Mainly because I had always struggled with my fretting hand, and there was noticeably less tension playing this way.
In the side view, you can see my wrist is very straight when fretting an F barre chord.
I also find it much easier to look at my fretting hand.
the guitar does not move around - at all. I can concentrate on my fretting and picking without also having to stabilize the guitar
it’s easy to play with good back posture- torso straight with lumbar curve
It compromised my strumming hand a bit, but it was the definitely the right trade off for my early playing. I still return to it if learning a new chord that puts any tension in my fretting hand, or when I want a better view of my fretting hand.
However, when I started thumb muting, my old enemy - fretting hand tension - re -appeared…
Tom, very interesting. In your first photo, did you find that the orientation on the right thigh placed the headstock a ways out in front of you, and did you find that better or worse for wrist and/or fretting?
ETA- I personally just don’t like the classical position for myself at this point in my journey. It is ok for fretting but yeah the strumming position is then difficult and doesn’t feel right. Perhaps later on something with that position will click for me.
good compromise between fretting and strumming hands
good posture
Barre chords are little more difficult, but seem manageable (though, TBH, the songs I’m learning at the moment don’t have many of these).
It’s also harder to see what both hands are doing, but this is forcing me to feel what they are doing instead of seeing them. Starting to pay big dividends - I’m noticing a lot of tension and other sensations that I was previously not aware of. I think this new kinaesthetic awareness is going to really help my playing in the long run!
This position or the photo prior to your image of #1 classical position is what I am referring my question to about the headstock going out in front of you. It becomes clear in the second photo of #2 casual position that, yes it does go a ways out in front of you. Yes I agree with your statement that it forces you to feel more than see, and that can’t be a bad thing, but it is not as easy as seeing, that’s for sure! If professional guitarists are filmed using this way of having the guitar a little bit over to the side like that, it is hard to pick up on in pictures or film, but at the same time, it doesn’t look unusual at all, it looks quite natural.
There are 3 angles that determine how a guitar is positioned. What should we call them? Are there any terms in common use? Lack of common terms make it hard to discuss.
#1 - I think this is what most people mean by “neck angle” - the angle of the neck relative to the floor
Varying these angles have different trade offs for different body shapes, types of guitar, and styles of music. I think it’s important to be able to discuss them with more precision than is common in the community.
In aviation we have pitch, roll, and yaw…what are the guitar equivalents?
This is a callout to all you engineering and semantics nerds! (I’m allowed to use that word…'cause I are one )
The more traditional classical position (which I use) is really not great for the thumb muting and even worse for playing the 6th string with the thumb.
Since I am playing a nut that is either 52mm or 46mm (1 13/16”), thumb plying and muting will be pretty limited anyway.
In the classic over the right leg position the head of the guitar should be almost over the left knee. So pretty far in front is how the ergonomics work.
Looking at @Tbushell and his seating position, what I see is that his thighs are not parallel to the floor. That is partly why the guitar slides and is less stable in any position without using a strap. The strap resolves this, but I have enough neck problems that straps and I are a no-go, so having my seat low enough to actually have my thighs not slant at all, parallel to the floor was an epiphany.
Many classical players use a foot stool to lift the left leg. But this destabilizes the pelvis and causes the spine to curve and rotate increasing stress on the back (and the buttocks). Much better is to have both feet flat on the floor, knees and hips at 90 degrees, good slouchless (?) back posture and then find where you need the guitar and what you need to hold it there. I chose the Sageworks lift, but there are a bunch of ways to accomplish this depending on where you want the guitar to sit for you.
My issue also was my short legs. Hard to find a chair low enough, but I didn’t want to put a block of wood down for my feet.
Your comment about wearing a dress brought up a memory of an Ana Vidovic video. She is wearing a long dress, and uses a classical position for the guitar. I remembered the way the dress draped over her knees for some reason. I have a foot rest that is similar and like it . At the end of the video, we see she was seated on an adjustable bench.
For Stacy, maybe studying the position here is useful. I wonder about her head being over the guitar so much as a long-term neck issue. I have trouble with that, but I had a neck injury in my teens that still bothers me today.
One other thing, I started to play more fingerstyle and noticed that I hold more tension in my picking hand arm while doing so. It is causing some stress to the muscle holding my forearm up. Have you started to play something different, or more technical? Maybe you need to add that to your investigation of what changed.
Hmmmm…not sure this is correct - might be a trick of the camera angle.
The guitar slips off to the side, not the front - unless I pin it as described up thread.
But now you’ve got me wondering. Guess I need to lower my tripod to level with my thighs and take some more pictures (maybe I’ll wear better pants this time)
Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been mistaken about things like this - poor kinaesthetic awareness is definitely a thing.
It does move the headstock out towards the knee (I.e. increases the angle between the guitar neck and the player’s torso - see my pictures above)
There’s some slight increase in difficulty fretting, but that’s offset by the increased ease of thumb muting.
What I did notice - with #3 position, casual w/o strap - was that I had to lower the neck angle more parallel with the floor to properly “pin” the guitar to my right leg, and that made fretting feel significantly harder.
I do get a sore neck some times when playing with the strap, but - in my case, at least - I’m pretty sure it’s because i’m hanging my head out over the guitar to look at my picking hand.
Or, when playing classical w. Strap, turning my head to look at my fretting hand.
Hence my increasing interest in playing by feel instead of sight. Been getting a lot of benefit from the single string targeted picking exercise I posted in Stacy’s thread on picking accuracy…will update that soon.
I have to reluctantly consider myself in this category.
I love your pictures, they make the angles really clear. If we think of the guitar as a vehicle that moves along the long axis, then we can just use roll, pitch and yaw, like you would for a plane or boat or whatever. So, your first picture would show the yaw, the second would be roll and the third pitch.
Now, I will trying using them: I have always held the guitar with a pitch angle that I always thought was bigger than normal, rather like you in the 3rd photo. I generally have enough roll so I can see the fretboard, although I don’t always look at it. As for my yaw, it’s basically just a few degrees, i.e. just a bit angled up relative to the angle of the floor.
It occurs to me that non-nerds might not take to yaw, roll and pitch, so here are my alternatives: vertical neck angle, soundboard angle, horizontal neck angle.
Thanks Michael, I had a look at the video, for me, the classical position is kind of weird, doesn’t feel very comfortable. A few months ago, I found out, that positioning my right arm like @Tbushell showed in his very first picture above brings a lot of stability and solved the problem with a moving headstock for me.
For the other two, I’m wondering if it would more intuitive to talk about the headstock position from the player’s perspective, rather than angles, i.e.
On the plus side…it was easy for me to find a good balance between fretting and strumming hands, it was easy to “pin” the guitar to my leg with the weight of my strumming arm, and put the headstock into a “high and forward” position that I like much better than the “low and forward” position I get from the regular casual position.
On the minus side…I never cross my legs when sitting, since I was told it’s bad for my posture by an Alexander Technique teacher.
So I found it very uncomfortable in the lower parts of my body to do it for more than a minute or two.
However, my teacher had no trouble maintaining it for up to an hour at a time, so it might be something to try.
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