The Guitar
The hands of a guitarist navigate a very different relationship compared to those of a pianist. The fingers are also numbered differently as shown in the illustration. The piano starts with the thumb as the first finger, while the index finger is the first finger on the guitar. The piano score reveals the key relationship with the left hand which typically plays the bass register and the right hand plays the treble.
The guitar takes a very different approach and register does not have the same relevance to the left-right relationship. On the guitar, the two hands have a symbiotic relationship with different though integrated roles. Different from most western instruments, the left-and right-hand roles are reversible depending on the guitarist’s dominant hand. For a right-handed guitarist, the left hand essentially controls which notes are to be played and the right hand manages when and how they are played.
In Malleably Musical, we refer to these hands as Voicing Hand and the Expression Hand. This approach ensures the program is accessible regardless of hand dominance. The Voicing Hand is the non-dominant hand and selects which notes are played. The Expression Hand is the dominant hand and determines how and when they are played.
The guitar was deconstructed into component skills to facilitate a manageable learning process that could achieve useful results within a short period and participants could continue their learning independently or with periodic follow up. Component skills were divided into Voicing and Dominant Hands. This approach was designed to maximise accessibility for guitarists at a range of skill levels. More advanced guitarists could move further ahead while others could start with more rudimentary skills, and then work towards the more complex skills at their own pace.
