Part 2 - Right hand placement.

Having discussed plectrums and some methods to hold he plectrum, we can now turn our attention to right hand placement. Again this is very dependent on what the player hopes to achieve.

Lets start with holding the guitar, as this directly impacts hand placement and basically your entire technique.
Try, as a starting point, to sit with the guitar in the standard classical position (whether you play electric or acoustic) This position provides good control of the instrument for both the left and right hands. You don't have to desperately clutch and manhandle the instrument to keep it in position. This way you can focus on playing. You will notice that this position enables free movement of the hands, and lends itself nicely to proper fretting hand placement. See the left hand technique section on this site.

Standing with the electric guitar should also be as comfortable as possible, keep the guitar high up on the strap enough that you are able to play easily at the 12th fret on the low E string. Tilt the guitar neck upwards as it would have been if you were sitting in the classical position.

Now to place the right forearm. Ideally, you would like your forearm to make an angle greater than 90 degrees with the strings. 120 - 130 degrees should be fine, but please do experiment. Some folks hold the guitar in such a way that the forearm practically extends out from behind the bridge of the guitar and the arm is parallel with the strings. As long as you are able to comfortably reach all the strings with your shoulders relaxed.

The right hand position while standing with the guitar. Notice the angle of the guitar and he angle of the forearm in relation to the string.

So now we have managed to lay the hand comfortably on the guitar. The most important thing to look at now in terms of right hand placement, is the angle of the wrist in relation to the face of the guitar. This is extremely important as this angle is key to the proper "Turning a doorknob" or "Turning a key in a lock" picking motion one hears about so often, which is never properly explained.

Wrist Angle:

Examine the two photos that follow. The first photo is the correct wrist angle, the second one will prove limiting to the "turning a key" movement. If you want to use this movement, for the sake of your own sanity, make sure you use Position 1.

Position 1 - The thumb side of the palm is lifted away from the guitar, while the little finger side of the palm angles toward the guitar- Great for the doorknob motion.

Position 2 - The wrist is practically flat against the face of the guitar - Fine for side to side wrist movement, but very limiting for the turning movement required by the "Turning the doorknob" method.

Lets take a look now at another important and often misunderstood part of  picking:

Angling the Pick:
Angling the pick as shown in Figure 1 will produce a slightly lighter tone, and make moving through the string a lot easier when picking. The pick will feel to slip over the string as opposed to catching on the string.

Figure 1 - Vary the angle according to taste / requirement.

The next photo demonstrates the pick flat against the string. This provides a very strong attack, but is not as smooth in terms of tone and feel as the approach in figure one.

Figure 2 - Pick flat against the string.

I would suggest starting with the approach discussed in Figure 1.  

(I have found the approach in Figure 2 quite comfortable in this sense that it allows me to lock the pick into the grip, and by locking that first thumb joint relieving some of the muscle tension involved in controlling that first thumb joint. We will discuss this in a later lesson.)

Remember not to press the right forearm so hard into the guitar that you tense your muscles or limit your forearm and wrist movement. The forearm will rest lightly on the curve provided by a Strat style guitar.

That's it! We now (hopefully) have our right hand properly placed in relation to the guitar. Next time we will look at the picking motion.

(As always, there are different ways to achieve success in guitar playing. If, given a bit of time, a technique or position feels uncomfortable, try something else. There is no right or wrong, only different means to achieving various ends) 

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