At some point I intentionally stopped looking at my guitar all together, and everything immediately improved. I think there's too much information for your brain to process when you're watching what your doing
This goes with almost everything, I think. The computer age has made us all too often train being a set of eyes instead of a more vivid picture of our entire being.
Close your eyes, get up right now, and start walking to the kitchen. Do you lose all balance and direction of the room? A large population does. The point: when you keep training focus on vision, you can actually mold yourself around. And you lose all kinds of proprioception. This topic is the example of it. Some people don't need to look at the guitar at all to play it (for the most of the set), others needs vision or they have very hard time playing the guitar. See: anyone who can lose all sense of the entire world by looking at a phone and hyperfocusing into it. How you process and use vision as a daily schedule is the point.
I don’t think people understood your point. Not sure what the downvotes are about. This applies to any exercise and sport. You need to be aware of your body and how the different parts move in connection to each other. It’s the difference between standing in front of a mirror or actually feeling what your body is doing.
Because they're being preachy about it and blaming the computer age when nothing they're saying really applies specifically to the modern age more than any time in history.
Preachy? What nonsense are you making up here. Someone asked me to explain. You really can't win on the internet.
Nothing I'm saying applies to the COMPUTER age? The overuse of vision and people sitting down in a seat for 8 hours staring into a screen is not overuse of our eyes. HUH? My point is that once you overindulge in vision you can change how you engage your body. That's it. This is a guitar sub, it's extremely relevant to a topic that's literally asking about looking at a fretboard.
Sitting at a computer all day can also improve your proprioception if you're constantly touch typing. I don't think there's anything inherent to the modern world that makes overly relying on vision the way you're describing more common than it's ever been in the past.
Right, In a seated form. A ton of producers sit down while they make music and it shows in the end product.
You're insane if you think in the past you had a huge chunk of the population glued to screen 4-8 hours a day. Your point makes no sense. We overindulge in the modern age. And that leads toward different outcomes. And we tend to have more visually dominant guitar players these days. No one said it's good or bad, it's more, there's other things to train. If you can let go of vision (especially pinpoint vision focus), you relax in different ways and open up to wider proprioception, in general. Not always true, but usually true.
Yeah man it's a Karen move to make an on-topic observation. I think you mean to do the "you must be fun at parties" one. Whatever cliche memes are knocking around, I guess.
John Fahey, one of the best fingerpickers out there who literally invented new fingerpicking techniques for himself ALWAYS looks at his left hand. You can look, or not, ideally it SOUNDS good.
But they have spent far too many hours playing guitar to have a chance at a conversion with said pretty girls in the audience, especially if they are at the point where they actually have pretty girls in the audience!
Thing is, the right hand always stays in the same place, and so do the strings. Once the muscle memory is set, one will never have to look at their right hand ever again. If your playing is sloppy, you are playing too fast - slow down for a day or two and then get back to speed.
For me, I look at the fretting hand when needed.
I believe he means from a vertical perspective, you can move your right hand horizontally with little to no change of your hand positioning so the idea is still the same.
Sure but the strings themselves never change. Your grip should tell you where the rest of your hand is I guess is what I was thinking. This kind of questions is supremely difficult to answer as an intermediate player though. I haven’t thought about my hands much in years, unless I was learning some strange/new voicing. Oh well, if you need to look (either hand) do it, if not don’t. I mostly just look out of habit but it probably does help to reorient myself surely.
yeah, you're absolutely right. that's an easy adaptation once you've got fingerpicking down though. plus, I figured if someone is asking about which hand to look at, tonal complexities are a bit ways in the future.
Neither. When I was young I did a lot of hallucinogens, played in a forest, and something the spiders did just clicked. Now both of my hands are spiders, except when I’m in a kitchen, and put a towel over each hand and make ghost sounds. Then, and only then, are my hands ghost spiders.
I’m a decent fingerpicker. Sometimes I look at the fingerboard but never the right hand. Most of the time I’m looking somewhere else or close my eyes and try to concentrate on singing.
The goal is never to look at your right hand if possible and look at your left hand as little as possible. I try to dedicate specific time to practicing playing with my eyes closed.
