How to Hold a Guitar and Pick

Once you have selected your guitar of choice and are ready to start playing, you need to know a few things about posture. Just like most things in life it is better to have good posture and to not slouch. For one reason, ergonomics can take a heavy toll on your body parts if you do not practice them correctly, even from guitar playing. And another reason is to prevent yourself form learning bad habits from your bad posture. Bad posture or leaning over too much can cause note drag from too much weight on your fingers and wrist on the guitar neck which prevents you from playing a clean sound. Also, your back will start to hurt a lot if you have bad posture while playing. The best way to start to play is to grab yourself a stool or some sort of armless chair (arms on chairs can affect the way you hold a guitar and make it uncomfortable for you to play). Once you have that ready to go, you can sit down and place the body of your guitar against your body and rest it on your dominate hand’s side leg. Place your dominate hand (your strum hand) over the top of the body so it rests there and take the neck of the guitar with your opposite hand. Now you are ready to grab your pick with your dominate hand by using your index finger and thumb. Now stretch your remaining fingers out so that it looks like you are making the OK sign.