What’s the best way for guitarists to break the habit of looking at their fretting hand?

Question

Lots of guitarists look at their fretting hand while playing. While this makes sense when learning, even very accomplished players do it and it just seems to be a bad habit. Those who play and sing or make eye contact with the audience or need to watch the drummer tend not to do it, or not much.

Skilled guitarists don’t need to look because they feel where their hand is, but if it is a habit left over from learning it can be hard to break, especially in stressful situations or when the movements up and down the fretboard are large.

If you don’t need to look - e.g. can play well with eyes closed - but still do it, what can be done about it? Telling myself just to stop is not working. Are there exercises I can do? What works?

This question How to play chords on full fingerboard without looking? is more about how to learn to find positions without looking at the hand, not break the habit of looking, and the answer to this question Should I look at my fingers or look at the music? seems to assume that looking will eventually just stop. There are some good hints here: Should I look at the fretboard while I play guitar? but some answers suggest it does not matter or it will just 'go away'. I want to stop looking and would like to find an efficient, deliberate practice way of doing so.

Answer 1

I have found that training yourself to look at the audience, and maintaining eye contact with them, is the best remedy for excessive fretboard gazing.

Watch videos of a variety of musical artists in live concerts. Note how they engage with the audience, smile at them, point toward them during key moments in the song.

When that becomes your motivation, you will find that you spend less time looking at your fretting fingers.

The same goes for your score, lyrics sheet, chord charts, and/or iPad. Glance at it as often as necessary, but do spend most of your time engaging with your audience.

Now; How do you practice such a thing when you are alone in your home, bedroom, or music room? Easy. You practice playing that guitar exactly how you will be postured at the next gig, and you gaze out toward the wall or windows, and picture the audience there.

It sounds silly, but it works. Give it a try!

Answer 2

It's a habit we all get into, after all, when we're beginners, it's exactly what we have to do! And old habits die hard, as they say.

When in a particular position on the fretboard, there are four or five frets available to be played, without much movement up/down. From that point, muscle memory of the whole arm movement needs to take over, as that's what changes the fretting position.

So new habits need to be developed, and moving everything up a certain number of frets is obviously involved in that. Trouble is, on guitar, moving two frets from, say, 3 to 5 involves a very different amount of movement from say, 10 to 12.

So loads of practice seems to be what most players use to get that new habit ingrained. Practice regimes such as playing in differing positions (moving two frets, five frets) looking initially, then looking away, and just getting used to the different arm angles involved. Such as playing a riff over several strings, but changing the keys, maybe starting low, moving a fret at a time towards the dusty end.

Being desperate, one could wear a blindfold when practising, or getting someone to hold something over the fretboard to mask it, allowing glimpses now and again. Because, after all, unless one is playing open position all of the time, even the greatest players will need to check they're targeting the correct frets.

Answer 3

It depends on your current level. If someone is just starting out, they should learn how to switch between the various open chords without looking at their hand. That can then be extended to barre chords when the changes do not involve a fret change for the barre finger. You can further extend that to playing scale down in the open position (using the open strings.) This essentially relies on the hand not changing position when in the open position. From this we can segue into a more "formal" approach to fingering patterns and positions.

The general idea of fingering - for both keyboard and fretboard - is when in a position the fingers are assigned to certain keys or frets/strings and you stay in that position until you need to shift out of it to extend your hand's reach. The method relies on finger independence. If, for example, you have a lazy pinky finger, which you avoid using, that habit needs to be fixed, so all fingers are equally useful.

Method books can provide standard fingerings for chords and scales. Those patterns need to be thoroughly learned. From there you learn how to shift position, and the idea is to shift in a way that optimizes fingering to reach certain points in the music. Eventually you learn there isn't one perfect fingering, but fundamental fingerings that you adapt to the requirements of the music.

The connection between fingering positions and not looking at your hands is when you get your hands well trained in fingering you don't need to look at them to play. When "in position" your fingers don't change their placement. On piano this is called "five finger position", practice patterns are called "five finger exercises". On guitar is would be like one finger per four adjacent frets to play "three notes per string" scales. You don't need to look at your hands for that stuff, because your fingers stay on their assigned frets.

When you change position it is generally a matter of moving one finger out of position and placing it adjacent to another finger or replacing its position with another finger. Again, the idea is the other finger is in position, so you don't need to look at your hand to make switch the other finger out of its position. You just put it next to the other finger or switch their place.