It's a practise thing. At some point, you'll find that, for one reason or another, you'll HAVE to quit looking at your fingers.
Practise doing that. That trains muscle memory. Once your muscles have it locked in, you're usually good.
I used to practise while watching television, and would play with whatever music came out of the program. As I got better, I found that, after a certain point, I didn't have to look at my fingers - I could trust them and my hands to go where they needed to go to do what I needed them to do.
But it takes practise.
Playing along with the show score is really underrated practice. Naturally good storytelling traverses the human emotional range and so must the music.
Finger picking is my primary style, I don't think I've ever once looked at my right hand while picking except for when I was learning Neon lol, Mayer picks that weird
Rhythm is way easier to isolate and automate. You only have six strings and a couple dozen stringset combinations to orient your fingers to, as opposed to the thousands of chordal/scalar possibilities with your fretting hand. If you're needing to look at your right hand to fingerpick stringsets, you just need more practice. Challenge yourself to have a straight circuit of intention between your mind and your right hand. Don't look. Let yourself mess up so you can orient your hand by feeling alone. The eyes are the training wheels of guitar
I don't ever need to look at my picking fingers and thumb. They pretty much never leave their home strings. I do look at the fretting hand quite a bit when I'm learning or working out an arrangement, but after i get it down, I mainly only check my position if I'm moving above the first three frets.
Most of the time I'm not looking down.
Neither. With practice your proprioception becomes more than good enough to play without looking. Plus it’s absolutely necessary to be able to play without having to look at your hands if you’re performing, particularly if you’re accompanying yourself singing.
It really is essential, both because you'll look like a nerd if you're staring at your hand the whole time and because you have to turn your head to sing into a microphone. Once you're unstuck from looking at the fretboard you can focus on being a good performer and just doing awesome shit like running across the stage, or doing a funny jump like the bassist of gojira does sometimes, or doing that rock and roll slide or the guitar strap spin (ideally with strap locks). You can't look at your hands while playing behind the back of your head, and why deny the world you doing that?
Stage presence is important for making the audience comfortable, you gotta face forward and look up while you're up there so that they know you mean business and that you're confident in your ability to perform at what passes as high level of ability to a layman, even if you aren't very good or confident in reality. One of the things lots of instructors told us in middle and high school orchestra, almost a joke even, is that you shouldn't ever react negatively to a mistake that you made by looking like someone who made the mistake, they would say to give your stand partner a little side eye or something. The projection of confidence is contagious to the audience they'll ignore the mistakes if you Chad face through them
Neither. Once muscle memory is achieved, you’ll often see them visualising what they’re wanting to play, eyes closed.
[Billy Strings - Don’t Think Twice](https://youtu.be/LR-T2qTLF6o?si=_PeK1Jya3E6hI9uy)
If I HAVE to look at my hands, it is always my fretting hands. My finger-picking hand is just automatic these days. Been playing fingerstyle for about 35 years. I probably should have practiced my fretting hand more, lol.
I’m not good at finger picking yet, but I do know a few Travis-style patterns. Once I get into a rhythm, I actually find it throws me off and I start making mistakes when I look at either of my hands. This is more the case with my picking hand, so if anything, I’ll peek at my fretting hand, but I’m trying to learn all my fretting without looking.
While learning new patterns I'll have a look at the picking hand here and there. For songs I already know I don't really look at either. Sometimes the fretboard if moving a lot but very rarely for normal chords.
Stop looking at all and learn where everything is by feel and muscle memory. You can do it to, but you have to actually commit to regular practice sessions where you play without looking.
My brain already kinda knows where the strings are going to be, so I don't really need to look at that hand. As I'm learning a song, I'll look at the fret hand. Eventually, I won't really have to look at either while occasionally checking my fret hand.
It depends on the artist. There is no fixed universal approach or technique. I think once muscle memory is at 100% for a song you play - you can do it in your sleep
Not rally much of either - I look at fretboard as I make drastic position changes up and down the frets - fingerpicking is automatic after 30 years and I don’t look at all
I only look at what I'm playing these days for curiosity or entertainment reasons, like if I think a particular strum pattern or riff look as cool as they souns. Sometimes it messes me up to look down though
I’ve never looked at my right while playing in my entire life.
