Chords for Standing VS Sitting (When Playing Guitar)
Tempo:
120.45 bpm
Chords used:
E
B
Am
Eb
Bb
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
What's up everybody, it's Mike here from The Art of Guitar here to talk about standing up and playing the guitar.
You know, most of us are used to sitting and playing,
but as soon as you get the call from someone that you have to go to a band practice or a jam session or play a
show or whatever, suddenly you have to
make the change to standing and playing.
A lot of things can suddenly feel different once you're standing.
And let's go over those today.
The first thing is, where do you want to put your guitar when you're standing?
Some people think it's wise to keep it up high because when you're sitting and playing the guitar is at about this level, right?
Well, if you just put the strap on the guitar, kept it at that level and stood up, everything should be fine, correct?
The problem with that though is when you're standing it's a little bit different.
It just feels weird for me to play like this.
Some people can play like this fine,
but I found that my right arm feels like it's, I don't know, kind of in a strange place when the guitar is this high.
So I slowly let my guitar
drop over the ears to the most comfortable position for me,
which is where the top of the guitar is kind of at my belly and my arms are just hanging in a real
relaxed position and it feels like I can play all day like this.
For me personally,
this is a good place to put the guitar.
Some of you guys might have it even lower.
Some of you guys might have it
higher.
It's totally up to you.
One thing you're gonna notice is that the view from up here is a lot different.
Instead of being able to tilt your guitar like a lot of people do when they sit and play, which is a bad idea,
don't do that, you can see all six strings when you tilt the guitar.
But when it's straight up and down and you have gravity pulling your guitar down,
suddenly all six strings become one big string and you're sort of blind again to the guitar neck.
And
because you can't tilt the guitar,
suddenly the front markers, the fret markers, are gone.
You don't even have them anymore because they're facing forward and you're above it.
You're gonna find that the side markers are very important for that.
If you look at the side of your guitar,
hopefully you have markers on the side most guitars do.
So that's gonna be what you use to [E] navigate the neck now.
It's a little bit different.
The right hand is gonna feel strange.
So this is where all the techniques I taught about using your fingers, using your wrists, are gonna come into play because you don't want
to use your whole arm when you're standing and playing.
When you're sitting and you're, let's say you're playing acoustic,
it's easy to just use your whole arm to strum.
But when the guitar is in a different position like this,
you're gonna find a lot of value in being able to use your wrist and your fingers for a lot of the playing, okay?
How do you put it all together in this new position and actually feel decent doing it?
Well, I recommend doing the spider exercise.
I call that the calibration exercise when it comes to standing.
Because if you look it up on our YouTube page, we do have the spider exercise.
I actually do an entire practice routine with it.
And that's when you do one, two, three, four type fingering all the way across going string to string.
Now if you do that in different permutations,
what ends up happening is you get a new feel for the guitar and you just have new radar when it comes to finding things
on the neck when it's this far away, which could take a while.
So that's a good way to get calibrated is use that spider [Am] exercise.
I'm not plugged in today, but [B]
it's basically [Eb] just the four notes [Bb] going across.
[N]
And pretty soon you can get over that problem where you might be picking one string and fretting another.
They used to be a really bad feeling for me until I got calibrated through using this exercise.
Another big issue people have is their left hand position gets all weird.
When you're standing and playing, honestly, the most comfortable thumb position is over the top like this.
So whether you're doing Hendrix type chords or pentatonic soloing,
your thumb feels really good over the top when you're standing and playing.
I'm not gonna say that's bad.
A lot of teachers do.
But a lot of teachers are teaching the classical idea where the thumb is at the back,
in the middle of the back of the neck right here.
See where this line is on my guitar?
When it comes to standing and playing,
that's not comfortable for me.
But this is pretty comfortable.
It's the three-quarter [E] position, I call it.
So if your thumb is there and you go to do your old chords, like power chords, for example,
you'll find that your wrist feels pretty good.
See where my thumb is right here?
Three-quarter position, we'll call that.
If I bring it down to half position, which is here, watch what my wrist does.
It just starts to bend too far.
It's like I'm wrist-locking myself.
I don't like that feeling.
