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Hand Positioning for Playing Guitar

Using the right hand positioning is critical when playing guitar. If your hand is in the wrong position you will run into a wide variety of problems. You hands will get tired more quickly, you will find it more difficult to play certain chords, you can even hurt your hand if continued wrong hand positioning is used. Below you will find our easy guide to how to use the right hand positioning. Using the right positioning will help you to play for longer periods and will allow you to play chords much easier.

If you're left handed, don't worry, Jimi Hendrix was left-handed! You basically have two options here. The first option is to buy a right-handed guitar and re-string it, so that the order of the strings in figure 3 is reversed. The second option you have is to buy a left-handed guitar.

If you're right handed, you will use your left hand, as shown below, to construct chords.

As you can see in Figure 7, the left hand fingers are bent and pressing down on the strings on the fret board. The back of the neck is curved, so that your hand molds into the shape of the neck. In this image, the thumb is arching aver the top of the neck. This is a common thumb position for constructing chords.

It is also ok to press your thumb into the back of the guitar neck when constructing chords, although this is more common when playing scales. Try out both thumb positions and use the one that is most comfortable for you

Don't worry about what strings your left-hand fingers are pressing down on at this point. We are just trying to get you familiar with the hand and finger positioning.

For the chords you will learn in this book it is very important that you have only your fingertips touching the strings. If any other part of your fingers are touching the strings when you construct a chord, it will sound muffled or muted. To be clear, there are many instances, such as when constructing bar chords, that it is perfectly fine, in fact desirable, to allow your entire finger to lay across the strings. However, for the basic chords in this lesson, it is important to only press down on the
strings with your fingertips.

Right Hand/Arm

This is the hand that you will use to "strum" the strings to make the different chord sounds. Remember to position your hand so that when you strike the strings, you are strumming in the shaded region of figure 5. This is the most resonant sounding part of the guitar.