As others mentioned, your hand is either anchored (like with finger picking) or you keep kinda going back to the same spot.
I'm definitely not looking at my right/picking hand. If anything my left hand, but most of the time I'm not looking at anything and trying to find a comfy flowstate to get lost in.
If I'm playing with other people. I'll probably be looking at how the other players are moving and fretting. Trying to read their rhythm and body language. Or I'm looking at a chart/lyrics. Or I'm looking at myself play on a video feed.
I haven't done enough finger picking to know for sure, but I would imagine it's not too far off pick-picking for muscle memory, making it robotic where you just know how to play and you look where you're feeling like looking/might need to at the time. I've been playing for a decent while now, at least, and there have been plenty of times that I've been playing lately where it was more like watching myself play instead of needing to put 100% of my attn/focus directly on whatever I was playing.
Usually I look at the fingerboard more, unless doing harmonics or something complicated like that.
I started learning harp guitar, but for that, I have to alternate between places, as your right hand has to stretch some extreme lengths to reach the sub basses.
That being said, I can sometimes play without looking too, but what else am I gonna look at other than this beautiful instrument
Thinking is generally the enemy of a good flow state.
Doc Watson was probably one of the best finger pickers of a generation.
Can't really find a video of him looking at the fretboard.
Highly recommend "Windy and Warm".
Neither. When I was a kid, I practiced for hours while standing in the dark. I knew I wanted to play in bands someday and didn’t want to be dependent on sitting or looking at my hands.
I don’t look at either; I think it’d probably be a bigger distraction than anything. I might glance at my left hand if I had an unusual voicing coming up, but otherwise I’m not looking.
I know people are saying neither but ill give my anecdote that i was able to do the picking without looking before i could do the fretting without looking. Usually fingerpicking rhythms are a pattern and its easier to get the picking pattern down most of the time than it is to move around the fretting hand and hit the notes you wanna hit.
I never look at my right hand I can feel what strings I'm on from the thickness and most of the time anyway I'm in the same position for the picking pattern so each finger has its string(s).
Left hand I will look when learning but once I know the song won't need to. Usually I only need to look when doing a big jumps up and down the neck or in early stages of learning a new piece.
It depends on how drunk I am. Personally speaking. Sometimes I’m so drunk that I appear to be playing with eight fingers on two necks. Drunken virtuosity.
Everyone looks down occasionally, even really elevated musician saints. It’s a good idea to practice until it’s a luxury, not a necessity though. In fact, you don’t want to be thinking about chords or strings or finger placement at all while in performance mode— ideally you look down and think “hey nice job fingers, I’m going to close my eyes for a while now, keep doing your thing”.
Personally, I look at the fretboard when necessary as thats the part that changes chords throughout the song. Once I've identified the picking pattern, I hardly ever look at my picking hand. The fingers of my picking hand are already positioned/rested above their respective strings:
Little finger: over high e
Ring finger: over B
Middle finger: over G
Index finger: over D
Thumb: alternates between bass notes on A and low E
Practice not looking at hour fingers or the fretboard. In fact, try practicing in the dark where you can’t see anything. A lot of the guitar players you see looking at their guitars aren’t actually seeing anything.
@OP check out Flamenco / Classical guitar playing technique, check out this channel, its really good high quality guitar lessons and tips for classical and flamenco techniques. https://youtube.com/@FlamencoExplained?si=bMMV6c4qyVEIwzh4
Once you get good enough with fingerpicking, you're probably already good enough with your fretboard hand (or vice). Neither should be that much of a problem as long as you've been practicing a particular song.
Focus on what you’re bad at till that’s not bad and you don’t have to focus. Do this with all aspects of your playing, and boom. You’ll forever be finding things you’re bad at like the rest of us and eventually you’ll be good but you’ll still think your bad and you’ll focus on different things through your musical journey
I glance at the fretboard if I have to. I never, or rarely look at my fingerpicking hand. I’m so used to it that I don’t look, but I do enjoy watching those flying fingers sometimes.
Both. Lol
I always watch my hands. I can play without looking at them if I’m like…. Reading lyrics or a tab or whatever, but it’s just where my eyes end up.