So you don't want to torture yourself every time you stand and play.
So you have to find that three-quarter position, sort of a gray area for your thumb.
Try the riffs and the leads that you used to do sitting down and see if that helps with that feeling.
So whether it's bar chords, power chords, simple scales, three-note per string scales even, this works pretty well.
Now, I will bring my thumb over [B] the top, like I said before, if I'm doing some kind [E] of pentatonic
type situation where I'm soloing.
And that kind of gets into the reason your thumb comes over the top.
There's one of three reasons why.
One is that it's either fretting a note, like the Jimi Hendrix type chords, where it's actually pushing down and creating a note.
It [B] could come over the top to help mute the string.
So if you're doing like a D chord and you just want to mute that sixth string, it could be used as a muting mechanism.
[Db] Or it could be used [A] as an anchor [E] when you're trying to do bends.
Like your thumb comes over the top to sort of offer like a counter resistance.
It makes bending and makes vibrato a lot easier.
You don't want to be bending,
let's say for playing a Zeppelin solo, with your thumb in the back going like this.
It just feels so strange.
But if your thumb's over the top, it creates this nice hand position
in order to bend and do vibrato.
It's great.
So my main tips are, make sure the strap is on correctly.
You do not want your guitar falling during the show.
Two, your vision has to improve when it comes to looking at the guitar in this new way.
Remember, now you have the side fret markers to deal with.
Those are going to be your best friend for a while.
Don't try to tilt your guitar when it's like this.
That's a bad habit to get into.
Calibration.
Use the spider exercise to recalibrate how you feel as you're playing across the strings.
Pretty soon you'll just be able to fret a note on any string and just reach down [E] and play that note.
It's a good feeling when you finally get calibrated.
And finally, hand positions.
So remember, with the left hand, that three-quarter thumb technique is very important.
And with the right hand, using your fingers and your wrists to play versus your whole arm or your shoulder.
Unless you're Pete Townshend doing his crazy [G] stuff, okay?
So with those first few tips, it should get you started a little bit on the path to standing and playing.
Of course, just doing it for hours a day is great.
So go ahead and utilize those techniques.
Hopefully it gives you a little bit of a head start on standing and playing.
And I will catch you guys at the next lesson.
Thank
You know, most of us are used to sitting and playing,
but as soon as you get the call from someone that you have to go to a band practice or a jam session or play a
show or whatever, suddenly you have to
make the change to standing and playing.
A lot of things can suddenly feel different once you're standing.
And let's go over those today.
The first thing is, where do you want to put your guitar when you're standing?
Some people think it's wise to keep it up high because when you're sitting and playing the guitar is at about this level, right?
Well, if you just put the strap on the guitar, kept it at that level and stood up, everything should be fine, correct?
The problem with that though is when you're standing it's a little bit different.
It just feels weird for me to play like this.
Some people can play like this fine,
but I found that my right arm feels like it's, I don't know, kind of in a strange place when the guitar is this high.
So I slowly let my guitar
drop over the ears to the most comfortable position for me,
which is where the top of the guitar is kind of at my belly and my arms are just hanging in a real
relaxed position and it feels like I can play all day like this.
For me personally,
this is a good place to put the guitar.
Some of you guys might have it even lower.
Some of you guys might have it
higher.
It's totally up to you.
One thing you're gonna notice is that the view from up here is a lot different.
Instead of being able to tilt your guitar like a lot of people do when they sit and play, which is a bad idea,
don't do that, you can see all six strings when you tilt the guitar.
But when it's straight up and down and you have gravity pulling your guitar down,
suddenly all six strings become one big string and you're sort of blind again to the guitar neck.
And
because you can't tilt the guitar,
suddenly the front markers, the fret markers, are gone.
You don't even have them anymore because they're facing forward and you're above it.
You're gonna find that the side markers are very important for that.
If you look at the side of your guitar,
hopefully you have markers on the side most guitars do.
So that's gonna be what you use to [E] navigate the neck now.
It's a little bit different.
The right hand is gonna feel strange.
So this is where all the techniques I taught about using your fingers, using your wrists, are gonna come into play because you don't want
to use your whole arm when you're standing and playing.
