I am a late-comer to the guitar having spent most of my life playing the piano. When playing a piano, I rarely have to look to at my hands to see where the notes are, which is a necessary skill when reading music or looking away from the piano. I have trouble with finding notes on the guitar without looking at the fretboard. Is this a skill which just comes from playing a lot or are there specific techniques to learn to find the right fret and string without having to look down all the time? I also like to switch between various guitars which adds to the problem because the fingerboard width and distance between frets varies between guitars. A piano of course has standard size keys which is a real help. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Hello @Orkney
Welcome to JustinGuitar and the Community Graeme.
Most players look at least some of the time.
Beginners look a lot of the time.
The need to look is governed by what you are playing, where on the fretboard your playing is happening and if it requires lots of shifting around along the neck, and your experience.
If you are playing a song using open position chords (‘cowboy chords’) then in time you can probably develop the ability to do so without looking at either fretting or strumming hand for most of the time.
Where in your learning are you?
Thanks for the very quick reply. I am just getting started with JustinGuitar and am still in the early beginner modules. However, I have been mucking around with playing the guitar for some years but without much success, until I stumbled on JustinGutar. I notice that Justin plays a variety of guitars in his lessons. How do guitarists cope with the quite big differences in fingerboard width and fret spacing between say an electric and classical guitar?
I can answer that. Time and playing. (Both are the same, really).
The more time you spend with an instrument, the more feel you get for the instrument.
Eventually, you’ll start looking at other guitars for a number of personal reasons.
These guitars will have different (but not so much) features.
So now you have two different guitars. Your new guitar will need some getting used too, but hey, that’s why you bought it in the first place, no?
And on it goes.
The more you play, the more you’ll get into it and the more you’ll get accustomed with other guitars.
Thanks. Guess it’s just a case of perseverance.
If you have both of these you are at or towards either end of the measurements spectrum.
Classical guitars are known to have wide fretboards with a flat surface. This can be useful for chord grips and getting fingers in to make chords without them interfering with and muting adjacent strings in the early stages. It also means your fingers need to stretch that bit further for some of the open position chords which can be difficult as a beginner.
Electric guitars, in general, will have a narrower fretboard and a more curved surface. The opposite can be applied to the pros and cons.
To begin with I would suggest you choose one as your main learning instrument though without entirely neglecting spending some time playing the other also.
Hi Graeme,
Myself, I look when I need to look.
I see no harm in doing that. Looking is better than playing the wrong thing.
imho, not looking is something that does comes from playing a lot. After playing a while, you’ll just know where ya need to go next. Just plain repetition of playing the same chords over and over. Ya get so ya memorize where ya want to be.
As for different guitars.
I play three mostly. And I switch between them all the time. But they all pretty much play the same. I don’t have wide difference between them like you do with your acoustic vs electric. imho, keep switching between them. Again, you’ll start getting used to where ya need to be when your playing this guitar vs that guitar.
A example of my playing is.
I don’t look when I go for a open E chord, or a open D chord.
But,
I’m learning a song that has Dbadd9, Db, Gbadd9 and Gb. Them chords are not something I’m used to playing. I plain gotta look to be sure where I’m putting my fingers in the right place. They have not been burned into my memory as to how to play them. They are all a wide spead for my fingers too, so this don’t help if I don’t look at what I’m wanting to play. I just plain gotta look. I see no other way to learn to play them chords.
I’m 3 months into playing these chords. Over and over and over. They are still not burned into my memory and my fingers don’t just go to them chords w/o thinking about them, and looking to be sure I’m placing my fingers in the right place. I think this would be similar to when I was just learning to play open E and D chords. Their just different chords than E or D.
Have fun on your guitar adventure. It’s a life time journey. 
There is that much to learn.
It’s just plain playing the same thing over and over that will lead to not looking when your playing. After a while, you’ll just know what ya need to do, on which ever guitar your playing. But when learning, I think ya just gotta look.
Welcome Graeme,
There is nothing worse than showing up somewhere and someone hands you a guitar (that you said you could play) and you fumble around looking all neophyte because your fingers aren’t used to the spacing.
That said, I like to practice on different guitars because over time you tend to compensate for the different finger spacings. On Piano, the key spacing might be the same, but assuming you use keyboard and an acoustic piano there is different key resistance, you might have trouble going back and forth, it is similar with guitar. Trying to learn multiple guitars at the same time, might be challenging and slow down the front end, but over time I personally feel it is a huge benefit.
Good luck!
♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.
You get used to the differences over time.
My guitars don’t tend to vary much on fretboard width, but I have multiple guitars with wildly different scale lengths, so spacing between frets varies noticeably. At first it caused me no end of problems but I’m getting used to it. I fumble a bit at first when I switch between instruments, but I adapt fairly quickly now. Of course I’ll be adding another with yet another scale length later this year so we’ll see how that one goes.
You can also count me as someone who is somewhere in the middle. I don’t generally need to look for common open chords but I do need to look when I start getting into chords I don’t know as well yet or if I’m doing a chord change I’m less used to. Practicing these things without looking is part of it because the act of looking takes my attention away from other things I could focus on that help me sound better.
I hadn’t really thought about it until I read your question, but having just played a bit to see what happens, I would say I look at the fretboard about 90% of the time.
that’s because 90% of the time you’re playing crazy difficult lead lines. If you learned a few chords you wouldn’t need to 
Blind Lemon Jefferson seemed to manage a few fancy lead lines OK!
I’m also a piano player who came to guitar (and bass) much later.
You (we) don’t have to look at the piano keys, because our brains have made a link between the notes we read, the gap from the note(s) we’ve Just played and the one(s) we are about to play and what we expect the note (or maybe the interval) to sound like. I think 
.
Guitar isn’t that different. Sure chords are different shapes, but eventually your brain will make the link to where your fingers have to move to from one chord to the next and what it should sound like. You can do things to train this more quickly. Justin had a lesson on it, in I think grade 2 - but unless it’s really important to you, I’d wait until you get there rather than searching it out (the lessons are curated / ordered as they are for a reason).
I hope this is helpful.
Many thanks for all the very helpful replies and advice. Much appreciated.
Graeme