Is There Really A “Right Way” To Play Guitar?

[Wadcutter]

I have often pondered this question because my “style” of playing is probably unorthodox I would guess because I never actually learned strumming patterns or bar chords or chord progressions or scales or any of that stuff. I actually taught myself with an old Burl Ives You Can Play Guitar Too book I found at a yard sale many years ago. But I lead worship on guitar at my church and people are always telling me how much they love it so whatever it is I’m doing I guess I must be doing something right...or maybe I’m not doing anything “right” but it still sounds good. 😂 Beats me.

[RustyAxe]

I dont know about a “right way” but theres plenty of Open mic evidence that there is a wrong way! . If you and your audience are happy thats all that matters. Ive seen some very unorthodox styles on YouTube that work pretty well.

[Gordon Currie]

There are MANY 'right ways' to play guitar. At the same time, some of these 'right ways' turn out to be poor habits that will need to be unlearned. I don't know about you, but for me 'unlearning' is a colossal waste of time and I avoid it whenever possible.

Some 'shortcuts' can turn out to be injurious over the long term as well. The amount of repetitive motion involved in guitar is huge.

The farther you want to go, the more valuable other peoples experience and wisdom can be.

There are lots of examples of guitarists who had idiosyncratic techniques. What we don't hear about are all the guitarists who had an idiosyncratic technique and gave up playing because it limited their progress or they developed tendonitis etc.

[Wadcutter]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

There are MANY 'right ways' to play guitar. At the same time, some of these 'right ways' turn out to be poor habits that will need to be unlearned. I don't know about you, but for me 'unlearning' is a colossal waste of time and I avoid it whenever possible.

Some 'shortcuts' can turn out to be injurious over the long term as well. The amount of repetitive motion involved in guitar is huge.

The farther you want to go, the more valuable other peoples experience and wisdom can be.

There are lots of examples of guitarists who had idiosyncratic techniques. What we don't hear about are all the guitarists who had an idiosyncratic technique and gave up playing because it limited their progress or they developed tendonitis etc.

And this is why I don’t attempt to teach my grandkids guitar. I have taught them a few basic chords like G,C,D and a few others but I am paying for them to take lessons from a person who knows what he’s doing and knows how to teach. I don’t want my grandkids picking up any of my bad habits and shorts cuts that would inhibit their ability to progress on guitar and be the best they can be. And I think I may have assisted the premsture progression of carpal tunnel in my wrists from my unorthodox playing style and I certainly don’t want to pass THAT on to my grandkids.

[Toby Walker]

Beyond the fundamentals - such as holding the guitar, hand positioning and developing a strong sense of time - the rest depends on what style you're going to pursue. One thing for certain - if you develop bad habits early on, it's going to take a LONG time to correct them, provided of course you find a decent instructor, which you should have done in the first place.

[EllaMom]

I just have to weigh in here..... finding a decent instructor is a LOT harder than it appears. Because there are SO many styles of guitar playing, and the teachers I've had (5 or 6) might know one or two, but not really the style I want to learn (fingerstyle....fluid/melodic-meditative-almost new-age/ballads....appropriate for hospice clients). Heck, finding a teacher who can teach fingerstyle can be challenging. That said, a combo of books, videos (Toby's are awesome, tho his style is more upbeat than my preferred style....purely subjective....Toby, you are AWESOME!), and, yes, live, in-person teachers if/when you can find them. I've tried lessons via Skype-like technology. And, in the absence of everything else, it is better than nothing. That said, there is nothing like sitting guitar-to-guitar with a teacher from time to time. The things I learn when I sit with a good teacher!

[FwL]

If you're playing stuff I want to hear, then you're doin' it right. Otherwise...

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[MC5C]

Right and wrong is a spectrum. It's like a path in a forest, if you stay in the middle of the path you have the easiest way forward, with the least resistance. If you walk on the edge of the path, you might trip and fall, but you get there in the end. If you walk well off the path, you tend to get lost and go in circles. And at the end of the day, getting to your goal is the answer to the question, whatever that goal is. I favour learning theory, at least some, reading music, knowing the names of the notes, and good left hand technique - using all the fingers, thumb back of neck, etc. It's just easier and you get faster results. Then Eric Clapton comes along and doesn't use his pinky, Keith Richards comes along and only uses five strings, Wes comes along and plays with his thumb, Jeff Healey plays with the guitar in his lap, and so on. So I say learn the right way so that you can embrace the diversions, because they have value too. At the end of the day it's the music that's the goal...

