It is the former. And as you develop proficiency you’ll progress to playing without looking and feel helps.
As an aside, to play absolutely everything without looking is an extreme aspiration. I think for most of us a glance every now and then is likely to be needed. For example when making a change of barre chords that are many frets apart.
Don’t feel like it is absolutely ‘bad’ to look, just want it to be a periodic aid, not a constant necessity, an ability developed slow and steady over time.
Since I’ve started standing up to play I have started using the dots on top of the neck to help me. When I used to look over whilst playing they were something I didn’t really use but I now find them very helpful.
@SgtColon Thanks for the reminder that I need to practice standing up at least once per week. I once volunteered to sing and play a simple song at a church and found out that I wouldn’t have a chair. Fortunately I always keep my strap on my guitar.
Also, yes, I also found the fret position marker dots on the side of the fretboard really helped when playing power chords.
@TRaGoE Simeon, welcome to the Justin Guitar Community. I’ve never had classical guitar lessons (but learned a little self taught classical guitar from Frederick Noad’s Solo Guitar book 1) but from what i have read and seen in classical guitar videos, classical guitar is its own world, with its own rules.
I know that you will be ahead of many others on the site when you get to the intermediate level since you already know how to read music and independently use your fingers for finger picking songs. I hope you are enjoying the lessons.
Splendid! These are the skills I need to acquire. The bonus tips are extremely valuable, and there are countless frets jumping and technical stuff in the songs I do play. Thank you Justin.
Psyched to say this was a little hard but not as hard as I thought! I was surprised at the second day of doing this I could play the beginning part of Highway to Hell without looking! Going to work on this every day!
Excellent lesson! I can relate to Justin’s touch-typing analogy. I took a typing class in 8th grade. When I stopped looking at the keys, my speed and accuracy increased dramatically.
One more reason I discovered for not looking at your hands is that it promotes ear training and correcting mistakes. When I don’t look at my hands and I make a mistake, I not only notice the mistake, I’m able to determine which wrong note(s) I played and immediately play the correct ones, often without looking. This has been especially helpful in learning bass guitar which I started playing a year ago.
Been working on this lession for a month or so now and it’s settling in.
I am still missing a fair bit, but not by much and when I get it right, it’s a wonderful feeling.
Playing is much more enjoyable when you are not focussed on the fretboard and injstead you can just enjoy what you are playing.
Also it’s helping me understand, in my head, what my hands are doing on the guitar, if you know what I mean. I feel like it’s one of the most useful things I have learned recently because of how it helps me join up my hands, the guitar and how my brain understands it all.
What I also suggest to make sure your chords are right is to look close to your strumming hand only (not your fretting hand). As you play the chords, you can see which strings are not vibrating, indicating that you might have accidentally muted a string.
I have tried playing a set of chords without looking for the first time today. I guess that this had to happen at some point and it might as well have been today! It does feel like I have just taken a huge step backwards though. It’s hard to see how I can get through this to being able to play with fluidity. What do you guys think is the best way to get through to the other side? I didn’t understand from the lesson how far to take playing without looking. Do I just do this for short practice periods and the rest of the time go back to looking at my fretting hand for example?
Welcome to the community, David
It’s a neat trick also to sometimes simply close your eyes or - in case you are wearing glasses and happen not to see much without them - to take off your glasses, thus to “force” yourself having to play without looking. That’s what I often do when learning new chords progressions for example.
You will notice that it gets much easier the more often you try and you will get used to your ears telling you whether you are playing the correct notes, chords, strings etc.
I have been sneaking up on this for a long time. I started by short durations of not looking, then looking again briefly to re-center my hand. Eventually, the duration of not looking has become longer. It really helps to have practiced the song or riff a great deal. Anything new will still need me to look until it starts to be familiar.
When you look at your hands, you look like you aren’t confident and aren’t sure of your playing. Unless, you’re Joe Satriani, in which case you look even more engaged with the music and committed to delivering the last ounce of perfection.
Just did this lesson. I immediately tried doing the La Bamba riff without looking and I absolutely nail it. I tend to always try to watch for my changes and definitely mess la bamba up with overthinking it. Not looking is definitely gonna be in my daily practice from now on. Cheers!
