Which hand do u look at

i have been practicing for about a month now, so still very new, but I am throughly enjoying your lessons. I know muscle memory will come with time, but I find myself only staring at my strumming hand. The muscle memory is developing pretty quick in my fretting hand and I don’t really need to look at it after a few days learning something new. my strumming hand though is lagging behind.

Is this normal for newbies or is it a bad technique? Should I continue this way knowing the muscle memory will come later, or should I force myself to not stare at my strumming hand? I don’t want to develop a bad habit that is hard to break. Or am I completely backwards and should I actually be looking at my fretting hand?

For what it is worth, I am doing the same thing. Once I am comfortable with a chord I only watch my strumming. Especially anything beyond a straight downward motion because it is new to me. Look forward to hearing from the experienced people.

I've never looked at either. I decided when I started learning to save myself the step of having to re-learn without looking and just learned that way from the start. It took longer, but I'm glad I don't have to relearn!

I admit to looking at both. Can easily strum or pick a wrong string and need to keep checking my chord changes.

Getting better after 3 months but suspect it will long continue as new chords are thrown in to the mix.

I know I sometimes lean the guitar back to see the fretboard which is a No No

On the positives side I am noticing my alternate picking is becoming more natural depending what I'm doing. Can run through the scales and spider warm up is way better.

Learning on electric with practice amp.

Fun restarts when acoustic arrives this week. Low end Tanglewood Blackbird orchestra size

Hey Spaceranger1224,

This just comes with time. Eventually you can look away and still find your place. But I wouldn't worry about it, unless you're trying to read notation at the same time. Everyone looks at their hands, even the biggest pro players. It's just a matter of how often. And unless you're making faces at the audience or need to look at something else, looking at your hands isn't hurting anyone. :)

-Carl.

Oh, and to specifically answer your question -- I tend to check / follow my left hand way more often, since that's the hand doing most of the moving. Right hand becomes a lot more automatic unless there's a crucial string skip or starting string. It depends on the piece of music.

-Carl.