Guitarist practice of the day: RELAX (those stupid guitar faces) and/or Try Yoga or end up looking like Yoda

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”

One thing that master guitarists (across styles) seem to have in common is total relaxation of the body and hands while playing.*  For guitarists raised as rock and blues players (the majority), this can be difficult because of the "guitar faces" and "fastest gun hung low" requirements of the genre. Of course, every body is different and by extension the natural strength and dexterity of hands.

Edward Van Halen is a guitarist whose guitar faces and extreme use of his body do not hinder the relaxation in his playing. The dead give away of his relaxation is his penchant for smiling in the midst of his testosterone-driven guitar face displays. It's as if he's putting you on with his non-playing antics. Maybe he is naturally able to relax of disconnect  his relaxed guitar playing faculties from the tight guitar faces and acrobatics, or maybe that is something gained from practice. Can you do this? Or is all that tightness giving you constipation and slowing down your musicality instead?

Your  hands and arms are not disconnected from the rest of your body. Tension anywhere in your body is going to show up in your hands, and tension is not what you want in your guitar playing (or sports or anything) as it can be a hindrance to the free-flow of your ideas, and ultimately a path toward injury. Strength is a part of economy of movement, not an end in itself. All you need is the optimum amount of work (remember physics) necessary to achieve the "sound" of the technique you're working on (bends, vibrato, whatever). Everything else is overkill and a waste of your finite energy.  Sure. some sounds require some smack, but how much is the question. Too much and you actually shrink the amplitude of the string vibration (killing the low frequencies in the sustain) while over-emphasizing the transient (initial pick)....click, click, click.

We all have different bodies and different hand strengths (think of the difference in sound between Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn). Try to gauge yours by feeling it out and by conscious, wide-awake, wide-eared, practice.** This is especially true for rockers from blues to death metal who could use a little chill factor anyway (I imagine Satan was a pretty relaxed, if fallen, angel.-lol).

Also, try yoga so you don't wind up looking like Yoda.

* Look at past Guitarist of the Day video postings of Vicente Amigo, Carlos Hayre, Joe Maphis, George Benson, Jerry Reed, etc. for examples of this.

** It also varies from instrument to instrument, and also on the particular techniques used. Hey, I didn't say it was easy.

- thanks to my wife Dana for advice and on-going corrections on this important subject.