Accidentally brushing strings with fingers while strumming (with a pick)

[beninma]

Has anyone realized this is messing with their tone and overcome it? It's almost like a squeak sound. It's the closed 3-4-5 fingers of my hand lightly brushing the strings on downbeats. Not there when picking single note lines. Not there when finger picking. It seems to somewhat be demphasized playing louder, and becomes more of an issue playing quietly.

It's taken a while for me to figure out what the heck was going on.

I usually can't hear it. But if I record myself I can. And the piezo pickup in my guitar really picks it up.

I had thought it was my strings, or the picks I use or whatever. A day or two ago I realized I could make the noise really bad if I just didn't even hit the strings with my pick and just brushed the tops of my fingers against the strings. I've been on a long stretch of fingerpicking lately and it was obvious it was gone when fingerpicking.

I'm going to talk to my guitar teacher about it next week but was curious if anyone else has run into this and conquered it.

Interestingly it's definitely not an issue playing electric the lighter strings downplay it and the magnetic pickups don't pick it up & amplify it. I play electric a lot, and I'm kind of wondering if this is a bad habit I picked up learning muting.

[warfrat73]

It's primarily a technique and accuracy issue. Addressing how you hold the pick might help (there are a few threads about this somewhere around here). Part of that would be perhaps paying more attention to what you're doing with the fingers that aren't actively holding the pick.

I've found that using a larger pick helps me with this too, allowing me to feel like a have a sold hold on the pick while also having a bit more pick protruding, which ultimately keeps my fingers a bit further away. (Clayton teardrop picks are just enough larger than Dunlops and some of the others that it makes a difference for me, but more and more I've moved to large triangles... but I have pretty beefy hands).

Posture can have a bearing on this too, if you're leaning back, for example, that will shift the plane of the strings, so that your stroke might diverge from being parallel to it, the net result being that your fingers get closer to the strings as you strum from the bass to the treble.

in addition to the adjustments mentioned above. The way to overcome it is to practice not doing it and relearning that muscle memory, thinking about the plane or arc of your strum in relation to the plane of the strings. I think a lot of folks, when they reach the bottom of their strumming motion, slightly rotate their hand to help bring the fingers clear of the treble strings.

[LifesShort]

Rather than closing your fingers when you strum, try opening your hand. Relax your 3-4-5 fingers and let them fall loosely.