Forearm and biceps placement on the guitar

imc2111

I was wondering about the forearm and biceps placement on the guitar. What point of the forearm should be touching the the guitar? What about the biceps, should it be off the guitar (could this cause dampening of the sound?) or on it for increased feel of stability?

NylonDave

Here's my two cents.

It is really good to let the weight of the arm fall onto the guitar.

It is very bad to support the weight of the torso by collapsing the spine and forcing the arm and neck to do the work of the back muscles.

The weight of a well articulated arm is much less than the weight of the torso and head, this is the real nub of the matter.

Try and sit on a flat three legged stool about the height of your leg from heel to knee or less, this means the weight of your feet can go to the ground and helps unnessecary tension in your upper body. Do not put the weight of your body on the guitar. Put your arm where it is comfortable and you can reach all the notes and that will be fine, it will be easy to find that position (or positions) if you attend to the body as a whole first, remember there are lots of different positions that people employ and do well with. Whether the guitar is over the left or right leg don't really matter.

Another thing to be really conscious of is not to drive the elbows in towards the waist, that is terribly unhelpful and will make you clumsy and make pain likely.

Trying to follow simple advice in the format you requested will most likely not be helpful and trying to force yourself to do it can lead to real problems.


D.

Jazzaferri

Much will depend on the size of your body (arm length back length etc etc) , the lower bout of the guitar and where you wish to mainly play. Keep your back straight. Figure out if you will be playing with flat legs or with an elevated leg. Holding the guitar with your fretting hand place it in a comfortable position for your left arm.

Holding your picking hand in a relaxed bent wrist position allow your arm and bicep to find a natural and relaxed position that allows your picking hand to be in the right spot. You may have to adjust the guitar slightly to get both arms in a comfortable position.

imc2111

Here's a picture that shows how I'm currently resting the arm (biceps) in the lower bout. The guitar is 00 size.

Jazzaferri

Picture with hand in the right place would be a bit better but looks OK to me. How does it feel

Scoredog

As Jazz says above the right hand is very important...if it has the correct positioning most likely everything else is correct.

NylonDave

Scoredog wrote: »

As Jazz says above the right hand is very important...if it has the correct positioning most likely everything else is correct.

That has not been my experience. Usually getting the whole body right will make adjustments to technique trivially easy whereas focusing on micromanaging fixed ideas of what correct technique might mean for isolated parts of the body tends to be counterproductive.

Basically try and allow yourself freedom of movement and focus on sound and avoiding tension. It looks like your arm cant move much based on your bicep being stuck too far round, but I feel uncomfortable pointing that out because the fact that you completely ignored my post above suggests that you might be locked into fixed ideas about getting the 'right advice' (ie advice you are expecting rather than objective advice). I seem to always get into trouble with this but I guess I am saying that you are asking the wrong question.

Probably best to go and find a teacher who will help you answer technical problems by studying music and working on close listening skills. A picture can't really tell anyone very much.

I so rather still think I answered the question you should have asked in my first post. That answer might have been along the lines of 'Is there a correct position ?' and I would answer NO there are THOUSANDS of good positions and anyone good moves through a VARIETY of them for musical reasons. Unfortunately there are also thousands of bad positions and what they all have in common is the fact that people get stuck in them, mostly because they think that they are right. It would sadden me if the upshot of this thread would be to help you feel that you had found the RIGHT position for once an all, the sound you are looking for should guide you to constantly change position naturally.

You might think I am being awkward but that is not the case, half answers to complicated questions are reassuring and simple and wrong and unhelpful in every case, try not to get addicted to them it really slows learning down.

Everyone who gets pain or clumsy got that way by doing things 'right', ie not listening to their body or their guitar and trying to tell their body to do it 'right'. It is much better to do things well, especially or the listener.

D.

Scoredog

I am going to agree with some of this Dave and and disagree with another part.

Getting a good teacher who can see what is going on...yup agree totally with that.

The part I have issue is your comments about playing with a pick or not addressing that. This is not a finger style situation, though Michael Lorimar used to say if your tone production is correct then your technique is correct or something to that effect. To get the broken wrist looking correct there are not many options as where to put your arm. Knowing you have a broken wrist technique though is where an observer would again be helpful.

Bones

It also depends how long your arms are in relation to getting your pick at the right place between the sound hole and the bridge. Also depends on where the bridge is located (scale length, 12 or 14 fret, etc, affects this). I know this because I am small to get in front of the bridge I can only move my biceps so far back. Rest your biceps on the side, get the pick where it belongs with the wrist relaxed and slightly bent and you should be good to go. Yeah have a good teacher helps too. :-)