Finger Noises

[rogertroutman]

How do you keep your fingers (when playing strings) from accidently touching another string? Like when you're bending or playing octaves?

 

How do you keep your playing of the strings clean?

[Gato]

I try not to touch other strings with the left hand and using the right hand to silence the strings I don't need.

[Jedro]

Well, if you're bending, there's nothing you can do about touching other strings. Using the side of your palm on your picking hand to dampen strings that aren't being played will help. Also, refine your fret hand technique to keep other strings from ringing out. That will come in handy with octaves.

 

One thing, though.. Sometimes those little noises that eek out while we're playing can be magical. I've noted my love of Gary Moore's playing many times here. His playing is full of string noise and other sounds that make him unique.

[LeftyBlues]

How long have you been playing, Rog? I'm pretty new (played as a teen, lost 25 years, started again last March) and I'm having a hard time with bending one string and the next one makes sound. My teacher showed me how to use the second and third fingers to kind of push the unwanted strings out of the way, plus it helps damp them. It's not easy, though, hence the practice-practice-practice! BTW, I myself was a big fan of Roger and the Human Body, Zapp,and was saddened to hear about his death several years ago.

Good luck.

[Guitarzan]

when i play octaves on the a and g strings i deaden the d and low e with my left hand fingers. the hand has to be flatter on the fretboard to do this but it is second nature to me, i use octaves alot. very cool sound and it can really add alot. when i bend i use my right hand to kill unwanted notes.

[batterypowered]

My words of advice. Stay on your fingertips. It really helps to make a conscious effort to play with your tips, and not the pad of the fingers. I know it sounds like a total beginners sloppy mistake, but I see people do it all the time. My teacher pounded it into my head many many years ago, so I'm pretty well trained to do it.

[musicalhair]

Where your thumb is in back of the neck will influence how well rounded your fingers can be when the come down on a string and fret a note. Like anything, if you work on really clean technique where you can play open strings next to fretted strings you'll get it.

 

I used to play chromatic scales down individual strings while also playing open strings (like using classical guitar technique tremolo "p" on the b string at twelth fret, "a-m-i" playing the e string), shifting positions to keep the scale decending down the "fretted" string, and jumping back up to 12th fret of the next lower string when I got to the bottom a string-- if that makes any sense. It and variations of it helped clean up that technique. A classical piece by Guiliani like op 48 no. 5 involves a lot of open strings with chords moving around. Also an "Andante Largo" by Sor (op 5 no 5 I think) has passages where that must be done. Rounded fingers playing the notes right down the center of the finger's tip are the only way.

 

For bending strings, as someone above said, you really can't avoid hitting an adjacent string. The only thing I can picture goning wrong here is if your finger is touching an adjacent string to begin with then when you bend away from it that might set it ringing making for that annoying sloppy sound when open strings are vibrating along when they're not wanted. Muting with like the index finger or something is like a "work around" but clean technique before is the solution.

 

I remember some people used have a felt like thing that sort of hung out on the string by the nut which killed such ringing open strings-- which was used by people that tapped everything, a la Jennifer Batten.

[guitarist182]

hi! I do exactly the same as guitarzan. for me it's the easiest way to keep out finger noises.

[Dave da Dude]

rogertroutman,

How do you keep your fingers (when playing strings) from accidently touching another string? Like when you're bending or playing octaves?

PRACTICE

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Honest. I tried.

 

Oh, btw, WELCOME !!

 

But seriously, there's a lot of truth in that oversimplified answer. Whatever your approach to eliminating the problem, practice will have to be a major part of the solution.

 

I agree with batterypowered,

My words of advice. Stay on your fingertips. It really helps to make a conscious effort to play with your tips, and not the pad of the fingers.

I had a (the only good) teacher who "preached" this as the "First Commandment". I have found that it does indeed help, but you will still need to add a very healthy dose of PRACTICE.

 

Dave

[Dak Lander]

Heh...

Going beyond Dave the Dude...

If you don't want finger noises don't play guitar. They are always going to happen at some time or another. Doesn't mean you can't play. It just means that it didn't work cleanly that night.

To a point I'm envious of those that can play every note and chord cleanly but on the other side of it, sometimes those don't sound like they're played by a real person, or if it's a recording there were lots of punch-ins.

[jlampson]

Muting strings? (Setup)

 

(Two possible punchlines)

[jlampson]

1.) Isn't that what your palm is for?

 

2.) Isn't that what your thumb is for?

 

You get the idea.

 

John

[Dave da Dude]

A quote I first heard here;

An amatuer guitarist practices until he gets it right, a professional practices until he can't get it wrong.

A small, but very significant, difference.

 

Dave the Unpracticed

 

PS Re Darklander:

 

I agree. It adds "feeling", kinda like the feedback before Jimi took the stage at Woodstock, it's a feeling of things to come, or like the guitarist is trying harder, or somethin' like that.

 

Of course too much is just plain sloppy.