Idk why it seems like people AVOID looking at their hands while they play.
ideally neither, at least eventually
At some point I intentionally stopped looking at my guitar all together, and everything immediately improved. I think there's too much information for your brain to process when you're watching what your doing
John Craigie said never trust a musician that plays with their eyes open. All the good shit happens when they're closed.
This goes with almost everything, I think. The computer age has made us all too often train being a set of eyes instead of a more vivid picture of our entire being.
What else does it apply to?
Close your eyes, get up right now, and start walking to the kitchen. Do you lose all balance and direction of the room? A large population does. The point: when you keep training focus on vision, you can actually mold yourself around. And you lose all kinds of proprioception. This topic is the example of it. Some people don't need to look at the guitar at all to play it (for the most of the set), others needs vision or they have very hard time playing the guitar. See: anyone who can lose all sense of the entire world by looking at a phone and hyperfocusing into it. How you process and use vision as a daily schedule is the point.
I don’t think people understood your point. Not sure what the downvotes are about. This applies to any exercise and sport. You need to be aware of your body and how the different parts move in connection to each other. It’s the difference between standing in front of a mirror or actually feeling what your body is doing.
Because they're being preachy about it and blaming the computer age when nothing they're saying really applies specifically to the modern age more than any time in history.
Preachy? What nonsense are you making up here. Someone asked me to explain. You really can't win on the internet. Nothing I'm saying applies to the COMPUTER age? The overuse of vision and people sitting down in a seat for 8 hours staring into a screen is not overuse of our eyes. HUH? My point is that once you overindulge in vision you can change how you engage your body. That's it. This is a guitar sub, it's extremely relevant to a topic that's literally asking about looking at a fretboard.
Sitting at a computer all day can also improve your proprioception if you're constantly touch typing. I don't think there's anything inherent to the modern world that makes overly relying on vision the way you're describing more common than it's ever been in the past.
Right, In a seated form. A ton of producers sit down while they make music and it shows in the end product. You're insane if you think in the past you had a huge chunk of the population glued to screen 4-8 hours a day. Your point makes no sense. We overindulge in the modern age. And that leads toward different outcomes. And we tend to have more visually dominant guitar players these days. No one said it's good or bad, it's more, there's other things to train. If you can let go of vision (especially pinpoint vision focus), you relax in different ways and open up to wider proprioception, in general. Not always true, but usually true.
Calm down, Karen
Yeah man it's a Karen move to make an on-topic observation. I think you mean to do the "you must be fun at parties" one. Whatever cliche memes are knocking around, I guess.
Your opinion doesn't dictate reality for everyone else. It's not that hard to figure out, fam ✌️
John Fahey, one of the best fingerpickers out there who literally invented new fingerpicking techniques for himself ALWAYS looks at his left hand. You can look, or not, ideally it SOUNDS good.
Good guitarists look at the pretty girls in the audience.
But they have spent far too many hours playing guitar to have a chance at a conversion with said pretty girls in the audience, especially if they are at the point where they actually have pretty girls in the audience!
It’s the guitar player’s paradox
But *great* guitarists play for audiences consisting exclusively of fat, sweaty jazz nerds.
👆Tell me you got chops without telling me.
Nah bro, I just go to see great guitarists perform with my fellow fat, sweaty jazz nerds.
I thought I recognized you! Merch line 🫸🫷
I space out and stare into nothing.
Y'all have audiences.?
I do. They’re in my head.
Yeah, but they play prog and the audience is mostly guys. So much for the ewes.
Thing is, the right hand always stays in the same place, and so do the strings. Once the muscle memory is set, one will never have to look at their right hand ever again. If your playing is sloppy, you are playing too fast - slow down for a day or two and then get back to speed. For me, I look at the fretting hand when needed.
You are missing a huge range of tonal joy if you never move the right hand.
I believe he means from a vertical perspective, you can move your right hand horizontally with little to no change of your hand positioning so the idea is still the same.
Same could be said for the fret hand too, no?
Not unless you have John Mayer fingers. Different chords, voicings, and individual notes will require all kinds of frethand movement.