When you're sitting and you're, let's say you're playing acoustic,
it's easy to just use your whole arm to strum.
But when the guitar is in a different position like this,
you're gonna find a lot of value in being able to use your wrist and your fingers for a lot of the playing, okay?
How do you put it all together in this new position and actually feel decent doing it?
Well, I recommend doing the spider exercise.
I call that the calibration exercise when it comes to standing.
Because if you look it up on our YouTube page, we do have the spider exercise.
I actually do an entire practice routine with it.
And that's when you do one, two, three, four type fingering all the way across going string to string.
Now if you do that in different permutations,
what ends up happening is you get a new feel for the guitar and you just have new radar when it comes to finding things
on the neck when it's this far away, which could take a while.
So that's a good way to get calibrated is use that spider [Am] exercise.
I'm not plugged in today, but [B]
it's basically [Eb] just the four notes [Bb] going across.
[N]
And pretty soon you can get over that problem where you might be picking one string and fretting another.
They used to be a really bad feeling for me until I got calibrated through using this exercise.
Another big issue people have is their left hand position gets all weird.
When you're standing and playing, honestly, the most comfortable thumb position is over the top like this.
So whether you're doing Hendrix type chords or pentatonic soloing,
your thumb feels really good over the top when you're standing and playing.
I'm not gonna say that's bad.
A lot of teachers do.
But a lot of teachers are teaching the classical idea where the thumb is at the back,
in the middle of the back of the neck right here.
See where this line is on my guitar?
When it comes to standing and playing,
that's not comfortable for me.
But this is pretty comfortable.
It's the three-quarter [E] position, I call it.
So if your thumb is there and you go to do your old chords, like power chords, for example,
you'll find that your wrist feels pretty good.
See where my thumb is right here?
Three-quarter position, we'll call that.
If I bring it down to half position, which is here, watch what my wrist does.
It just starts to bend too far.
It's like I'm wrist-locking myself.
I don't like that feeling.
So you don't want to torture yourself every time you stand and play.
So you have to find that three-quarter position, sort of a gray area for your thumb.
Try the riffs and the leads that you used to do sitting down and see if that helps with that feeling.
So whether it's bar chords, power chords, simple scales, three-note per string scales even, this works pretty well.
Now, I will bring my thumb over [B] the top, like I said before, if I'm doing some kind [E] of pentatonic
type situation where I'm soloing.
And that kind of gets into the reason your thumb comes over the top.
There's one of three reasons why.
One is that it's either fretting a note, like the Jimi Hendrix type chords, where it's actually pushing down and creating a note.
It [B] could come over the top to help mute the string.
So if you're doing like a D chord and you just want to mute that sixth string, it could be used as a muting mechanism.
[Db] Or it could be used [A] as an anchor [E] when you're trying to do bends.
Like your thumb comes over the top to sort of offer like a counter resistance.
It makes bending and makes vibrato a lot easier.
You don't want to be bending,
let's say for playing a Zeppelin solo, with your thumb in the back going like this.
It just feels so strange.
But if your thumb's over the top, it creates this nice hand position
in order to bend and do vibrato.
It's great.
So my main tips are, make sure the strap is on correctly.
You do not want your guitar falling during the show.
Two, your vision has to improve when it comes to looking at the guitar in this new way.
Remember, now you have the side fret markers to deal with.
Those are going to be your best friend for a while.
Don't try to tilt your guitar when it's like this.
That's a bad habit to get into.
Calibration.
Use the spider exercise to recalibrate how you feel as you're playing across the strings.
Pretty soon you'll just be able to fret a note on any string and just reach down [E] and play that note.
It's a good feeling when you finally get calibrated.
And finally, hand positions.
So remember, with the left hand, that three-quarter thumb technique is very important.
And with the right hand, using your fingers and your wrists to play versus your whole arm or your shoulder.
Unless you're Pete Townshend doing his crazy [G] stuff, okay?
So with those first few tips, it should get you started a little bit on the path to standing and playing.
Of course, just doing it for hours a day is great.
So go ahead and utilize those techniques.
Hopefully it gives you a little bit of a head start on standing and playing.
And I will catch you guys at the next lesson.