[Dino Silone]

I was in my local Guitar Center over the Thanksgiving weekend, to take advantage of the Black Friday sales. It was early, and the place was almost empty. There was one other guy there, who was playing more or less conventional jazz stuff - blindingly fast scales, chorded melody lines with loads of substitutions involving letters followed by lists of odd numbers and modifications.

Objectively speaking, he was very good. He’s also a local teacher. And very, very opinionated. He started preaching about how he has to first teach his new adult students to forget everything they think they know, and then he can teach the “right way”. Some of his opinions included:

- “Real chords” are never simple major, minor, 7th or 9th. They need a lot more numbers after the letter, and preferably at least some other modifiers like “sus”, “dim” or “aug”. The more modifiers the better.

- Tab should be against the law. Only standard notation should every be taught or used. (I have a question: If you’re using standard notation, why bother with all the silly chord names? Just write the notes down. When I played classical piano, that’s all that was written...

- Barre chords should be against the law. Mostly because they “only have 3 notes in them”. (I guess if they’re simple major or minor chords, they only have the notes in that triad. I guess that’s supposed to be a bad thing. What if you really only want a major chord, though?)

- The only place for the thumb is classical style, centered at the back of the neck. Never around the neck.

- Never, ever wrap the thumb around to play the 6th string. (See above about where your thumb should be.)

- Never play with your fingers. Always use a flat pick.

- Never hammer on or pull off. Pick every note.

- Never bend notes.

- Theory: More BS than I could possibly write down. All of it was what I call “jazz theory”, which is (to me) a special case, and doesn’t generalize to other genres very well.

I could go on and on (he did). But you get the idea. The thing is, though I recognized that he was very proficient, I really didn’t LIKE what he was playing. It was the kind of thing that very fast elevators were invented for - to limit the time you need to endure the torture of the piped in music.

And, if I were to follow all his advice, I wouldn’t be able to play the music I love to play - it breaks all his rules.

I thought about my own personal guitar heroes, who include people like Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, Gary Davis, Dave Von Ronk, Robert Johnson, ... and they all had their own way of playing, which broke most of the rules this guy was spouting.

Anyway. Yes, if you get into habits that won’t let you play what you’re aiming at, then that’s a bad thing. But it’s important to know what you’re aiming at, and define the bad (and good) habits based on that.

[Denny B]

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Attributed to Pablo Picasso

[stanron]

The truth is that there are several 'right' ways to play guitar. I'd say that most of these are genre specific. One of my favourite examples is grunge. OK it's an electric guitar style but it serves to demonstrate the point. The most important thing in grunge is to look so cool that the actual sound is unimportant. The guitar is worn, standing, on a strap that is long enough for the guitar to be approximately level with the knees and both arms have to be completely straight down in order to play. Trying to play this music with the guitar tucked under the chin would be completely wrong.

Another genre is classical music. The rules here are completely different. You sit down to play, one foot is on a stool, the waist of the guitar is on one knee. It's immediately apparent that in such a position the player is completely unable to duck from anything that is thrown. This genre is only for the very brave.

Standing to play is a good option for playing folk music. Your audience is sitting down, you are standing, and therefor the sound has the chance of traveling over the audience and they can all see you. Even more important, you can see them and anything that is coming.

Playing whilst sat upon a sofa means, almost inevitably, that the guitar neck is horizontal. Bar chords will be almost impossible and thumb over the back of the neck will be almost inevitable. This is yet another 'common vernacular' genre which can embrace several styles of music, and has the added advantage that almost no-one will throw anything.

In general terms there is a lot to be said for having the neck at a 45 degree angle to the floor. Bar chords and thumb over work equally well in this position. You can achieve this both with and without a strap, both sitting and standing.

Resting or not resting on the front is a subject open to discussion, as is one, two or three finger picking. Finger picking or flat picking is also a matter of choice.

