Why do classical guitarists use a footstool

Since a footstool is designed to help improve your posture and keep you more upright, you are less likely to hunch over or contort yourself, which can lead to back, shoulder, and neck pain. With proper wrist positioning, you will be able to maintain the natural arch of your wrist. This will reduce tension and fatigue, and can help prevent injuries such as carpal tunnel and RSI repetitive strain injury.

Instead of worrying about pain, fatigue, and injury, you can focus on more important things like your technique and the music you are working on. On top of that, you can play for a more extended period of time. On occasion I use a nail hardener from a well known mall beauty supply especailly when I do some gardening or other activity that uses my hands. I also will wear work gloves to protect my hands and nails. In ways, given my level of musicianship, it reminds me of the days when professionals would insure there hands.

Fingerstyle guitarists do whatever works for themselves. Most orthodox flamenco guitarists either use a foot stool under their right foot or cross their right leg over their left leg and seemingly have part of the guitar under their right arm pit. I have experimented with them all, and use a hybrid approach, right foot on a foot stool and left foot closer to my body. Ultimately, such placement will have an effect on your hand height, position, and how your fingers curl and anchor on the fret board.

Sorry, this is all trial and error. Angles: This is in conjunction with feet placement and posture see diagrams. Angle relative to the ground. Orthodox classical guitar neck would be at about a 45 angle to the ground with the head stock at about eye level. Personally, I am at about a 30 degree level; lower does not work at all. Frank it seems you have tried variations of this. Angle away from the body. For me the head stock of the guitar is farther away from the left side of my body; the right side being the farthest away is frowned upon, and parallel makes me twisted like a pretzel.

The position I use, has magically put my left hands and fingers into the proper position to avoid bumping fingers and overlapping strings. Just a slight, even accidental change, can effect my finger placement. Warn water or warm towel: Before playing, I often will do one of the other for no more than 30 seconds, but have to avoid contact with my finger nails to avoid softening. This seems to increase the flexibility and stretching distance of my fingers. Hand washing and hand antiperspirants: As stated I have psoriatic arthritis and thus my hands and fingertips can get quite greasy.

On the fretting hand, this adds grease and grime to the strings and increases slippage and vertical movement on the fret board. I was my hands frequently. I also found a antiperspirant lotion for the hands which keeps my hands and fingers dry for hours. It is a bit expensive, but for me it works.

My finger tips stay very dry and will not move! String cleaning: There are several commercial products made out of alcohol and other substances to clean strings. There is one I found, but hard to get, which uses individual gauze like pads that clean and put a protestant on the string. It is very expensive. For the most part, I use a blue microfiber cloth and quickly run it over the top of the strings and in-between the strings and fret board before and after I play.

This virtually eliminates any gunk, grease, grime, etc. Simply, if it is harder for the string to move up or down rather than perpendicular to the fret board when I play, the point where I press the strings down is where the strings stay in place. Practice with light pressure: Leah gets the credit here. With the fretting fingers place them lightly on the strings at the frets. This will create a muting sound. This helps in learning finger placement and position as you learn to use the least amount of pressure and literally have no tension.

This is far from easy. Over time, you should be able to gain the needed finger control and stay in proper position. At some point, you can start increasing pressure with the finger tip location just behind he fret. Keep increasing the pressure until just the point you get a clear note. Finger placement and position: There are many times when more than one finger is used on the fretting hand. For example, the E or Fm formation which is the same but on different fingers.

Best practice would be all three fingers employed would be as close as possible to the fret. This is almost physically impossible. Accept the situation, the fingers will have to be spread out and may overlap a bit, but will be more so in a sequence.

Please see the diagram. It is best to always have the fingers tips on the string and fingers being as close as possible to perpendicular to the stings. In reality, there is a certain amount of margin of error; there maybe person specific situations, where an orthodox position is required. For example, on string 1, I am much less arched and perpendicular and on string 6, I am more arched than normal and certainly not perpendicular.

Finger stretching and flexibility exercises: These are paradoxically brutal and wonderful. For now, I will pass on this subject. Try all of the above first. Exercises and songs: What I have is only in TAB and for the most part can be memorized reasonably quickly. You want to be able to watch your fingers as you practice. While they emphasize some right hand techniques, they are far from easy and can actually in the early going being near impossible, but did help me with the my problems.

To the extent, I still do them almost daily. They are not easy and for the purposes here, please do not even think about tempo, rhythm, etc.. For the future, I will update the actual original sources.

Ring Finger Independence. This is very hard. This will surely test your fortitude and spirit! Strings: Little did I realize there were so many different manufactures, weights, tensions, gauges, materials, etc. The lighter the gauge of strings the easier they will bend. A light gauge of one manufacturer may not be the same as the light gauge of another manufacturer. Then comes the complicating factor of tension usually measured in pounds.

Personally, with steel strings, I use 11 gauge and the lowest possible tension pounds. The offset is the lighter the tension and gauge, the more tinny the sound is and with less volume.

Nylon strings are usually hard tension or regular tension. The tensions seem to vary among manufacturers, but hard tensions are about 90 pounds. Some manufacturers even have multiple levels of tension. String tension is determined by vibrating length, mass, and pitch. By using different raw materials nickelplated steel, nylon, phosphor bronze, etc.

The trade off is lower tension is easier to play, but will be more likely to move with the fingers touching adjacent strings and vice versa. Weather considerations: Humidity and temperature seem to effect how much strings flex; thus, they can either become flat or sharp. A very good " thick high-densidy foam seat on a stool with a circular metal leg rest will help your posture, eg a quality swivel guitar stool.

Playing standing up is a good option but if you have to sit, right leg supporting the guitar sligtly up, is a good option too. Also if you feel pressure building on your back, stop playing and have a stretch. Hope this helps.

Last edited by fongie; at PM. Hardwired Flaws. Originally Posted by ljguitar. If you get sore from leaning over, you may get sore from propping your foot up in the air just prop it on the case for a week and see. Here's mine with two different sized guitars mini-jumbo and They are found at NeckUP. Alverez Manuel Rodriguez nylon. And more. Jeff M. I use one all the time when sitting. I play in the "classical position" The foot stool elevates the knee.

The question should really be "is playing in the classical position only for classical guitarists". Classical guitar has come to use the "classical position" over the past hundred of so years of experimentation for good reason. All times are GMT The time now is AM. It's just that I don't look so cool in that posture, but I hope I compensate by how I sound.

Post by Kaveh » Tue May 13, am For me it provides an almost straight wrist and better position for movement of fingers. The first part straight wrist is very important , it is easy to hurt your hand with a sharply bent wrist over time. Post by meepmeep » Thu May 15, am Because we are more concerned with playing well than looking good.

Post by Rick » Thu May 15, pm Stability. Much easier to play a guitar that isn't moving around. Hold it on your right leg - if you relax, it will move. It can be done other ways, of course. But there is a fundamental reason the classical position has evolved to how it is. It takes less effort, it optimizes the use of both hands for the core music most CG's play, and just to be honest personally Segovia, Bream, and a host of others did it this way.

I have seem flamenco and a few classical players use the right leg placing the lower bout on the leg , but the neck of the guitar is still up in the classical position for the most part.

I don't think I have ever seen anyone play the Chaconne with the neck level and the guitar below the waist, i. Last edited by charlesivey on Fri May 16, pm, edited 1 time in total. Post by Hybrid » Fri May 16, am I prefer to play on the right leg. Basically, the flamenco position, but with a footstool instead of crossing the right leg over the left. Different strokes, for different folks as Sly once sang.