Establishing strong left hand position and technique is so important. Good left hand position makes it easy for the fingers to move freely without obstruction or excess tension. Good left hand technique allows you to play accurately and smoothly every time you fret a note. When position and technique work together it gives you great confidence and allows you to enjoy playing the guitar much more compared to the feeling you get when you’re struggling to make clean notes.

Like with all aspects of guitar playing, there are many good methods, approaches and philosophies out there.  This lesson is a culmination of all that I have learned and applied to my own playing.  I have taken the concepts that I’ve found to be most useful, and attempted to create a concise lesson with these ideas at it’s core.  If you have a different opinion, would like to elaborate on a point or feel like you can add something of value, please leave a comment at the bottom of this article.

For the purpose of this lesson, I’m assuming you are a right-handed guitarist. The left hand is therefore the fretting hand. If you are a left handed guitarist, you will need to substitute the word ‘left’ for ‘right’ throughout this article.

The first thing you should try to do is keep your wrist as straight as possible. A straight wrist allows maximum movement of the fingers. The more you bend your wrist, the more difficult it is to move your fingers and you risk damaging the hand. This is because the tendons have to pass through the carpal tunnel in the wrist. When you bend the wrist, you reduce the amount of room in the carpal tunnel. This squeezes all of the tendons and nerves together. The median nerve, which passes through the carpal tunnel, is softer than the tendons. If this nerve gets squeezed too much it can be damaged. This can cause irritating symptoms such as numbness, tingling or pain. The reduced sensation from the numbness can make it difficult to play the guitar.

Not only is it important to keep a straight wrist to avoid injury, it also makes it easier to move your fingers. You can test this idea out now by trying to wiggle your fingers with a straight wrist and then a bent wrist. Notice the difference in your range of movement? Did you also notice any discomfort, pain or tension when your wrist was bent?

Note that above I said, ‘as straight as possible’. Depending on the shape and size of your arms and hands, it may not be possible to play with a completely straight wrist. Most guitarists have to bend the wrist slightly. You should aim to find a position that allows your fingers to fret notes while maintaining a relatively straight wrist.

If you struggle to get your wrist into a straight enough position, try reading this article on posture.  It might help to get your hand into a better position.

Using a guitar support or foot stool is also highly recommended to help achieve better position for the left hand.

The best point of contact for your left hand fingers is on the fingertip. This ensures there is less chance of the finger touching another string unintentionally while fretting a note. Playing on the fingertips leaves plenty of room on either side of the fretted string. Playing on the pad of the finger (finger print) tends to make this angle more acute. When the angle is more acute than 90 degrees, there is a higher chance that you will contact a string other than the one you are fretting.

The exact part of the fingertip that should contact the guitar may be slightly different for each finger. It’s possible that not every finger will naturally contact the string on the centre of the fingertip. When you curl the fingers into the palm, the tip of each finger naturally points approximately towards the Scaphoid and Lunate bones.  These two bones are located in the wrist, at the tip of the Radius bone in the arm.

Trying to play on the centre of each fingertip is like trying to make certain fingers point away from these bones when curled into the hand. This is an unnatural movement and will create more tension in the hand.

For most people, the natural position is to have the 1^st and 4^th fingers pointing slightly inwards, whilst the 2^nd and 3^rd fingers play on the centre of the fingertip. The exact position will depend on the size and build of your hand. The essential point to remember is that not all of the fingers need to contact the string on the centre of the fingertip. It is fine for the 1^st and 4^th fingers in particular to play more on the edge of the fingertip.

The thumb should contact the back of the neck. The padded part of the thumb, where you find the thumb print, does not necessarily have to touch the neck. In fact, if you bend the thumb into you palm, you’ll notice that that it’s the side of your thumb that is closest to your palm. When you bring your hand up to the neck, you’ll notice that the side of your thumb is naturally closer to the neck than the padded part.

Because the side of the thumb is the part that is naturally closer to the neck, it is advisable to use this as your point of contact. Trying to place the padded part of your thumb on the back of the neck will cause your 4^th finger to move away from the strings.

The height of the thumb on the back of the neck is different for every guitarist. This is because we all have different sized hands , fingers and thumbs. Generally speaking it should remain within close proximity to the centre of the neck (see shaded blue area in photo). This allows for maximum reach across the fretboard and helps to avoid slipping off the edge of the neck.

To maintain unrestricted movement of the left hand fingers, it is advisable to leave a small space between the hand and neck. In the basic left hand position, the only points of contact your left hand has with the guitar is the thumb (on the back of the neck) and your fingertips (on the strings). This allows your fingers to move freely without becoming rooted on the under side of the neck.

If you root your hand to the under side of the neck, you may have difficulty in reaching the lower strings. It also means you have to bend the fingers a lot to play on the 1^st string.  This requires more tension, which is to be avoided.

By keeping a small space between hand and neck, you can make small adjustments to reach all of the strings easily. Moving the hand so that it pulls the elbow forward helps you to reach the lower strings. Moving the hand so that it pushes the elbow back can help to play on the higher strings.

The job of the arm and elbow is simply to support the left hand. Neither arm nor elbow should ‘fix’ the position of the hand in place. This leads to excess tension. Excessive tension in any part of the body is something that is to be avoided as far as possible when playing guitar.

One way to think about the arm and elbow is to imagine that your fingertips are fixed in place where they meet the neck. The arm and elbow simply hang in place between the fingertips and the shoulder. Although the actual mechanics of playing the guitar are different (i.e. the arm will be actively engaged as we move), this analogy always helped me to play with minimal tension.

The direction of pressure should always be towards the fret board. This helps you to play with minimum energy, because your whole effort is being exerted on fretting the note.  Scott Tennant covers the importance of economy of effort, economy of energy and economy of motion in his technique manual Pumping Nylon. I strongly recommend you check out his book for more on the ‘economy’ concept.

Playing with minimum energy also allows your finger to quickly move away from the string once it has performed it’s duty. This means you can return to your basic starting position more quickly and be ready to play the next note.

If you press the string towards the fret board, but not at 90 degrees, you risk bending the sting out of tune. If you press the string at 45 degrees to the fret board and push with enough force, the string will slide along the fret. This bends the note higher in pitch.

You should try to exert all pressure towards the fret board as far as possible. The thumb should not be actively pushing against the back of the neck. It’s job is simply to support the neck of the guitar from the other side when the fingers push the strings towards the frets.  Think of the thumb as being a brick wall that your fingers push against.

The driving force behind the left hand fingers comes from the muscles and tendons in the hand and forearm. Muscles in the forearm pull on the tendons, which run through the wrist and hand.

The main movement and power comes mostly from the knuckle joint (MCP joint). Think of this joint as being the ‘force’ behind the movement.

The job of the smaller joints closer to the tip of the finger (the PIP and DIP joints) is primarily to get the finger into the correct position by contracting or extending as much as required.

When playing an open string there are two points of contact; between the nut and the bridge. It’s possible to change the sound of a string by effectively shortening it’s length. We can do this by ‘fretting notes’ on the guitar. This involves pressing down on the string so that a new point of contact is created between the fret and the bridge, instead of the nut and the bridge.

To get a strong point of contact when fretting a note, it is best to press down directly behind the fret. This creates the largest angle and thus produces a clean sounding note.

Placing the finger further back behind the fret produces a smaller angle. This is sometimes not sufficient enough to create a strong point of contact. The result is that the note can sound ‘muted’ or can ‘buzz’.