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I'm going through modern gutar method (berklee) and when playing chords i often miss - either with left or right hand.
Is it okay to look at my hands when playing? Or should i learn to play without looking at my hands from the very beginning?
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06-18-2012 09:42 AM
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The more you look, the greater the crutch.
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Jim Hall is a Master Jazz Guitarist. This video will demonstrate everything you need to know about looking at the neck.
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Great vid and point.
Originally Posted by monk
However if you are doing a lot of sight reading, like I do as a session musician, looking down at your hands can get you lost in a chart. Especially an up tempo tune.
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Tom, Originally Posted by tstrahle
Good point about sight reading. But we're discussing the acquistion of jazz guitar playing skills, which may or may not necessarily include sight reading at session/symphony level.
I don't think that looking is necessarily a bad think for beginners. It's not that hard a habit to break after one has acquired some facility with the instrument. I took inspiration from Eugen Herrigel's Zen In The Art of Archery and practiced in a room with no windows. After a while, I could play anything I knew in the dark.
Regards,
monk
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Jim Hall is a model for many things, but certainly not posture. There's a reason he had spine surgery a few years ago.
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It really isn't necessary to look at your hands while playing. If you're not reading music try closing your eyes and visualizing where your hands should be going. If you're jumping to another part of the neck I don't see an issue though.
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You learn by doing things right, not by doing them wrong. This is because you have to do things right, albeit not very well - slowly, weakly, unrhythmically at first - before you can do them better. So (unless you're blind, when your proprioception will be different, I suppose) it's necessary to look at the fretboard when you are learning. It is also necessary to look at your hands but much less so: you need to look at the fretboard because that's where you want your hand and fingers to go, i.e., you don't look at where they are, but where you want them to be next. If you don't look, you're guessing, which is a sure way to get things wrong. Once you have learned where things are on the neck and how your hands and fingers move in relation to them, you can and should stop looking, at least all the time, because as others have said, you are going to need your eyes for other things, reading music, watching the band leader conducting, etc. But that's later, for now, look. Originally Posted by hellbike
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Don't do it....they are wrong. Use your ears and go slow, very slow. If your aim is to read fluently, it's the only way to get there. The reward is very valuable.
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Answering my own question - i just got to exercises with eight notes and looking on my left hand is no longer an option - I have to go back to earlier exercises and practise with things i was missing without observing the fretboard
Last edited by hellbike; 06-20-2012 at 01:05 PM.
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Also my experience.When you begin practicing sight reading you will automatically also practice playing without looking at the fretboard. When you sightread, you will have to look at the music score and nowhere else (well, perhaps at a conductor out of the corner of the eye). Originally Posted by hellbike
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Seems there is a division of thought in the goal of reading music and/or playing. The goal should be to play the guitar well. Looking at the fretboard is necessary to begin with. As your technique and knowledge develops, you shouldn't have to be focused if your hand is in one position. Look when you need to, and don't when you don't.
It's always about the performance. I've never seen a guitar performance and thought, "Man, he really read those notes well."
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I agree with this. Originally Posted by monk
Also I wouldn't consider myself a jazz player, though I've done hundreds of what's called Real Book gigs. Basically a gig where everyone has a certain level of competency and the same Real Book and we just call tunes all night. And fake it as it were. No rehearsing. Maybe different players every time. Often tunes are called that you may have only played once or twice or never, it's at those time when sight reading and eyes on the road(map) are required.
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I've always been a bit of a fretboard-starer, especially when playing single-note stuff. After 25-odd years of playing I've decided to work on reducing that. I'm not making a big deal of it, just trying to be mindful about it. I'm not finding it all that hard. I still glance down for most position jumps, but I'm guessing that will change with time. So my suspicion is that if you look a lot as a beginner, then decide that's holding you back, it's probably not a hard habit to break. The need to look will reduce, anyway, as your fingers get used to the things they have to do even if the habit remains.
The Jim Hall example is an extreme one (and amazing performance BTW) but it's easy to find videos of tons of top-level jazz guitarists looking at their fretboards at least some of the time.
What you definitely have to be careful with as a self-taught beginner is developing terrible posture and/or holding the guitar at an exaggerated angle just so you can see what you're doing properly. Because of the limited visibility of the fretboard, right from the start you have to accept an element of playing by feel.
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Anything or anyway of playing works when the level of play is easy, slow... whatever you want to call it. As you begin to play at more technically difficult levels of playing... all your weak areas begin to be exposed. Usually if your looking at your neck... a lot, you'll have a few other technical problems that might be of more concern.
Personally the only thing I hate about looking at your neck is... you look somewhat like a duffus in your own world...
The reading issue... if you read well, you have lots of time to look at whatever you want.
Usually when you start to play gigs... you'll get your act together. Interaction is not just with the music. While your learning to play, or at least learning the fret board... you almost need to watch the fretboard, just to teach yourself how to finger different playing positions, their not instinctive yet. But at the point where it's just a habit... as with most bad habits... you need to be aware of what your doing, your making a choice to look at the neck.
I am a jazz player, just as you memorize playing tunes etc... and don't need to look at the neck.... I don't need to look at my neck from memorizing my technique at playing what I don't know... what I hear or what's notated. The better your technique... the less mistakes. That skill also requires practice.
There are times where looking at your neck in amazement from what your playing is part of your performance... helps bring the audience almost physically closer to what your playing. Usually that would be the more technically difficult or incredible beautiful BS. Of course there are gigs where you might as well watch your neck... no one else is.
Reg
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These guys are having a contest to see who can solo with their eyes closed the longest. At 4:38 Barney checks to see if Kenny is peeking...
Last edited by cosmic gumbo; 06-22-2012 at 10:16 PM.
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