Peter Gunn Theme

Alexandru, I remember this lesson very well, and for me it was actually a lot of fun getting the riff down bit by bit. I felt like a bit of an explorer, stopping the video every now and then, as well as testing if I could remember what Justin had explained at an earlier point in the video :slightly_smiling_face: But of course every one is different and prefers to learn in different ways.

Glad that you got on to good start with mastering the riff after allšŸ™‚

Could you specify what information you were missing? A tab? Information on how to read tabs? As far as I know the tab is available on this website and in a later modul in Beginner Grade 1, Justin explains the basics of reading tabs? So maybe you would have liked clearer information on further explanations being available from this and that link? :slightly_smiling_face:

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Hello Karu adn welcome to the community.

A perfectly valid question and, sorry folks, I feel I need to counter your advice on this.

There is no reason at all to arch your fingers in an extreme manner to avoid touching the other strings. That is an artificial way of playing single notes on the thicker strings when you are quite alright laying your fingers down a little flatter - which also mutes them should you accidentally knock those open strings.

It is different for chords where each string needs to ring out.

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Hi.
Today i learned the Peter Gunn theme, which i really enjoyed playing, but i noticed that my fingers kept moving high off the neck once i had played their note. Should i try and kep all 4 fingers hovering close above the neck instead? I found it hard to stretch them out across 4 frets, but hopefully practice will help with that.

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I have the same problem! Maybe i should glue weights onto them :laughing:

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I heard a piece of advice somewhere early on in my playing: donā€™t lift your fingers off, just relax the squeeze and they will come off.

I have kept to that except for cases that need something special and it helps my hand to stay relaxed as well as not moving fingers too far away. Sometimes a little nudge away is needed for speed, but not much, and I am in place to use that finger again without needing to travel so far back to the string.

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Hi, I am new to guitar and this site and I also got the appā€¦but on the app there is no diagram for the riff, so hard to do on app. Just wanting to let you know

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Welcome to community Michele

True, there is no tab in the app only the video. For me that was part of the adventure :slightly_smiling_face: You can find the tab on the websiteā€¦ Right here:

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That feeling when you are annoyed of the fret-buzz while doing the Peter Gunn practice and take the guitar to the store and the ā€œlocal guitar heroā€ pics up the guitar, do a couple of strokes, lays the guitar on the bench, and says:

ā€œLet me just loosen up this a bit for youā€¦ā€ :sunglasses:

Fre-buzz is now gone, and the practice can continue and for all of you who suffer from finger pain, they are telling us the truth, it does get better. :innocent:

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usually when justin stresses that itā€™ll ā€œseem impossible at firstā€ iā€™m like yeah itā€™s real hard but i can see it being humanly possible but. man this seems impossible impossible. so far i can force myself to keep my fingers somewhat in the right range for about three seconds before it hurts too much

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It takes several weeks for your body to adapt, so keep up with short practices. It took me a couple months to make a stretch I wanted to make. Hand ached a little oddly for about the first of half that time. I finally can make the stretch on a short scale, but stopped working to make it on the long scale. I have a new song in my immediate future that I need to start a similar routineā€¦

It WILL happen, just need to keep working the stretch, not too much, and give it time.

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same lol, Iā€™ll have to look into doing some finger yoga

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2 posts were split to a new topic: I get a noise when putting fingers on and taking them off - what is the problem here?

hey yall, i had a question about how you should hold your guitar when doing this exercise.

so Iā€™m playing with an electric guitar and usually i can hold it fine when i got my forearm on the body and the thumb supporting the fingers on the frets. but when im doing this exercise thereā€™s a part where you have no fingers on the fretboard. for me this kind of loosens my grip on the guitar and then it goes to something like a 45 degree angle from my body and gets a pretty hard to play the riff. Iā€™ve found that if i rest my elbow on the body i can play with a better grip on the guitar but im assuming thatā€™s probably a bad habit. idk. is there something im doing wrong here? please let me know. thanks yall :>

I lock the body in between my forearm, torso, and leg when sitting. You should not need your fretting hand to do any support, as you have found out, because you need it free to move around.

One thing I have not really been diligent with is using a strap even when sitting, It can help hold the neck in place and also get you more comfortable with standing. You can get away with not using one, but I wish I had practiced more with my strap earlier.

sorry when i said the thumb was supporting the fingers i meant like itā€™s not holding up the neck. itā€™s just pushing back on the fingers from behind the neck, if that makes sense? is that still wrong? should I not be putting any pressure on the thumb round the back of the neck?

and yeah i probably should get a strap soon since iā€™ve been having trouble keeping the guitar in place in general. and thanks for the quick response lol

edit: okay i think i got a comfortable position for playing the riff, the little extra angle isnt too bad actually. just had to mess with how my arm was resting for a bit

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You need something to squeeze against - that is generally thumb for fretting with fingers. What I envisioned with your question was the neck scooting forward when you werenā€™t fretting anything. If I had that wrong, maybe I need a better description (or photo?).

When I play, my thumb is on the back, but it is only sliding around until I need it to be there to balance the fingers fretting - i.e. squeezing. The support of the guitar as a whole is coming from my picking arm holding it in place against my torso and leg.

The idea of the strap is to allow more freedom for your picking handā€™s arm. You still need some support from your arm, but it is not as much.

Does that make sense?

edit on your edit. :slight_smile:
ok, good. it is important to feel good about experimenting to find a better position. you should do this, when something is not working out like you expect, to see if you can get comfortable. sometimes changes are very subtle.

You need something to squeeze against - that is generally thumb for fretting with fingers

yeah that was pretty much what i meant, sorry for the misunderstanding

and yeah i get what youā€™re saying with the thing on experimenting for a position, thatā€™s happened multiple times already. thanks for your help!

First off - welcome to the community! If youā€™re feeling extra social, weā€™d love to learn a bit about your guitar journey over here :smiling_face:.

This happens to me quite a lot, and often after asking about an issue on this forum. There seems to be something about posing the question to others that helps change our own perspective when we revisit the issue. And thatā€™s even without all the great feedback we get here!

Oh, regarding the strap: I resisted getting one for a long time. Now I feel funny without one.

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My ears and fingers want to resolve tie last note on the G :confused:

this is not very important, but my dad is called Justinā€¦and we call him Nitsuj all the time! haha

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