hand posture and technique . I ’ ll start with the usual chromatic warm up working my way from the low E string with all four fingers down to the high E string , then move backwards back up to the low E string . Once I do that two or three times , I ’ ll move up one fret and do it again until my pinky finger reaches the 12 fret . This is when I make sure that my hand possession is also correct by making sure that my thumb is in the middle of the neck , the fingers are curved in , the palm of my hand is not touching the