It's okay to look! (for beginners)

PatrickUnderwood

Blues Newbie
I've been working on Sitting Easy Blues forever, and it just had me stumped. A few days ago I started trying to figure out exactly where my trouble lies, and it's in the picking hand--specifically, finding the correct string with the pick.

The way I'd been playing was to look solely at my fretting hand, leaving the picking hand to fend for itself. Poor thing. So I tried stealing a glance at my right hand when I needed to pick a different string. And it works beautifully. After just a couple days I was getting all the way through the song, nearly at full speed, and have moved on to Full Out Blues, which is going pretty well.

I've seen a lot of conflicting advice on this. My wife is a flautist and she thinks you should never look at your instrument at all. Of course with a flute that's pretty difficult anyway...

I'm a lefty playing right-handed, which might be a factor. But in any case, the point is, do whatever you have to do to solve your problems. Someday you probably won't need to look at your guitar at all. But don't cripple yourself with artificial constraints while you're learning. Whatever it takes!

What do you all (beginners and old hands alike) think about this?
 

Tayport

Blues Newbie
Struggle with is a bit too. I have been learning Bon Jovi's Cowboy. I stopped looking at the picking pattern and focusing on my fingering on the neck. some times good, some times not so good.
 

tommytubetone

Great Lakes
I try to look up as much as possible, especially at a jam or gig, but I still look at the neck when I need to, which is fairly often. Hopefully it will be less as I get better. Nothing wrong with it as far as I can tell. Like you said, “whatever it takes”.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
LOOK!!!

This came up in Dallas last week at the workshop and I got on my soapbox...

You're going to have plenty of time to get good and not look, why start early? Don't make it harder on yourself than it already might be. If you want to look at your hands, look at your hands. In fact, you probably should look at your hands, that's why it's hard to read and play together.
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
LOOK!!!

This came up in Dallas last week at the workshop and I got on my soapbox...

You're going to have plenty of time to get good and not look, why start early? Don't make it harder on yourself than it already might be. If you want to look at your hands, look at your hands. In fact, you probably should look at your hands, that's why it's hard to read and play together.

I may be splitting hairs and having a Captain Obvious moment, but I've discovered that I look at the fretboard and not my (left) fretting hand. I do a lot of sliding and moving (maybe too much) between the pentatonic boxes. If I look at my hand, I'll miss the note I'm going for about half the time. If I look at the fret I want and not my hand, I'll be spot on in the high 90% range. It seems the only time I'll actually look at my hand is if I'm mangling a chord and need to fix it.

As far as looking at my picking hand, I used to do that a lot, but lately not so much. I assume it's one of those things that practice makes less necessary.
 

Elio

Student Of The Blues
I think that like anything else, the more you do it, the more intuitive it will become and the less you will need to look. I remember my daughter taking guitar lessons years ago and the instructor would comment positively when she would look at her picking hand. His theory was that it was important to develop accuracy as a beginner but that there would less and less need to look over time. I usually find myself looking at the fretboard way more than I need to.

When I make it a point to look at the screaming fans (ok, look at my dog in the next room) instead of the fretboard, I can usually keep up reasonably well. I have also found @paparaptors's suggestion to work well, which is to look ahead to where I want my fingers to land instead of just looking at my hand in general.
 

JohnHurley

Rock and Roll
It does take a long time so that you get the right string with your pick "almost all of the time" but it does eventually get better.

Until that happens kind of split your time watching both hands. At times you need to watch chord changes with fretting hand but other times you need to see the picking hand ... so be like a hawk and see both at once?

Seriously it is good to watch picking hand sometimes it reduces neck strain of just watching fretting hand right? ( Or left ha ha depending ... )
 

PatrickUnderwood

Blues Newbie
LOOK!!!

This came up in Dallas last week at the workshop and I got on my soapbox...

You're going to have plenty of time to get good and not look, why start early? Don't make it harder on yourself than it already might be. If you want to look at your hands, look at your hands. In fact, you probably should look at your hands, that's why it's hard to read and play together.
HA! I consider myself validated. Thanks Griff!

Thanks to all for the opinions. Good to hear I'm not going off the rails.
 

JPsuff

Blackstar Artist
It depends on what I'm playing.

Generally if I'm playing basic Blues stuff I don't watch myself at all.

If I'm trying to figure out a complicated modal thing, then I will often watch my fingering hand.
If I'm playing something like 'Stairway to Heaven' then I tend to watch my picking hand.

Still there are certain other licks I play that I can't play well if I look at either hand and in fact play best if I close my eyes altogether.
 

BoogieMan

Blues Junior
Agree with JPsuff. There are times when I will look at my picking hand for accuracy as when skipping strings. Found myself doing this a lot for ABGU!
 

Crossroads

Thump the Bottom
I only look when I have to. And then it's just a glance, but it took some time to get to that point, so don't fret it. Fret it, get it?

What I found can help as well is looking in the mirror. This way you can so how cool you look.

Actually looking in the mirror helps IMO because if and when you go to jam with people that it what your are going to see.

So being able to recognize chords, signature keys and patterns in a reverse angle, I have found to be helpful.
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
as @Elio said, it comes with time, I was playing some night ranger the other night.................and may /may not, it has not been verified that there could have been some dancing around as I was playing, when I realized, I hadnt even looked at the guitar in a while.

Of course when I realized it, thats when I screwed up
 

Bob630

Blues Newbe
as @Elio said, it comes with time, I was playing some night ranger the other night.................and may /may not, it has not been verified that there could have been some dancing around as I was playing, when I realized, I hadnt even looked at the guitar in a while.

Of course when I realized it, thats when I screwed up

It’s amazing sometimes how the brain gets in the way of doing something.
 

Jack

Blues Junior
I'm always surprised at how many problems are caused by the picking hand. The fretting hand is where everything is taking place, right? The other one is just picking - that's easy :) Well, not really...so many times if I'm having problems getting something up to speed, I find it's because when practicing at a slow tempo, I'm able to pick in a very inefficient manner (as far as upstrokes vs. downstrokes), but when I get near full tempo, well inefficiency puts a ceiling on how fast you can go and trying to push past that ceiling just results in sloppiness - and of course I've practiced doing it the wrong way hundreds of times by then so it ain't easy to change lol.
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
I'm always surprised at how many problems are caused by the picking hand. The fretting hand is where everything is taking place, right? The other one is just picking - that's easy :) Well, not really...so many times if I'm having problems getting something up to speed, I find it's because when practicing at a slow tempo, I'm able to pick in a very inefficient manner (as far as upstrokes vs. downstrokes), but when I get near full tempo, well inefficiency puts a ceiling on how fast you can go and trying to push past that ceiling just results in sloppiness - and of course I've practiced doing it the wrong way hundreds of times by then so it ain't easy to change lol.

Yep, Exactly what I've found too.
I try to play it fast, remember the "best picking" (for me) then try to remember to use it when playing slow.
 

KurtTrampler

Blues Newbie
I looked at the fingerboard for years but I realized it made my wrist bend up when I rotated my guitar.

Dig? If I tilt the guitar up it bends my hand up, and hence my wrist.

2 things
1. My hand works better when my wrist is straight.
2. I'm fighting carpal tunnel syndrome. Straight helps.

So not at first, of course, but work toward using the dots on the neck binding, with an infrequent glance at the fingerboard.
 
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