Hi guys, Andy here again and in this lesson we're just taking a quick look at how hard and exactly where you should place your fingers in the fret. Now it's a fact of any learning guitarist that so many learning guitarists press down far too hard on their instrument. Probably is a product of strings not quite ringing out right people just kind of develop this gorilla grip which a lot of my students kind of nickname it and it does prevent speed and effortless playing and also means you your finger ends just to far too much to even continue playing maybe which is a real shame. So if from using this quick exercise hopefully this will help you guys let's zoom into a close up to check it out. Okay guys let's cure your gorilla grip. For a breakdown of exactly all this lesson plan so you can follow the steps yourself another time do check out the link below but you can also follow the steps here. So we want to find out just as an example find the fifth fret on your thickest E string. Now on this particular guitar that's the first dot here many guitars have a dot a third fret but you can also kind of count up from zero so one two three four and we're going to use fifth fret just as an example and what I want you to do is just place that exactly on the dot itself right in the middle of the fret and press down exactly as you normally would and give how much you're pressing down a number between one and ten. It doesn't really matter what this number is but C10 like making the tightest fist that you possibly can and pressing down as hard as you can and then one one wouldn't even ring out so a light that it doesn't even ring out. So give yourself a number between one and ten kind of now. You're probably in fact I'm not even going to ask you and we're not asking you in a second. Okay whatever your number is let's press down exactly that amount and I want you to play just pick ideally with a pick as well it'll be best done with a pick so we can be as clear and note as we can. Play one note kind of every second which by the way something you should do when you tune in your guitar as well just keep playing and gradually with your first finger relax down the numbers so imagine in that you started off at I don't know eight gradually got a seven and six and five really slowly so that it kind of starts to buzz and then the note just stops ringing out altogether because we've got maybe down to a two or a one. Now at whatever point when you were playing that that note started to buzz press down that amount but move your finger over to this side of the fret so we want to be at your side of the fret basically between where the dot is and the fret itself we want to be exactly here so we want to see this is the bad side of the fret and this is the good side of the fret position you finger here and press down that amount where you were just kind of tutoring on it vibrating but it is still ringing out don't press on any more than just that little bit of buzzing but still sounding pretty good if you can just get rid of that buzzing but again if you're pressing down any harder than you need to please don't and then think of what number that is compared to where you started remember that note is ringing out exactly the same at an estimate if you started off at a six you might have been able to get that down that might be a three or a four now that's what my students tend to see and then we're going to move our first finger over to the bad side of the fret over to this side so let's press down that same amount three or a four and see what happens and give it a go now and we should get kind of this sound just a thud right three or a four it's not ringing out you have to press down kind of substantially harder okay and maybe even like approaching six or a seven to press down which maybe how much you were pressing down at the start so if we're position your finger at this side of the fret at the good side this side your side of the dots you can press down substantially less and that's going to really help you for any of your chord shapes or any single notes that you ever play on guitar if you're say you're taking the way that I teach an eight chord right like this a lot of times this first finger just doesn't ring out okay this one can't help but buzz that one finger has to press down a little bit more than the others but don't press down any harder with the other fingers while you're doing this and hopefully you can repeat this exercise with any of your other fingers so say your middle one press down the normal amount keep playing one per second go really gradually less less until it stops ringing out and then play that note again just two to ring on the edge move to the bad side of the fret if it still rings out the other side of the fret you're pressing on too hard you need to position your finger at this side and have it still sounding pretty good if we're playing really high up the fretboard so say somewhere near the the double dot up here and we want to be leaning kind of on this side of the fret because even my fairly small fingers fill up the whole fret but if I lean on this side of the fret it doesn't sound very good if I press on the same amount and lean at this side of the fret you know it I have to be pressing at this side and kind of straight on from this way it's suddenly starts to buzz so finger placement is so important and often in kind of the heat of the moment with songs is the first thing to kind of go so taking the just the first three chords at this beginners course you've got an E everything should be pretty much as far over this way as possible and sounding pretty good your A your first finger is going to be at this side so that one needs to be pressed on a little bit harder but the other ones as long as they're right on their tips they should all ring out fairly easily without pressing on too hard and using a capa which we've just covered in the last lesson here can really help to kind of squash these strings down and make everything easier to press because if your strings are really high off the fretboard it's going to be much more difficult to kind of press down so maybe use a capa or use the songs in my beginners course with a capa which are listed and to make sure that you are kind of using the instrument in the right way so feel free to repeat that exercise with your other fingers try it high try it low but that's just a bit of an eye opener for for a lot of nice students in private lessons so hopefully that will cure your guerrilla grip maybe hopefully you've enjoyed that check out andiguitard.co.uk as I say for the rest of the free beginners course and subscribe if you like what I do and I'm sure I'll see you again bye for now