Thank
Key:
E
B
Am
Eb
Bb
E
B
Am
What's up everybody, it's Mike here from The Art of Guitar here to talk about standing up and playing the guitar.
You know, most of us are used to sitting and playing,
but as soon as you get the call from someone that you have to go to a band practice or a jam session or play a
show or whatever, suddenly you have to
make the change to standing and playing.
A lot of things can suddenly feel different once you're standing.
And let's go over those today.
The first thing is, where do you want to put your guitar when you're standing?
Some people think it's wise to keep it up high because when you're sitting and playing the guitar is at about this level, right?
Well, if you just put the strap on the guitar, kept it at that level and stood up, everything should be fine, correct?
The problem with that though is when you're standing it's a little bit different.
It just feels weird for me to play like this.
Some people can play like this fine,
but I found that my right arm feels like it's, I don't know, kind of in a strange place when the guitar is this high. _
So I slowly let my guitar
_ _ drop over the ears to the most comfortable position for me,
which is where the top of the guitar is kind of at my belly and my arms are just hanging in a real
relaxed position and it feels like I can play all day like this.
For me personally,
this is a good place to put the guitar.
Some of you guys might have it even lower.
Some of you guys might have it
higher.
It's totally up to you.
One thing you're gonna notice is that the view from up here is a lot different.
Instead of being able to tilt your guitar like a lot of people do when they sit and play, which is a bad idea,
don't do that, you can see all six strings when you tilt the guitar.
But when it's straight up and down and you have gravity pulling your guitar down,
suddenly all six strings become one big string and you're sort of blind again to the guitar neck.
And
because you can't tilt the guitar,
suddenly the front markers, the fret markers, are gone.
You don't even have them anymore because they're facing forward and you're above it.
You're gonna find that the side markers are very important for that.
If you look at the side of your guitar,
hopefully you have markers on the side most guitars do.
So that's gonna be what you use to [E] navigate the neck now.
It's a little bit different.
The right hand is gonna feel strange.
So this is where all the techniques I taught about using your fingers, using your wrists, are gonna come into play because you don't want
to use your whole arm when you're standing and playing.
When you're sitting and you're, let's say you're playing acoustic,
it's easy to just use your whole arm to strum.
But when the guitar is in a different position like this,
you're gonna find a lot of value in being able to use your wrist and your fingers for a lot of the playing, okay?
How do you put it all together in this new position and actually feel decent doing it?
Well, I recommend doing the spider exercise.
I call that the calibration exercise when it comes to standing.
Because if you look it up on our YouTube page, we do have the spider exercise.
I actually do an entire practice routine with it.
And that's when you do one, two, three, four type fingering all the way across going string to string.
Now if you do that in different permutations,
what ends up happening is you get a new feel for the guitar and you just have new radar when it comes to finding things
on the neck when it's this far away, which could take a while.
So that's a good way to get calibrated is use that spider [Am] exercise.
I'm not plugged in today, but [B]
it's basically [Eb] just the four notes [Bb] going across.
_ [N] _
And pretty soon you can get over that problem where you might be picking one string and fretting another.
They used to be a really bad feeling for me until I got calibrated through using this exercise.
Another big issue people have is their left hand position gets all weird.
When you're standing and playing, honestly, the most comfortable thumb position is over the top like this.
So whether you're doing Hendrix type chords or pentatonic soloing,
your thumb feels really good over the top when you're standing and playing.
I'm not gonna say that's bad.
A lot of teachers do.
But a lot of teachers are teaching the classical idea where the thumb is at the back,
in the middle of the back of the neck right here.
See where this line is on my guitar?
When it comes to standing and playing,
that's not comfortable for me.
_ But this is pretty comfortable.
It's the three-quarter [E] position, I call it.
So if your thumb is there and you go to do your old chords, like power chords, for example,
you'll find that your wrist feels pretty good.
See where my thumb is right here?
Three-quarter position, we'll call that.
If I bring it down to half position, which is here, watch what my wrist does.
It just starts to bend too far.
It's like I'm wrist-locking myself.
I don't like that feeling.
So you don't want to torture yourself every time you stand and play.
