Right Hand Improvement Techniques

Hi Mike, I am enjoying the the youtube lessons and finding things helpful in my guitar journey. I am looking for more in depth help on improving my right hand. I am struggling with playing faster songs such as 'Bad Moon Rising' or 'Ramblin Man'. Though the BPM for BMR is 82 but actually played at double time equaling 164. My chord changes are fine but my right hand doesn't keep up.... Can you do a lesson on improving right hand techniques and explaining how to use a metronome in depth with skills improvements? Seems to me the best guitar strummers have smooth and effective right hand skills. Thank you Sir!

Hello Bryan - thanks for the lesson suggestion! If I have time this Friday on my YouTube Live Lesson, I will talk a bit about this. I'll also film a video for YouTube on this subject in the next few weeks, but it usually takes a month or so (post editing) to make it up there.

Generally speaking - slow it down, work with a metronome at a slow bpm, make sure you are strumming the correct strum pattern, and burn in plenty of repetition at this slow speed. This is the most effective method to program the muscle memory of the right hand. Only increase speed gradually. If you hit a speed where your hand is not keeping up, you need to go back down to a slower speed and drill more repetition.

Also -- a great way to work on this is to stay on one chord while you drill the strum pattern. That way, you can focus your full attention to the right hand.

Another thing to think about - stay as relaxed as you can with your strumming arm/hand. Any tension will negatively affect your ability to keep smooth timing.

Hope this helps, and thanks again for the suggestion!

I'll update this post when this material hits YouTube!

Mike

Originally Posted by: bryanwilson01

Hi Mike, I am enjoying the the youtube lessons and finding things helpful in my guitar journey. I am looking for more in depth help on improving my right hand. I am struggling with playing faster songs such as 'Bad Moon Rising' or 'Ramblin Man'. Though the BPM for BMR is 82 but actually played at double time equaling 164. My chord changes are fine but my right hand doesn't keep up.... Can you do a lesson on improving right hand techniques and explaining how to use a metronome in depth with skills improvements? Seems to me the best guitar strummers have smooth and effective right hand skills. Thank you Sir!

Thanks for the tips Mike,,, I will work on slowing things down,,, Do you have a tip or recommendation on how to slow a song down to a learning speed without changing the way it sounds? There are a couple I would like to work on but not sure how to play along at a slower speed. thanks!!

For any song on GuitarTricks, there are speed buttons on the left hand side of the video frame that will allow you to slow the song down to 90%, 75%, and 50% speed without affecting the pitch. Unfortunately, this capability is not available on the app version of GT, but is fully active in the browser version.

YouTube also has this capability. You can slow down any YT video by clicking on the settings cogwheel at the bottom right of the video frame. It will allow you to slow the video down to 75% or 50% without affecting the pitch.

Beyond that, there are several computer programs that allow you to do this with mp3 or wav files - Transcribe and The Amazing Slow Downer come to mind. Just do a google search and probably many more will come up.

Hope this helps - let me know how it goes!

Mike

Originally Posted by: bryanwilson01

Thanks for the tips Mike,,, I will work on slowing things down,,, Do you have a tip or recommendation on how to slow a song down to a learning speed without changing the way it sounds? There are a couple I would like to work on but not sure how to play along at a slower speed. thanks!!