Playing seated & standing

[andy82]

I've been practising mostly seated for past 2 years, and
found it a major problem now trying to play the same thing standing. Mainly because my left wrist, the positioning of my wrist is extremely uncomfortable, especially down along the fretboard.

I don't think length of my arm or the fingers are short. Could be the strap length but thats adjustable. If it is I just can't find the right length (I dont want to look like a dag, by having the guitar all the way up against my chest), and looking at other players perform with guitars around the waist, I wonder how do they do it??

Any suggestions?

[^Chacron^]

Having played seated for as long as you have its going to feel rough getting used to standing for a while, so keep practacing for starters....

If your fretboard arm feels uncomforatble quickly you've got the strap too low....but you might not need to change the length. Try angling the neck by shifing the strap on your shoulder. I play metal and I find this useful because if I'm picking the E string fast to do a song like 'Return to Hanger' or 'Holy Wars' i like the guitar quite low with the neck almost at a right angle to my body, but when I get to the solo i get a better action and sound by angling the neck at about 30/40 degrees. Does that make sense? Its kinda hard to explain.

People who play with guitars round their waist often do have long arms. Its a sad fact the the length of body parts can sometimes separate one musician from another....Look at Vai and Page who go from one end of the fretboard to the next using the 'baseball bat' technique....they got massive hands and fingers. I'm stuck using the classic technique for that kinda thing because my hands are just that bit smaller than I need them.

[TheDirt]

I have VERY small hands. I mean, my hands are equivalent to the average female freshman, and I'm a male high school senior! BUT, I don't think that hand size matters as much as some people say it does. Even with this little hand and short fingers, I still use my thumb a helluva lot for chording (like 5, x, x, 4, 5, 6 = Amaj7, thumb on low E). I can reach from the 5th to the 11th fret comfortably. If I needed to go from the 5th fret to like the 14th, I'd just play the A on the B string, at the 10th fret ;) I think large hands/long fingers can be a disadvantage, especially when it comes to chords, because sometimes cramping a bunch of fingers into a 2 or 3 fret span can be difficult. A friend of mine has really long skinny fingers, and it's hard for him to do some chords I do because his fingers just won't bend like mine. It's all about flexibility...

[James8831]

Yep,i've got small hands too and i find my way around most fretboards ok,except those paper thin ones the fast boys go for.

Ok, the strap issue .Having only really played acoustic in public, i recently decided to try playing standing up. I concluded that you kind of start higher up and look like a twaat and then work your way down the body,your muscles get used to the new positions,if slowly. I hated catching a glance in the mirror and seeing a Level 42 style guitar slung up there,so it's working its way down,it's about Hank Marvin level now. You need to get the angle of your wrist right so, too high or low and ,mucked up tendons here we come.

i tried playing it in a Jimmy Page stance X years ago and just about strained my wrist,thats why he is/was so much more of a moth*rf.....than most playing so low, so fast,so sloppily,so well...

*degenerates into string of expletives*

Start high(er) up and try angling the guitar relative to your body (point neck up or down) do this when you are alone and sit down to jam with your mates.

[andy82]

Thanks for the replies :)

Now back to practising :o