So you have to find that three-quarter position, sort of a gray area for your thumb.
Try the riffs and the leads that you used to do sitting down and see if that helps with that feeling.
So whether it's bar chords, power chords, simple scales, three-note per string scales even, this works pretty well.
Now, I will bring my thumb over [B] the top, like I said before, if I'm doing some kind [E] of pentatonic
type situation where I'm soloing.
And that kind of gets into the reason your thumb comes over the top.
There's one of three reasons why.
One is that it's either fretting a note, like the Jimi Hendrix type chords, where it's actually pushing down and creating a note.
It [B] could come over the top to help mute the string.
So if you're doing like a D chord and you just want to mute that sixth string, it could be used as a muting mechanism.
_ [Db] Or it could be used [A] as an anchor [E] when you're trying to do bends.
Like your thumb comes over the top to sort of offer like a counter resistance.
It makes bending and makes vibrato a lot easier.
You don't want to be bending,
let's say for playing a Zeppelin solo, with your thumb in the back going like this.
It just feels so strange.
But if your thumb's over the top, it creates this nice hand position
_ in order to bend and do vibrato.
It's great.
So my main tips are, make sure the strap is on correctly.
You do not want your guitar falling during the show.
Two, your vision has to improve when it comes to looking at the guitar in this new way.
Remember, now you have the side fret markers to deal with.
Those are going to be your best friend for a while.
Don't try to tilt your guitar when it's like this.
That's a bad habit to get into.
Calibration.
Use the spider exercise to recalibrate how you feel as you're playing across the strings.
Pretty soon you'll just be able to fret a note on any string and just reach down [E] and play that note.
It's a good feeling when you finally get calibrated.
And finally, hand positions.
So remember, with the left hand, that three-quarter thumb technique is very important.
And with the right hand, using your fingers and your wrists to play versus your whole arm or your shoulder.
Unless you're Pete Townshend doing his crazy [G] stuff, okay?
So with those first few tips, it should get you started a little bit on the path to standing and playing.
Of course, just doing it for hours a day is great.
So go ahead and utilize those techniques.
Hopefully it gives you a little bit of a head start on standing and playing.
And I will catch you guys at the next lesson.
Thank
You know, most of us are used to sitting and playing,
but as soon as you get the call from someone that you have to go to a band practice or a jam session or play a
show or whatever, suddenly you have to
make the change to standing and playing.
A lot of things can suddenly feel different once you're standing.
And let's go over those today.
The first thing is, where do you want to put your guitar when you're standing?
Some people think it's wise to keep it up high because when you're sitting and playing the guitar is at about this level, right?
Well, if you just put the strap on the guitar, kept it at that level and stood up, everything should be fine, correct?
The problem with that though is when you're standing it's a little bit different.
It just feels weird for me to play like this.
Some people can play like this fine,
but I found that my right arm feels like it's, I don't know, kind of in a strange place when the guitar is this high. _
So I slowly let my guitar
_ _ drop over the ears to the most comfortable position for me,
which is where the top of the guitar is kind of at my belly and my arms are just hanging in a real
relaxed position and it feels like I can play all day like this.
For me personally,
this is a good place to put the guitar.
Some of you guys might have it even lower.
Some of you guys might have it
higher.
It's totally up to you.
One thing you're gonna notice is that the view from up here is a lot different.
Instead of being able to tilt your guitar like a lot of people do when they sit and play, which is a bad idea,
don't do that, you can see all six strings when you tilt the guitar.
But when it's straight up and down and you have gravity pulling your guitar down,
suddenly all six strings become one big string and you're sort of blind again to the guitar neck.
And
because you can't tilt the guitar,
suddenly the front markers, the fret markers, are gone.
You don't even have them anymore because they're facing forward and you're above it.
You're gonna find that the side markers are very important for that.
If you look at the side of your guitar,
hopefully you have markers on the side most guitars do.
So that's gonna be what you use to [E] navigate the neck now.
It's a little bit different.
The right hand is gonna feel strange.
So this is where all the techniques I taught about using your fingers, using your wrists, are gonna come into play because you don't want
to use your whole arm when you're standing and playing.