At the end of the day the objective is to play music, and if you are gigging, to get paid and asked back. If you get paid and you get asked back, you must be doing it right.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

Objectively speaking, he was very good. He’s also a local teacher. And very, very opinionated. He started preaching about how he has to first teach his new adult students to forget everything they think they know, and then he can teach the “right way”. Some of his opinions included:

- “Real chords” are never simple major, minor, 7th or 9th. They need a lot more numbers after the letter, and preferably at least some other modifiers like “sus”, “dim” or “aug”. The more modifiers the better.

Sounds like a jazz snob.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- Tab should be against the law. Only standard notation should every be taught or used.

That's more reasonable, IMO.

Personally, I learned (taught myself) without benefit of tab. I had been taught notation in music classes at school, and understood it enough to be able to teach myself songs by reading songbooks. I could therefore play vocal melodies as well as chords, and I could play stuff written for other instruments. It taught me a hell of a lot about how music works, which tab would not have.

Having said that, as a teacher now, I use notation and tab combined. It's simply easier on my adult students. They're all amateurs, in it for recreation only, and I see no reason to get tough with them.
When I taught kids in school, however, (ages 7-10) it was all notation, not tab. They had little trouble with it. It only became an issue when moving higher up the fretboard, where the notes they knew were in other places. A lot of mental reconfiguration had to take place...

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

(I have a question: If you’re using standard notation, why bother with all the silly chord names? Just write the notes down. When I played classical piano, that’s all that was written...

Chord names are just much quicker. The advantage is flexibility of position and voicing. A C7 chord notated is just one position and voicing. A "C7" chord symbol means the notes C-E-G-Bb played anywhere you like.
Of course that has its downside, at times when a precise voicing is required. That's pretty rare in pop/rock music, and almost never the case in jazz. We're not playing classical music here! (Classical guitarists, of course, do read from notation, not chord symbols.)

In jazz, notation is used for melodies - not chords. This is where so many rock guitarists (who don't read) miss out, and why so many have trouble with improvisation. They simply don't learn melodic material as a matter of course. This is the one big reason for learning to read notation - to play the melodies of songs.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- Barre chords should be against the law. Mostly because they “only have 3 notes in them”. (I guess if they’re simple major or minor chords, they only have the notes in that triad. I guess that’s supposed to be a bad thing. What if you really only want a major chord, though?)

The argument against barre chords is that they are overkill for any simple triad; they involve doubling (or trebling) notes unnecessarily. That's anathema to a jazz player, because jazz harmony is all about avoiding superfluity. E.g., they skip roots and 5ths because the bass player will play those.

Obviously, the rule shouldn't apply to rock music.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- The only place for the thumb is classical style, centered at the back of the neck. Never around the neck.

- Never, ever wrap the thumb around to play the 6th string. (See above about where your thumb should be.)

I would certainly encourage beginners to avoid thumb over - simply because it's an easy bad habit to fall into, and makes a lot of things much more difficult - until one's fingers have acquired enough flexibility to be able to get away with thumb over.

Again, we assume this guy is talking jazz, where a lot of common rock practices (muting the 6th, fretting the 6th, adding vibrato or bending) are irrelevant, or less significant.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- Never play with your fingers. Always use a flat pick.

That's just dumb. For strumming steel strings, I would agree. For any other kind of playing, in any style of genre, fingers (with or without nails) may well be as good as a pick, or better.

Again, though, I can understand it as an injunction for beginners - it's good to get comfortable with a pick as soon as possible. For most things that beginners want to do, it will sound better with a pick.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- Never hammer on or pull off. Pick every note.

Again, an idiotic rule.
Of course, one shouldn't be lazy, using hammer-ons or pull-offs to make a fast passage flow better when it would sound better picked.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- Never bend notes.

Right. And never play blues either? Blues is fundamental to jazz, as is vocalised note bending - on horns as well as guitar.

Originally Posted by Dino Silone

- Theory: More BS than I could possibly write down. All of it was what I call “jazz theory”, which is (to me) a special case, and doesn’t generalize to other genres very well.