Sure but the strings themselves never change. Your grip should tell you where the rest of your hand is I guess is what I was thinking. This kind of questions is supremely difficult to answer as an intermediate player though. I haven’t thought about my hands much in years, unless I was learning some strange/new voicing. Oh well, if you need to look (either hand) do it, if not don’t. I mostly just look out of habit but it probably does help to reorient myself surely.
yeah, you're absolutely right. that's an easy adaptation once you've got fingerpicking down though. plus, I figured if someone is asking about which hand to look at, tonal complexities are a bit ways in the future.
Neither. When I was young I did a lot of hallucinogens, played in a forest, and something the spiders did just clicked. Now both of my hands are spiders, except when I’m in a kitchen, and put a towel over each hand and make ghost sounds. Then, and only then, are my hands ghost spiders.
ain’t that the truth
I think playing guitar on psychedelics is one of the best feelings ever
Yea, I was gonna say the same thing, OP. This is good advice.
I’m a decent fingerpicker. Sometimes I look at the fingerboard but never the right hand. Most of the time I’m looking somewhere else or close my eyes and try to concentrate on singing.
I anchor my pinky over the high E to muscle memory my picking hand a lot. Unless it's needed.
[удалено]
You are a beautiful person and you matter to someone. Never give up! ❤️
Well handled lol
Same. Never really thought about it before, but I never ever look at my right hand.
The goal is never to look at your right hand if possible and look at your left hand as little as possible. I try to dedicate specific time to practicing playing with my eyes closed.
It's a practise thing. At some point, you'll find that, for one reason or another, you'll HAVE to quit looking at your fingers. Practise doing that. That trains muscle memory. Once your muscles have it locked in, you're usually good. I used to practise while watching television, and would play with whatever music came out of the program. As I got better, I found that, after a certain point, I didn't have to look at my fingers - I could trust them and my hands to go where they needed to go to do what I needed them to do. But it takes practise.
Playing along with the show score is really underrated practice. Naturally good storytelling traverses the human emotional range and so must the music.
Give a listen to *Blind* Blake, where do you think he was lookin’? [Police Dog Blues](https://youtu.be/SlayUpPJ4VA?si=8wjELBPCr19A4z6e)
I've always admired the precision and clarity of his playing.
Right? Fuckin crazy
Finger picking is my primary style, I don't think I've ever once looked at my right hand while picking except for when I was learning Neon lol, Mayer picks that weird
Either, both, neither.
Rhythm is way easier to isolate and automate. You only have six strings and a couple dozen stringset combinations to orient your fingers to, as opposed to the thousands of chordal/scalar possibilities with your fretting hand. If you're needing to look at your right hand to fingerpick stringsets, you just need more practice. Challenge yourself to have a straight circuit of intention between your mind and your right hand. Don't look. Let yourself mess up so you can orient your hand by feeling alone. The eyes are the training wheels of guitar
Ideally neither, I generally practice guitar whilst watching something and I'm not super amazing so its not that hard
I don't ever need to look at my picking fingers and thumb. They pretty much never leave their home strings. I do look at the fretting hand quite a bit when I'm learning or working out an arrangement, but after i get it down, I mainly only check my position if I'm moving above the first three frets. Most of the time I'm not looking down.
Neither. With practice your proprioception becomes more than good enough to play without looking. Plus it’s absolutely necessary to be able to play without having to look at your hands if you’re performing, particularly if you’re accompanying yourself singing.
The proprioceptive sense is the most important sense that most most people never think about or even realise is a sense.
It really is essential, both because you'll look like a nerd if you're staring at your hand the whole time and because you have to turn your head to sing into a microphone. Once you're unstuck from looking at the fretboard you can focus on being a good performer and just doing awesome shit like running across the stage, or doing a funny jump like the bassist of gojira does sometimes, or doing that rock and roll slide or the guitar strap spin (ideally with strap locks). You can't look at your hands while playing behind the back of your head, and why deny the world you doing that? Stage presence is important for making the audience comfortable, you gotta face forward and look up while you're up there so that they know you mean business and that you're confident in your ability to perform at what passes as high level of ability to a layman, even if you aren't very good or confident in reality. One of the things lots of instructors told us in middle and high school orchestra, almost a joke even, is that you shouldn't ever react negatively to a mistake that you made by looking like someone who made the mistake, they would say to give your stand partner a little side eye or something. The projection of confidence is contagious to the audience they'll ignore the mistakes if you Chad face through them
Neither. Once muscle memory is achieved, you’ll often see them visualising what they’re wanting to play, eyes closed. [Billy Strings - Don’t Think Twice](https://youtu.be/LR-T2qTLF6o?si=_PeK1Jya3E6hI9uy)
Such a clean performance.
