Some people have been curious about my technique since if you know anything about guitar technique, you can see mine is a bit different. I ended up with different technique for a couple different reasons. First, I don’t really have a life fit for fingernails. Every time I’ve had proper guitar nails, they gave me trouble so, when I got back into playing, I decided I was going to go at it with my fingertips. My first proper guitar teacher was actually a lute player, and he used fingertips on guitar. He had a great sound, so I knew it could be done.
Also, I got back into playing through guilele which I use to play children’s songs at work. I want to talk about guilele and my approach to it in a later blog since it’s a wonderful and fairly new member of the guitar family. For now, I’ll just say I don’t think classical guitar technique is very suitable for it. I looked up information on lute technique and followed that. I quickly found it very comfortable. Thumb in is working great for me even though people say my fingers are going to run into each other. Once I had that technique working, I just carried it over to guitar after I picked up a proper guitar again.
Really though, I think the biggest reason lute like technique is comfortable for me is because I’m older and wiser now. When I was first learning guitar I was a stubborn kid, so of course I believed I was doing everything right. Eventually, the burning in my tendons told me I was not doing everything right. Luckily I didn’t cause myself any real injury, but if I go back to traditional guitar technique the bad habits I developed are still there enough that I can feel the pain wanting to creep back. Going forward with a different technique means I’m able to develop it this time while listening to my body’s feedback. I wouldn’t say one technique is inherently better than another, but there is certainly one that works better for me.
My practice journal piece today is from a little deeper into the Sychra Journal. I was looking around and found this short piece. I like its gentle quality and I feel like I should recognize the melody. Perhaps if I could read the Russian that would help… future goals haha.
