Tips on not touching unwanted strings

I am just starting out playing the guitar. Only got a few hours of practice under my belt but I know when playing a C and an A you have to have your fingers in such a way as to hold down the string wanted without touching the strings adjacent to them. I just cant seem to get my pointer finger to not touch the top string while playing a C or an A. Feel free to let me know what I can do to fix this problem. thanks in advance.

FollowHim2Lyfe

Hi FollowHim2Lyfe
Welcome to GT
It comes with practice.. When your calluses get harder and the dexterity of your fingers improve, so will your ability to fret your chords better.. Liwsa McCormick has some tutoials on finger exercise that may help..

http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=12294

Good luck
Gordon

Thanks for the quick reply. I will check out the videos.

Hey there... Welcome to the site.

I didn't go check out the video that was posted so I may be repeating what was said. Sorry.

Play slow, as slow as it takes to do it correctly.
Do you best to use proper finger techniques. You want to try to come straight down onto your string so it's the tips of your fingers not the pad of your fingers.

It takes finesse, no doubt about it. I've been playing for two years now and I can see how I've been very lazy about my finger posture. I'm realizing that I need to unlearn a lot of bad habits.

Take the time now to learn good habits so you don't have to unlearn them. :)


Good luck!

What Rick and Compart said. Plus I would add that there is a little bit of "chicken & egg... which comes first" going on. You're learning a new chord or chords, and then you attempt to play them with correct timing. However, as you make the chord changes, your fingers don't go quite where they need to, and you get lots of buzzing and horrible things happening. But if you slow down or stop to correct your finger position, you lose the timing? So what to do? Play the chords right, or get the timing down...? In my opinion, the way that you will get playing everything correctly, smoothly, fingers in the right places is to make sure you have the chord shapes down pat before trying to keep a steady rhythm. When I'm learning a new chord shape, I form the chord and then slowly strum the appropriate strings with my thumb, making sure I hear every string. If there's any buzz, I make adjustments, then strum again. If I'm playing the chord cleanly, I move to another chord, do the same thing. Then I slowly start switching back and forth, making sure every note is played cleanly. Only when I can play cleanly back and forth between chords do I then move on to adding a specific rhythm and tempo.

In the past I tried just forcing my way through the song, no matter how sloppy the chords were, but I found this just led to sloppy playing, the chords & fingering didn't magically work themselves out. I also find by mastering the chord shapes first, I progress a lot faster.

Good luck!

Do you mean that your finger is accidentally touching the very top string? As in the 6th/E string? If it is than I don't really think it's a huge problem since you don't play that string for the C or A chords anyways. You are basically just muting an unused string. The root note for A is the open 5th string and the root for C is the 3rd fret on the 5th string.

Not sure how you would accidentally hit it on an A chord though.

I mean like with a C chord, I would touch the high e string and cause the chord to sound funny. I got that worked out along with the A. Now its on the that crazy chord F. When I put the pad of my pointer finger on the high e and b string, my middle finger does not get enough arch to not interfere with the b string when trying to cleaning stay on the g.

Understand that your playing WILL improve. Props to all the people giving advice here, they are dead on. I started playing when I was 11 and had all those same problems, they go away as you continue to play. Now, 40 years later I'm still learning about music and having all new problems! Yea!