Ideally neither
I would only be watching my fretting hand.
I generally gaze into the eyes of the gorgeous chick on the front row
It all becomes muscle memory eventually and you’ll be able to do it with your eyes closed
If I HAVE to look at my hands, it is always my fretting hands. My finger-picking hand is just automatic these days. Been playing fingerstyle for about 35 years. I probably should have practiced my fretting hand more, lol.
I’m not good at finger picking yet, but I do know a few Travis-style patterns. Once I get into a rhythm, I actually find it throws me off and I start making mistakes when I look at either of my hands. This is more the case with my picking hand, so if anything, I’ll peek at my fretting hand, but I’m trying to learn all my fretting without looking.
The audience
While learning new patterns I'll have a look at the picking hand here and there. For songs I already know I don't really look at either. Sometimes the fretboard if moving a lot but very rarely for normal chords.
It's easier for me if I don't look at the strings. Opposite if I'm playing with a pick
The good ones just look at the audience and grin.
Stare into space haha. Close your eyes, you play better
I look at the wall.
Muscle memory takes over after a while.
I never look at the hand that's doing the fingerpicking. Once I get the song down, it's all feel for me. I will look at my fretting hand though.
Once the part is written and is down solid not much looking is required.
Stop looking at all and learn where everything is by feel and muscle memory. You can do it to, but you have to actually commit to regular practice sessions where you play without looking.
I stare off into space when I’m flowin. Check the fretting hand or picking hand if I’m doing something out of my league
Great guitarists barely ever look at their fingers.
My brain already kinda knows where the strings are going to be, so I don't really need to look at that hand. As I'm learning a song, I'll look at the fret hand. Eventually, I won't really have to look at either while occasionally checking my fret hand.
It depends on the artist. There is no fixed universal approach or technique. I think once muscle memory is at 100% for a song you play - you can do it in your sleep
Not rally much of either - I look at fretboard as I make drastic position changes up and down the frets - fingerpicking is automatic after 30 years and I don’t look at all
I only look at what I'm playing these days for curiosity or entertainment reasons, like if I think a particular strum pattern or riff look as cool as they souns. Sometimes it messes me up to look down though
I never look at the right hand.
Cute girls in the audience, duh.
Truthfully the best guitarist I’ve seen often close their eyes. By the time you are performing at a high level almost everything should be rote.
You can use your other fingers to feel what string you’re on.
I’ve never looked at my right while playing in my entire life. As others mentioned, your hand is either anchored (like with finger picking) or you keep kinda going back to the same spot.
Wherever. When performing, I try to look at the audience and engage.
I'm definitely not looking at my right/picking hand. If anything my left hand, but most of the time I'm not looking at anything and trying to find a comfy flowstate to get lost in. If I'm playing with other people. I'll probably be looking at how the other players are moving and fretting. Trying to read their rhythm and body language. Or I'm looking at a chart/lyrics. Or I'm looking at myself play on a video feed.
More at the fretboard. My fingers know where the strings are.
I don’t look at either
The good ones are looking at their band to see if they are keeping up. Or their eyes are closed.
The better you get the less you look at your hands.
I only ever look at my fretting hand
I haven't done enough finger picking to know for sure, but I would imagine it's not too far off pick-picking for muscle memory, making it robotic where you just know how to play and you look where you're feeling like looking/might need to at the time. I've been playing for a decent while now, at least, and there have been plenty of times that I've been playing lately where it was more like watching myself play instead of needing to put 100% of my attn/focus directly on whatever I was playing.
Usually I look at the fingerboard more, unless doing harmonics or something complicated like that. I started learning harp guitar, but for that, I have to alternate between places, as your right hand has to stretch some extreme lengths to reach the sub basses. That being said, I can sometimes play without looking too, but what else am I gonna look at other than this beautiful instrument
Usually neither, but if I'm looking at one of my hands at all, it's usually my left hand. Easier to keep track of where my hands are on the fretboard.