For example, consider fingers 1 and 3, which normally are two frets apart. To shift position up the fret board you might move finger 1 and put it one fret below finger 3, or you might move finger 1 and switch its position for where finger 3 is, then the whole hand shifts up to four fingers on four adjacent frets in a new position. For a downward shift, you flip the finger numbering and moves. Finger 3 might move down toward finger 1 and the whole hand is reset into a lower position.

In the examples above, notice how they involve a "contracting" of the finger placement. If finger 1 moves up to one fret below finger 3, the fingers sort of crowd together and finger 1 is sort of where finger 2 normally fits in. You can also think of position changes where an "expansion" is used. Finger 1 might need to reach down an extra fret or finger 4 might reach up an extra fret.

The only time this method does not work, for playing without looking at the hands, is when you must move the entire hand out of position (or some other case where you can't make simple adjacent fret moves.) Such moves become a matter of muscle memory, or you simply need to look quickly to make the change.

Through good fingering you don't need to look at your hand, instead your hand "feels" where to move. It becomes a physical, tactile action instead of a visual one.

Answer 4

Gaining muscle memory in your fretting hand can be a bit more challenging when you're playing different types of guitars, those being electric, acoustic, classical, 6-string and 12-string guitars. And I never met a performing guitarist that didn't have several. When someone asks me, "Why do you have more than one guitar?" My answer is, "The same reason you have more than one pair of shoes."
I could include the bass guitar, but it's a different species and I'm assuming this thread is about standard guitars.

Within these different types of guitars, you'll find that the fret size, neck length and neck width, or "nut width" (where the strings are anchored between neck and headstock) will differ depending on make, model and type of guitar. The distance between strings will also be different for a few reasons.

The neck length, or scale length (from nut to center of 12th fret) come in three sizes; Short, Standard and Long. Short necks range from 24" to 24.75", Standard necks range from 24.75" to 25 1/2", and Long necks between 25 1/2" to 26 1/2". The difference between shortest and longest is typically 2 1/2", with the frets making up the difference by being either shorter or longer.

The width of the neck is measured at the nut. From the nut to the body of the guitar, the neck can widen 3/4" or more. Typically, electric guitars have the narrowest neck with the standard being 43 mm. An acoustic guitar can have a nut width up to 44.5 mm. Classical guitars, with the widest neck, are usually around 52 mm. 12 strings are slightly wider than a standard guitar, and their string spacing varies between make and model.

All these variants are miniscule to the eye, but to the hand they are immediately noticable. Most accomplished guitarists can feel the difference of 1 mm in the neck's width. This is one reason why at times, especially for newcomers, you'll try playing a guitar that seems more difficult or doesn't feel right.

When you're first learning chords and scales, you're using your brain's memory as you slowly fumble from one chord to another. Then, rather quickly, it's like your fingertips grow their own little brains and you don't have to think about it anymore. The same goes for breaking the habit of looking at the fretboard. With practice, in a short time your arms will do the thinking, allowing your eyes to search the audience for groupies. Just keep in mind that if you want to play different types of guitars it will take a little longer to get used to the feel of various necks and frets without looking at them.

Here's a few tips my instructor gave me that were invaluable, not just for playing blindfolded but playing better, more comfortably, and building muscle in the hand and wrist: "There is no one correct way to hold your wrist and hand at the neck. As long as you can make all the strings hum harmonically without causing any pain (to yourself or the audience), you're doing it right." "Adjust your strap for the guitar you play. Electrics are thin and heavy, acoustics wide and light. Keeping your strap at one length won't always work for every guitar. And looking cool like Jimmy Page with a Les Paul hanging to your knees- without opiates -will kill your back." "Before a gig, practice your leads on an acoustic to tone your muscles. That way when you play the electric, your fingers will move like a spider across a hot-plate." "If John Lennon had blisters on his fingers, it's because his guitar was collecting dust."

And finally, whenever you find chords or scales or anything about playing guitar difficult, don't give up. On a 6-string guitar with 24 frets, there are over 156 million possible chord patterns that can be conjured. Even professionals who have played for decades will fumble their way through new chords they're learning. There's always hurdles and you'll always get over them.

If you want the fast track, learn to play the air guitar. You'll never have to look at your fingers again, never have to tune it, they're very affordable, and no one will ever steal it.