Quite. But even as a jazz teacher, a lot of the above rules are OTT.

[Silly Moustache]

A most interesting thread.
Of course all of us who play steel string guitars do it wrong according to "classical" players - even the idea of resting 6your guitar on your right leg starts you off wrong.

Do a thumb over barre chord and you get an extra ten years of hard labour!

Flamenco players do it differently, Russian style is different again and then there is what is called in Europe )etc., called "western style" which means American style and of course then you can subdivide that about a hundred times.

There are benefits to all "classical" and "jazz" styles, but more than many of us need.

I do like Picasso's comment quoted earlier, which is how I learnt to expose and develop film, but no-one really taught me to play guitar although I have attended workshops and taken lessons.

My "style" (and it shook me when it was defined as such) "just growed" and of course I "borrowed" from many.

Your guitar style evolves - evolution being developing something only when necessary.

As someone else on this forum says - "Play guitar!"

[Martie]

It depends what you're hoping to achieve. To draw a parallel - if you want to be a black belt martial artist, you have to follow the system - to the letter (this was certainly my experience with Aikido). Any deviations from the system corrupt it, and therefore your technique/'output' etc.(and I guess it's very similar learning classical guitar?).

And much as I enjoyed, and respect, the process of learning such an art, I have not had the same experience with music.

I guess the yin (receptive/nurturing) part of me was catered for in the martial art (amongst other things), but the yang (creative/doing) part of me never took kindly to certain 'rules' in music. As such, I tried taking lessons but always got bored and frustrated with the idea of playing in ways and styles that I considered too 'generic' (do this, do that, hold your thumb a certain way etc.), as I always tried to view music as an 'escape' from 'conformity' rather than a route to it (I was always an electric guitar player, and came to appreciate the acoustic instrument later).

And it's not that I eschew 'rules' per se. To draw another parallel, it's like reading and writing. You are now reading something I have written, and hopefully I'm communicating my message effectively(?!!). So, obviously, in order to engage in this interaction we both had to learn the 'rules' of English grammar etc.

And what you get out of this will depend entirely on how you interpret it. Yes, some things are fairly cut and dry (especially in English) but my intended message will be interpreted differently by different readers (sorry if I'm stating the obvious here.).

If I wish/choose to speak/write in perfect (non-colloquial) English, I will likely be received in a certain way. This is why I prefer not to use longer words, when shorter words will convey the message more effectively (or certainly in the way I wish to convey it). If I choose to use more oblique language/longer words etc. my message may become convoluted (depending on the receiver). So I choose to keep it simple and direct, although we tend to adapt somewhat depending on who we're communicating with.

An example of the above is that I have a very broad northern English accent, but work in a place populated with people with clear 'non' accents. As such, people sometimes look down their noses at me, but I'm not ashamed of my roots and refuse to 'refine' my accent (as I've seen others do).

And it's similar with music. Somebody showed me a video recently of those players who enter competitions, and much as they are technically proficient, I often find their playing to be truly soulless and showy for the sake of it - like they're engaging in a sport, rather than an art - like those painfully boring people who use long words loudly 'just' to show how clever they are etc., but have very little to actually say. But that's just my personal interpretation (see above) and if they enjoy what they do etc., good for them (I can fully appreciate players like Tommy Emmanuel et al. - and even do the odd Truefire course! But, to be honest, I have very little interest in their music).

One thing Aikido taught me was how to be centred and I'd say I have a fairly balanced approach in that I listen, learn, take what works for me, then adapt, tweak, incorporate, learn some more etc...

As such, I feel like I can appreciate a broad spectrum of music - from simple and popular, to complex and narrow in appeal, whilst developing and refining my own voice/how I wish to express myself etc. (and not just musically).

But we are all different, so it's whatever works for you. Just don't ignore the stuff that's been tried and tested (be a rebel without a cause!), but, conversely, don't be frightened of experimenting and exploring. As such, you get the best of both worlds, or as the authors of the 4000 year old Tao Te Ching wrote, you..."avoid extremes by staying stay at the centre of the circle, thus securing access to the totality of life".

[Mr. Jelly]

All I can say is if I had to learn it correctly I would never have played guitar for over fifty years.