oldetymey
Well-known member
Heres an interesting question Ive been pondering. Which hand is more important to have good technique with, the fretting hand, or the strumming hand? You would think the fretting hand so that you could cleanly make many different chord shapes would be the obvious choice. Lately though Ive been finding that I feel like its more important to develop a good strumming hand. The strumming hand is actually the heart and soul of a song. You could have a 2 chord song that sounds awesome if you have a good strumming hand, but conversely you could have a 10 chord song that sounds like garbage even if you can finger all the chords cleanly if you dont have the rhythm in your strumming hand.
So what do you guys think?
And no fair saying both, of course its good to have excellent technique in all aspects of playing, but I think you could still be a good player with a weak fretting hand. (look at Django Reinhardt) Im not so sure you could be with a weak strumming hand. It totally reminds me of this scene from the movie desperado, I always thought this scene was really cool.
So what do you guys think?
And no fair saying both, of course its good to have excellent technique in all aspects of playing, but I think you could still be a good player with a weak fretting hand. (look at Django Reinhardt) Im not so sure you could be with a weak strumming hand. It totally reminds me of this scene from the movie desperado, I always thought this scene was really cool.