How hard do you press on your strings?
I'm trying to develop a sense of speed but I can't really understand how to get the right tone without decent pressure on the strings, yet I see people barely touching their strings with the right tones and I'm bamboolzed.

Hard enough that they don't shift when I pick, but no harder than necessary. It's mostly a matter of getting comfortable with how hard you need to press and clearly pressing too hard. If the pitch of the string is raised from the string being bent, then you're holding it too hard - they should never touch the fretboard nor even get close.

It depends a lot on the guitar/string/pick you use. If you're playing an acoustic, you're generally using heavier strings but strum across all of them. On an electric, you can use much lighter strings that don't require a lot of pressure, which is easier to get used to playing single notes or smaller chords, while bar chords can be a bit tougher to get used to. I prefer jazz picks because I found that I had much better picking technique with them - the picking edge is pointier, so I used much less of the pick to play, making my playing much cleaner when I got used to them. I use Dunlop Jazz XLs now because regular jazz picks are tiny, and they're nylon so they have a great release and never wear out. I used to maul ridiculously heavy strings with heavy picks, and my technique was awful for years.

An exercise that a mentor gave me is what he referred to as the helicopter exercise. Fret a chord and play it, then lift your hand off the fretboard in an arc, lift it up, and move to a different chord, then see how low you could keep your hand without squeaking against the strings and still playing cleanly.

I'll try this, my chord fingering is still kind of shit, I can't consistently play C without mistakenly muting, don't even get me started on F chord

for me, B was the worst. basically fuck you open B..

This post has been edited by blind_chief on Sun - Jul 21 2013 - 21:08:08

Try different gauges of strings. I use 11s on my electric. Also, the more you play, the harder your calluses will become, thus allowing for easier pressing of the strings. just keep playing!

If you just started you have to press pretty hard, till you're fingers hurt. Then you'll develop calluses and finger strength, thats why the pro's seem like the barely touch the strings.