Good playing. Positioning of hands.

When you look at an outstanding instrumentalist, you cannot help but notice that he does not strain you with the process. All his movements are polished to perfection. Everything looks smooth and natural. The feeling that there is no other way.

This is the way it is. There is only one correct positioning of hands. There is no individual positioning. There are personal features.

Taking them into account, everyone must learn the correct positioning. Provided that he wants to have good sound production, which is absolutely impossible without a good positioning.

There are a lot of stereotypes here as well and I have heard very strange things. All of them are totally far from any logic and common sense. Starting with the fact that this is a matter of habit and ending with the fact that a particular individual considers himself to be completely specific and he does not care about the general rules that have formed over the years of striving for excellence of the best musicians on our planet. As for the matter of habit, those who say that play as if to spend some time/leisure and do not bother with trifles like the positioning of hands.

At least that’s what they say.

But at the same time, they begin to worry a lot if they ask you about their playing and it turns out that you are not happy. They seem to have fun without making any effort, but at the same time, they demand your admiration for what comes out of them. In their opinion, it is you who must make an effort to be a hypocrite, and come up with good things about their “performance”. And you have to do it because they didn’t do anything when they were just strumming for fun without making any effort!

In other words, you have to do a lot of wrong things because they did nothing at all.

They have requirements for those who will listen to them, but no requirements for themselves. I will not list all the stereotypes, because there are too many of them. But all of them were created and popularized in order to justify bad playing and nothing more! If they played well, all these catchphrases (stereotypes) would be unnecessary. This applies to all aspects, but now we are talking about the positioning of hands.

If someone plays badly, that’s his business. But if he asks what you hear and plays badly, I will never understand why he expects everyone to be thrilled.

Bad playing is bad understanding. But from the point of view of pure mechanics, this is bad positioning. And if the playing is bad in this regard, the first thing to do is improve the positioning of hands. After all, you have to start with something. You cannot do everything at once and in one day.

But when you try to be as polite as possible, you do not say that whoever asks you is playing ugly, you’re just suggesting to pay a little more attention to the positioning of hands. And then it begins!

They tell you right away that someone is playing the same way and everything is okay. You may agree, but both will be wrong.

And the conversation will not end there. And if you say that the person mentioned by your interlocutor is not the best example to follow, real madness will begin. Because the interlocutor does not hear anything and does not care about any facts.

It results in his word against yours. But what does his word worth?

Go ahead and give him a chance to show what his word is worth. Just play a little one by one. Those who are the most stubborn will not give you a chance, because they will be rude and provoke as soon as they can, and technically you will leave no stone unturned since they are not able to stop in time when you offer them to close the topic. Then they will start saying that you should not compare with them because you are a pro and they are amateurs (wow… recalled that). If they cease to control themselves completely, will start to quote some famous people.

And even though you do not deny that they are famous if you express some doubts about their level, comparisons between the person from the example and yourself will begin. Comparisons in words again!

But the question of your interlocutor was about his own playing, not yours or some other third person. And if you are famous as well, your interlocutor will begin to provoke you to say something that is not so good and then will take out of context pieces of what you say that will not correspond to your full thoughts.

Even if you don’t say anything, he will still claim that you said something that in fact, he invented himself … And … there is no end to it.

After that, your interlocutor will begin to discuss your personal qualities and, partially or not, your personal life. Naturally, such things can only be determined by him and no one else. He will not miss telling you how good he is as a person as if talking about the deceased — either good or nothing. And of course, that will not avoid some digressions associated with his imagination here as well.

Have you noticed how far we are from the question you were asked? And how many unnecessary and absolutely irrational things do you have to listen to?

This is the standard behavior of those who do not demand anything from themselves and music, in particular, playing the electric guitar for them is some kind of entertainment that does not have a clear form and specific criteria. It is very convenient for such “good” people.

By presenting it this way, they do not need to meet any real criteria. They can strum outrageously in a technical sense without any musicality, and you (in their opinion) have to reckon with them and their “catchphrases” (stereotypes),

A person who has been studying music consistently for years knows that there is a form, rules, criteria, and many nuances that he should be aware of. Otherwise, he will not play well.

Those who are having fun and in fact know nothing about music, just read phrases from magazines and interviews and repeat them.

And the fact that not everything published is correct and their idols, let alone some of them are quite famous (no reasonable person is going to argue with that) are not the worthwhile example to follow in playing or in what they say, does not bother them at all.

But it is far easier to achieve a primitive level and say everywhere it is genius than to learn for years, form understanding, constantly add knowledge and experience, and polish technique.

Exactly those people who worship primitive, repeat phrases and invent different kinds of excuses, creating stereotypes out of them.

Worship of the primitive, blind imitation and complete lack of the correct understanding has helped nobody to play better so far!

Remember that it is impossible to achieve good sound production without the correct positioning of hands. And there is no good playing without good sound production!

Therefore, considering playing from purely mechanical grounds, positioning of hands is the most important component required for flawless technical execution.