4 Tips to ELIMINATE Fret Buzz – Make Your Chords SING!
Hey everybody! In today’s lesson we’re going to go back to basics and take a look at the four most important things when it comes to making clean and clear accurate chord shapes and eliminate fret buzz on guitar.
Whenever I have a student who’s having issues with chord shapes, I take them through this simple checklist and the problem is always resolved.
The first step is to place your finger where it will get the most leverage within the box. You want to have it as close as possible to the fret. When I place my finger on the other side of the fret, regardless of how hard I press it always buzzes. This is a perfect example of technique over strength.
The second step is to arch your fingers. You want your fingers to be curled, which gives you much more strength in your fingers and it also ensures that they do not mute the adjacent strings. This is best illustrated with the C chord, because without arched fingers you’re not going to get more than one or two strings ringing. And part of arching your fingers is having your thumb in the correct place, which brings us to our third point: thumb placement.
You want your thumb upright and you want it roughly in the middle. Remember your thumb is countering all the pressure provided by your fingers, so you want it to be in a very comfortable place where it’s balancing the fingers.
Finally, if all else fails, press harder. I purposely saved this one for last because this is the last resort. Technique is going to get you there before strength will, but sometimes it is just a matter of pressing harder. Also, having calluses makes it easier to press harder so if you don’t have your calluses yet it’ll probably just be a matter of time before you can get your chord shapes ringing cleanly.
I hope you enjoy the lesson and have a wonderful weekend!
-James
