Posture for Guitarists: Back, Hands and Arms

When a player has mastered their game, we say they make it look effortless. Great players are fluid and confident, and it shows in their bodies as well as their hands. You can start to develop this relaxed confidence in your own playing by becoming more aware of your posture.

Playing guitar well takes more than your hands. After all, your hands are, hopefully, attached to the rest of your body! But it’s easy to miss this when practicing, because most people are only thinking about their fingers. When you’re not aware of the rest of your body, your posture is usually the first thing to suffer. Aside from being uncomfortable and potentially leading to back pain or other problems, bad posture can make it harder to play smoothly.

Now, you might already be saying “wait a minute, I’ve seen great players that get all bent over and contorted, especially people who are really animated onstage.” That’s definitely true, but it makes sense to suggest that being efficient and relaxed in your movements helps you play better, so let’s proceed with that idea in mind.

Posture for Strumming

To start with, let’s talk about strumming. Many people work much too hard to strum the guitar. The movement itself should generally be some combination of swinging the forearm and rotating the wrist, depending on the sound you’re looking to produce. It doesn’t need to involve your biceps – it’s about motion, not muscle – and it definitely doesn’t need to involve your neck and shoulders. But it often does!

Stand or sit in front of a mirror and watch your shoulders as you strum. Then try strumming while thinking about your shoulder blades, and just “ask” the muscles of your neck and upper back to stay relaxed. You might be surprised at how much lighter your strumming hand becomes, and at the change it makes in your sound.

Posture for Playing while Standing

While you’re up there in front of that mirror, think about your stance. When you’re standing with the guitar, do you feel balanced lightly on your feet or do your legs or back lock up? Explore this by rocking your weight back and forth from one foot to the other while staying aware of the top of your head. Most likely you’ll feel your spine start to lengthen. If you’re used to looking down at your fretting hand, hold your head up and use your peripheral vision instead of craning your neck. You may need to adjust your strap for this to work. As you explore this, you might find that the guitar suddenly seems much further away! Because we focus so much on our hands and often don’t feel the rest of our bodies, it’s easy to bend towards your fretting hand without realizing it. Don’t worry about “standing up straight”, this isn’t boot camp. Just pay attention to what you feel in your body and see what you observe. It’s amazing how much we can relax by simply thinking about an area of the body and just asking it to let go.

Posture for Playing while Sitting

If you mostly play seated, the same basic concepts apply. Watch a classical guitarist or cellist, and notice the position of their bodies. Most great players are upright and relaxed, though just as in rock music there are many exceptions. Instead of balancing on two feet, when you play seated you become a tripod balanced on three points. Explore this a little and you’ll see what I mean. If you’re more comfortable sitting with your legs crossed or folded, that’s ok. Just be aware of the rest of your body, especially your back and the back of your neck.

The idea isn’t to hold yourself in a particular position, but to find what feels most natural as your body relaxes. You may find as you explore that it’s easy to let the shoulders round inward towards the guitar, to hold one shoulder higher than the other, or to twist your upper body towards the guitar. These aren’t necessarily problems in themselves, but over time they can become postural habits that will creep into your everyday life. Generally this sort of thing happens when you spend a lot of time practicing; a weekend warrior is less likely to develop these sort of problems, but it’s worth being aware of.

I did say earlier that you don’t want to use the muscles of your upper arms, neck, or back when you play, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t involved. The larger muscles of the upper body support the free movement of the smaller muscles in the hands. When the upper body is tight or locked up, the hand and arm muscles compensate by working harder. Not only does this interfere with the free movement of your hands, it makes it much easier to overuse those muscles and create strain or injury. So if you find you’re in pain after you practice, take a good look at your posture and practice habits. Generally, pain is a signal of a problem, not progress.

Good Posture for Guitarists

So let’s sum up the basic concepts here:

1. Confident, relaxed playing comes from a relaxed body.
2. Slouching or tensing up puts strain on your hand and arm muscles, puts your upper body off balance, and makes it harder to play well.
3. Most people are much more aware of their hands when they play than the rest of the body, so it’s easy for these issues to go unnoticed.
4. Simply paying attention is the key. The idea is not to try to hold an upright posture, but to notice when you slouch or tighten up so that you can ask your body to relax and balance. Think of it as “checking in” every so often. Just ask yourself what you feel.
5. If you feel pain, recognize that it’s usually a sign of a problem. Examine your playing habits, and take breaks if you play for long periods of time.

One last point to keep in mind. Oddly enough, you may find that a more relaxed posture feels awkward at first. This is usually a sign that you’re out of alignment and have gotten comfortable in your habitual posture. Recognize the difference between unfamiliar and awkward. When you aren’t used to a playing position, you’re likely to feel like you have less control at first. But we often mistake tightness and tension for control. Learn to know the difference and you might be amazed at the changes in your playing.

For more on this and related subjects, check out the introductory lesson to my JamPlay series “Effortless Guitar”: