# How light is your touch ?



## TBayLefty (Jul 21, 2020)

After years messing around with different guitars and styles of music Ive settled on hard rock rhythm on an SG. Lots of AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, BTO, Sabbath power chord stuff with low string riffing.

I found I had to have light gauge strings to kill the twang and for speed. Because of that I ended up having to strum and fret with much less force.

How does your style affect your touch ?


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

i'm trying to lighten my touch, relax and breath while playing. 

My knuckles go white and water drips out of the fretboard from gripping it with so much force...LOL


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

I saw a Youtube lesson showing every time you pick up your guitar to play, first run through a scale routine where you concentrate on the absolute minimum pressure on the strings and pick.

Another thing I picked up somewhere is to find the spot between not enough pressure to fret the note and just enough pressure. Practice that when doing the first thing with the scale routine.

Lastly, become conscious of how far your fingers are from the frets and practice keeping that distance as small as possible. This will reduce the movement required, improving efficiency.


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

I switch back and forth between electric, acoustic, 12 string, and mandolin. They all require a different touch, At first I would always be sharp on the electric but over time it became natural to adjust automatically.


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## DeeTee (Apr 16, 2018)

When I started playing again after a long break, I worked hard to lighten my touch. I grew up on thrash metal and thought you needed to smack the hell out of the strings. I spent a long time doing one of the things @player99 mentioned - I played notes, starting with no pressure at all, and added a little more pressure each time until the note rang clear. It was amazing how little I needed compared to the death grip I had before, and it's improved my playing no end.


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## DaddyDog (Apr 21, 2017)

I realized I have a very light strumming touch the day my buddy played my Gretsch, and knocked the floating bridge off. I have never had that problem.

When I saw Tom Petty play shortly before he passed, I had a great view of the stage. I was amazed how Petty barely tickled the strings. I've tried to learn from that. Let the amp do the work.


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## Mikev7305 (Jan 6, 2020)

I've been working on my touch as well. Trying to loosen my grip a bit. I find I play a lot jazzier licks when I play softer, which is where I want to go. Playing in a band though, it's tough to translate that practice into practical use. I often start a blues jam with nice light touch, but by the end when everyone gets big, it's hard to maintain. 

Guitar selection seems to make a difference for me as well. A thicker neck helps me stay light


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## Eric Reesor (Jan 26, 2020)

player99 said:


> I saw a Youtube lesson showing every time you pick up your guitar to play, first run through a scale routine where you concentrate on the absolute minimum pressure on the strings and pick.
> 
> Another thing I picked up somewhere is to find the spot between not enough pressure to fret the note and just enough pressure. Practice that when doing the first thing with the scale routine.
> 
> Lastly, become conscious of how far your fingers are from the frets and practice keeping that distance as small as possible. This will reduce the movement required, improving efficiency.


A light touch with reduced finger movements adds to the player's efficiency in multiple guitar techniques and has nothing to do with how much power the musician can actually produce.

Powerful clean play only comes from the ability to vary ones dynamics and accentuation. Practising crescendo and diminuendo with scales, chord strum, rasgueado then going on to accentuating individual notes in scales and individual chords in cadences is the key to great sound and effortless technique playing any style of guitar including steel strings using a pick or pick and fingers or just fingers with the right hand. You have to differentiate between the right and left hands and not let your right hand movements make you fret the strings harder than necessary with the left. The opposite of course is true for left handed players.

This can be regardless of "guitar style" especially in the case of studio musicians who are often expected to be able to quickly adjust their technique to different types of instruments and styles depending upon the lead sheet requirements of the piece being recorded. If you are only versed in one technique then you are a soloist and will be in lesser demand. Hot single instrumental soloists are still needed but no where near as much as in the hey day of great studio recording excellence when fantastic solo studio musicians like the Funk Brothers made the careers of the singers and small vocal groups of Motown.

Adapting quickly to different guitars and having the ability to easily produce great sounds on most is the sign of a professional studio guitarist if there is still such a musician these days. It is the job of the studio guitarist to fulfil the vision of the oft times dictatorial producer/composer(s) and be able and ready on very short notice to quickly practice it up and make great sounds.

Having sensible ergonomics and a relaxed, well practised and efficiency guitar technique is a very import goal for all guitarists. Squeezing the neck hard to compensate for a lack of stability of the instrument or the action of the instrument is not a good thing at all. Holding and squeezing the guitar neck with the left hand with the thumb wrapped around the neck is not going to cut the mustard. If you must play thumb chords then that technique requires a very relaxed hand and skinny neck if you have short fingers to play solo notes effectively on the treble strings while stopping a bass string with the thumb at the same time. Those who have short finger do require much narrower necks to play thumb chords effectively without strain in the palm of the hand.

Playing the guitar, much like acting should be fun and not at all strained, that way if you do act out being strained in the play of a difficult passage, you must have ability to quickly return to relaxed easy play. This especially applies to solo guitarists who are in the spotlight and anonymous studio guitarists that can wail on it when called for as well as back off and lay down tracks. Soloists that strain away and look like they are in constant pain playing usually fail on stage horribly💣💥 and will not make it as a studio musician at all.
The audience or the producers will think you are about to die on them right on stage. Especially if you are as old as I am you just might!


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

It's very important to fret as lightly as possible to extend the number of years your hands will last.

I used to slip into gripping too hard when I played emotionally, I was told to try recognize this and stop doing it immediately. I can't remember the last time I noticed it. It doesn't directly change what I play.

My teacher would say, "force equals mass times speed.*" If you increase pressure you lose speed. He taught me a speed exercise where you bounce your fingers off the fretboard, the lighter the touch, the faster and longer you could play it [and stop before you slow down, stop immediately if it hurts].

*Or was it energy, or acceleration...physics.


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## CDWaterloo (Jul 18, 2008)

I am suffering from arthritis. My touch was heavy, and I think my early age arthritis symptoms are related with it.


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## Cardamonfrost (Dec 12, 2018)

Fretting hand, pretty light. Picking hand, pretty heavy,

C


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

For me, it's the wrist that determines dynamics. My pick grip is firm: it never changes, regardless of whether I'm picking hard or soft. But my wrist is loose enough to move as needed.

I learned that through this video:






I think it goes without saying that you have to relax to play more fluidly. You can't be on death's door for every single note.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk


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## TBayLefty (Jul 21, 2020)

Thanks for all the input. As someone said earlier, Im letting the amp do the work now. Can anyone tell me why thirds sound so awful through a high gain amp ?


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## Eric Reesor (Jan 26, 2020)

TBayLefty said:


> Thanks for all the input. As someone said earlier, Im letting the amp do the work now. Can anyone tell me why thirds sound so awful through a high gain amp ?


Experiment with lowering the b and the g strings a few cents instead of just tuning to concert pitch with a tuner. The intonation of thirds, fourths and sixths and triads and their inversions is also greatly affected by the player's touch on the strings and the practice of relaxed scales and musical passages in thirds is an essential study because that is the way you learn to vary your touch to intone a musical line with double stops in thirds and give it character, beauty and power. The guitar is not at all like piano where it is up to the piano tuner to get the instrument to equal temperament. And yes speakers driven by a cranked up amp can sound like crap, but like a good acoustic guitar when the conditions are right and player is at ease with technique on the guitar and most of all not worried about perfection of intonation, the real magic that is great music can happen.

Thirds in the lower register on the bass strings of any stringed instrument or indeed any instrument will always sound like hell and that is why composers avoid closed passages in thirds in the lower register in orchestral arrangements. Really great composers use closed voice passages in the lower register to create effects like terror in a piece of descriptive music. In rock grunge seconds and thirds in the bass create incredible unresolved sudden dissonance that can be used to great effect along with explosions and flashes on stage if the band can afford that kind of show. So with dissonance musicians can indeed create art if not taken to extremes where the audience starts to puke and run from the auditorium! 💣 🎸 I have heard two basso profundo singers deliberately singing against each other in seconds and thirds and it can sound like the earth is about to explode into nuclear war and demons from hell are about to appear if they are concert vocalists that truly understand what music is capable of doing. 😎

Even the level of humidity in the air will affect the way you hear passages in thirds. On classical guitar and steel string guitar achieving a balance in pieces of music like this one that is a famous study in thirds by Fernando Sor which reaches up and down the neck, can help the player to understand how to intone thirds with their touch and attack. The important thing is to also create your own exercises and make them as musical as humanly possible. We are not computers and do not have to play like robots can, thank Heavens.

Great sound on any guitar is a compromise that is up to the ear of the musician, always has been and that is what makes true mastery of the instrument interesting IMO.


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## TBayLefty (Jul 21, 2020)

Thanks for that Eric, lots for me to look into. I was just reading something the other day about equal temperament.


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## David Graves (Apr 5, 2017)

I thought I had a fairly normal touch. Until!!!! I got my hands on a Blackmore strat. Turns out I may push down a tad harder than I thought.lol


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## Jim Soloway (Sep 27, 2013)

Light with my fretting hand and absurdly light with my picking hand.


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## TBayLefty (Jul 21, 2020)

Jim Soloway said:


> Light with my fretting hand and absurdly light with my picking hand.


So what kind of stuff are you playing ? Im finding with the ac dc rhythm stuff I can do light fretting hand, but absolutely have to strum fairly hard.


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

TBayLefty said:


> So what kind of stuff are you playing ? Im finding with the ac dc rhythm stuff I can do light fretting hand, but absolutely have to strum fairly hard.


Jim has a lot of lovely stuff up on YouTube. Highly recommend checking him out!


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Light touch with both hands, partly out of necessity of very long periods of play, partly out of good training and self discipline, and partly just my natural inclination.


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## TBayLefty (Jul 21, 2020)

Grab n Go said:


> Jim has a lot of lovely stuff up on YouTube. Highly recommend checking him out!


Holy cow, you know your way around a guitar Jim.


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## Jim Soloway (Sep 27, 2013)

TBayLefty said:


> So what kind of stuff are you playing ? Im finding with the ac dc rhythm stuff I can do light fretting hand, but absolutely have to strum fairly hard.


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## Jim Soloway (Sep 27, 2013)

TBayLefty said:


> Holy cow, you know your way around a guitar Jim.


Thanks.


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## zztomato (Nov 19, 2010)

Very light touch. I go for accuracy and sound quality. I makes for a better dynamic range. If you always hit hard then that's all you get. If you press hard, you get poor intonation.


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## Moosehead (Jan 6, 2011)

I bang the hell out of whatever I’m playing. Sometimes you need to let up a little with the picking hand To clean up a bit. It works for my rig. Guitar into some pedals into jcm800 combo.

if you’re going for AC/DC Angus bangs it pretty good. Single channel amp sound will vary with the amount of force you pick with. hit it hard and you get a bit more grind. 

different styles may require a different approach.


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