When you're sitting and you're, let's say you're playing acoustic,
it's easy to just use your whole arm to strum.
But when the guitar is in a different position like this,
you're gonna find a lot of value in being able to use your wrist and your fingers for a lot of the playing, okay?
How do you put it all together in this new position and actually feel decent doing it?
Well, I recommend doing the spider exercise.
I call that the calibration exercise when it comes to standing.
Because if you look it up on our YouTube page, we do have the spider exercise.
I actually do an entire practice routine with it.
And that's when you do one, two, three, four type fingering all the way across going string to string.
Now if you do that in different permutations,
what ends up happening is you get a new feel for the guitar and you just have new radar when it comes to finding things
on the neck when it's this far away, which could take a while.
So that's a good way to get calibrated is use that spider [Am] exercise.
I'm not plugged in today, but [B]
it's basically [Eb] just the four notes [Bb] going across.
_ [N] _
And pretty soon you can get over that problem where you might be picking one string and fretting another.
They used to be a really bad feeling for me until I got calibrated through using this exercise.
Another big issue people have is their left hand position gets all weird.
When you're standing and playing, honestly, the most comfortable thumb position is over the top like this.
So whether you're doing Hendrix type chords or pentatonic soloing,
your thumb feels really good over the top when you're standing and playing.
I'm not gonna say that's bad.
A lot of teachers do.
But a lot of teachers are teaching the classical idea where the thumb is at the back,
in the middle of the back of the neck right here.
See where this line is on my guitar?
When it comes to standing and playing,
that's not comfortable for me.
_ But this is pretty comfortable.
It's the three-quarter [E] position, I call it.
So if your thumb is there and you go to do your old chords, like power chords, for example,
you'll find that your wrist feels pretty good.
See where my thumb is right here?
Three-quarter position, we'll call that.
If I bring it down to half position, which is here, watch what my wrist does.
It just starts to bend too far.
It's like I'm wrist-locking myself.
I don't like that feeling.
So you don't want to torture yourself every time you stand and play.
So you have to find that three-quarter position, sort of a gray area for your thumb.
Try the riffs and the leads that you used to do sitting down and see if that helps with that feeling.
So whether it's bar chords, power chords, simple scales, three-note per string scales even, this works pretty well.
Now, I will bring my thumb over [B] the top, like I said before, if I'm doing some kind [E] of pentatonic
type situation where I'm soloing.
And that kind of gets into the reason your thumb comes over the top.
There's one of three reasons why.
One is that it's either fretting a note, like the Jimi Hendrix type chords, where it's actually pushing down and creating a note.
It [B] could come over the top to help mute the string.
So if you're doing like a D chord and you just want to mute that sixth string, it could be used as a muting mechanism.
_ [Db] Or it could be used [A] as an anchor [E] when you're trying to do bends.
Like your thumb comes over the top to sort of offer like a counter resistance.
It makes bending and makes vibrato a lot easier.
You don't want to be bending,
let's say for playing a Zeppelin solo, with your thumb in the back going like this.
It just feels so strange.
But if your thumb's over the top, it creates this nice hand position
_ in order to bend and do vibrato.
It's great.
So my main tips are, make sure the strap is on correctly.
You do not want your guitar falling during the show.
Two, your vision has to improve when it comes to looking at the guitar in this new way.
Remember, now you have the side fret markers to deal with.
Those are going to be your best friend for a while.
Don't try to tilt your guitar when it's like this.
That's a bad habit to get into.
Calibration.
Use the spider exercise to recalibrate how you feel as you're playing across the strings.
Pretty soon you'll just be able to fret a note on any string and just reach down [E] and play that note.
It's a good feeling when you finally get calibrated.
And finally, hand positions.
So remember, with the left hand, that three-quarter thumb technique is very important.
And with the right hand, using your fingers and your wrists to play versus your whole arm or your shoulder.
Unless you're Pete Townshend doing his crazy [G] stuff, okay?
So with those first few tips, it should get you started a little bit on the path to standing and playing.
Of course, just doing it for hours a day is great.
So go ahead and utilize those techniques.
Hopefully it gives you a little bit of a head start on standing and playing.
And I will catch you guys at the next lesson.
Thank