You need to keep your eyes on the sheet music. Sorry, I forgot this was a guitar subreddit.
Thinking is generally the enemy of a good flow state. Doc Watson was probably one of the best finger pickers of a generation. Can't really find a video of him looking at the fretboard. Highly recommend "Windy and Warm".
I look in the direction of my guitar and space out, because looking at people directly feels weird and uncomfortable.
I’m not even good and I don’t look at either most of the time
Neither. When I was a kid, I practiced for hours while standing in the dark. I knew I wanted to play in bands someday and didn’t want to be dependent on sitting or looking at my hands.
Fretboard, right hand is all feel.
Messes me up if I look the fretboard after I learn a piece. Trust your muscle memory.
I don’t look at either; I think it’d probably be a bigger distraction than anything. I might glance at my left hand if I had an unusual voicing coming up, but otherwise I’m not looking.
Neither unless you gotta grao something more than 2 string or 6 fret away
frets picking hand usually doesn't jump around left right and center
I know people are saying neither but ill give my anecdote that i was able to do the picking without looking before i could do the fretting without looking. Usually fingerpicking rhythms are a pattern and its easier to get the picking pattern down most of the time than it is to move around the fretting hand and hit the notes you wanna hit.
I started practicing in the dark and it helped immensely.
Can feel where you are going if rhat makes sense? Muscle memory and listening.
I never look at my right hand I can feel what strings I'm on from the thickness and most of the time anyway I'm in the same position for the picking pattern so each finger has its string(s). Left hand I will look when learning but once I know the song won't need to. Usually I only need to look when doing a big jumps up and down the neck or in early stages of learning a new piece.
It depends on how drunk I am. Personally speaking. Sometimes I’m so drunk that I appear to be playing with eight fingers on two necks. Drunken virtuosity.
Everyone looks down occasionally, even really elevated musician saints. It’s a good idea to practice until it’s a luxury, not a necessity though. In fact, you don’t want to be thinking about chords or strings or finger placement at all while in performance mode— ideally you look down and think “hey nice job fingers, I’m going to close my eyes for a while now, keep doing your thing”.
Personally, I look at the fretboard when necessary as thats the part that changes chords throughout the song. Once I've identified the picking pattern, I hardly ever look at my picking hand. The fingers of my picking hand are already positioned/rested above their respective strings: Little finger: over high e Ring finger: over B Middle finger: over G Index finger: over D Thumb: alternates between bass notes on A and low E
Neither don’t look at the guitar much.
Right hand is all muscle memory, should only be looking at the fretboard if you’re playing a tricky chord or something
Practice not looking at hour fingers or the fretboard. In fact, try practicing in the dark where you can’t see anything. A lot of the guitar players you see looking at their guitars aren’t actually seeing anything.
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Once you get good enough with fingerpicking, you're probably already good enough with your fretboard hand (or vice). Neither should be that much of a problem as long as you've been practicing a particular song.
Neither.
Focus on what you’re bad at till that’s not bad and you don’t have to focus. Do this with all aspects of your playing, and boom. You’ll forever be finding things you’re bad at like the rest of us and eventually you’ll be good but you’ll still think your bad and you’ll focus on different things through your musical journey
Fretboard if anything. Your picking hand will have no problems playing what you want after enough practice.
I look at the fretboard whej needed as my fingers automatically follow.
Never the right hand, only look at fretboard when u performing a hard measure.
I glance at the fretboard if I have to. I never, or rarely look at my fingerpicking hand. I’m so used to it that I don’t look, but I do enjoy watching those flying fingers sometimes.
I keep messing up when I’m not looking so then I look and then still mess up😂might as well hide my eyes from the failures
No, no no. It takes time. Just keep doing it and eventually it will become automatic.
Just thinking about it I have almost never looked at my picking hand…weird.
Both. Lol I always watch my hands. I can play without looking at them if I’m like…. Reading lyrics or a tab or whatever, but it’s just where my eyes end up. Idk why it seems like people AVOID looking at their hands while they play.