Where should I look (fret board / picking hand) when playing single notes on guitar?
Where should I look (fret board / picking hand) when playing single notes on guitar?
Hi, I'm new to playing guitar. I was practicing single notes of song (All we know, intro) and it is surprisingly difficult to pick right string at right time without looking at my picking hand.
So should I learn to press right notes blindly or picking blindly as I can't look at both simultaneously.
Strumming feels much easier as I only have to look at fretboard. I tried muting strings which I'm not playing but it sounds bad.
You should look wherever you need to in order to play the correct notes.
And you should practice playing those notes a lot. Your hands and fingers will develop muscle memory and it will get better. Just practice.
Eventually you won't have to look at the guitar at all, but it takes time. You'll learn to pick blindly before you learn to fret blindly.
Maybe try some easy riffs where you don't need to move the fretting hand very much and then focus on getting the picking in order. When you learn to palm mute, you'll always know where your picking hand is or you can rest your pinky on the pick guard or on other strings.
It really just takes practice to get a feel for it.
Something like "Wish you were here" by Pink Floyd might be a better starting point for picking practice.
"All we know" has a lot of large jumps on the picking hand, which makes it somewhat difficult to get right. It's easier to fret though.
Since there are already proper answers, this is more general advice than a solution to your particular problem, but it should be helpful.
As a beginner, what helped me the most was developing muscle memory, which is what allows people to play even with their eyes closed.
I repeated a few simple exercises every day for at least 20 minutes with a metronome app. Start slow, then slowly raise the tempo once you get 3 "perfect" repetitions in a row. Repeating the same stuff over and over can be boring, but if you do it with discipline you'll get better, even if you don't realize it yet.
Pay attention to your mistakes. If it sounds bad, find the reason why, look up the proper technique and try to copy it. Keep your hands relaxed (avoid tenseness).
Any sequence of notes can be played as an exercise, so you can just pick a riff from any song you like and play it slowly until you master it.
Or you can also do generic exercises like going 1234321 on a single string, then going up or down the fretboard to get used to the distance between frets. Then repeat the same, but switching strings after each repetition, to coordinate the vertical movement on both hands at the same time. The spider exercise helps a lot too, as well as skipping strings.
Thanks, for guidance everyone.