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Question for teachers, how do you start a student, rest stroke as a default, or free stroke when i m alternating? I have this British book Enjoy Playing Guitar that part of ABRSM curriculum I think? and I have to use it. It teaches the rest stroke first, and I don't remember it's being the case when I use other books. What the experts think?
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04-09-2025 04:33 AM
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I've just started looking at Frederick Noad's book and he starts off with the rest stroke, whereas Bradford Werner starts off similar exercises but with free strokes. As an experienced (albeit basic level) guitar player in other genres I find the free stroke much easier when starting in this style. I guess one needs to be come proficient in both, but I'm going free stroke first just while I get my alternating and reading together.
Derek
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Start them out with both, definitely.
Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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Strange, because I have found rest stroke much easier to get any kind of speed with. Originally Posted by digger
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i always start with rest strokes i m. i explain to the kids that the string is a sort of parking spot for the finger. once the finger has reached the parking spot the other finger may go on its journey. i also compare rest-strokes to the olympic walking competition where one foot must always touch the ground. we then often have walking competitions, using the i and m to walk, with one finger always touching the ground.
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With both they get confused, in my experience. It's like too much to process in the beginning. Originally Posted by James W
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Well, what happens with a few students I have who started like that but with another teacher, we are now on some Carcassi/Guiliani type arpeggios p m i a etudes where only free stroke needed, and they have a hard time switching to it. It's like their muscle memory fights it. I never experience that before. In the past I awlays started students on free stroke, and introduced the rest stroke much later. I never felt like for Classical/fingerstyle it's a priority, unless you're going for flamenco. Originally Posted by djg
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show them nothing else matters. that usually takes care of the first free stroke attempts. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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I'm the slowest guitar player I know. Any kind of speed is alien to me :-) Originally Posted by James W
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When starting with free stroke, the sitting position must be correct. Sitting, posture, hands, angles, everything.
There are so many nuances and you'd probably need a full year to spend large amount of focus to observe to be sure it all stays correct.
If the goal is purely classical guitar, then probably it'd be the right path.
When starting with rest stroke, the hand doesn't need the posture to be that 100% correctly nuanced to play well.
That means you can get 1-2 years of playing lots of melodies (try to play by ear even) without much worry - with a few cool tricks the hand can be taught to find and keep the correct shape.
Then, free stroke comes in when the pieces with bass notes arrive.. with classical posture. At this point, the logic is on your side - "you cannot play rest strokes when bass and melody is played the same time".
In that case, I've started to add free stroke + bass exercises maybe a 6-12 months before the such piece actually eventually popped up.
But yeah, when that happens, it almost seems like the student in in his/her first guitar lesson once again. Fortunately that struggle will pass
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This is a can of worms. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
How long have you got? One of about a million decisions you have to make as a teacher each with their own side effects.
FWIW I was taught free stroke only. I think in some ways it’s a good thing because it’s so much more versatile - although my rest stroke is not great:
I have issues getting students to stop doing rest strokes as they move into broken chords and so on, but I also think a good free stroke technique is harder to master.
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In general so much of beginner guitar is about building muscle memory it always feels like a challenge to break it and introduce something new. Playing in second position can be like venturing into Narnia.
So at the moment I teach finger a fret which isn’t perfect. But it is easier to remember. I tried to teach fourth finger on the top two strings which prepares the hand better for polyphonic playing, and is better for left hand posture but for me at least, not happening.
I also do right knee mostly with beginners and go a little easier on thumb positioning because I don’t want any bent wrists and collapsed carpal tunnels. I’m not necessarily teaching
Otoh you choices are
- free stroke fingers - hand pulls out from guitar, insufficient space under wrist
- rest stroke fingers - thumb disappears down the sound hole as students tug at the strings to try make a sound happen that isn’t clear due to poor left hand positioning
Non classical pedagogy
- thumb only - rest strokes easy for kids to learn and prepares hand for pick use, only the fingers disappear under the guitar, posture gets a bit twisted if you aren’t careful, free thumb strokes and fingers use are later hard to introduce later
- pick - spend half the lesson fishing picks out from the sound hole
It all involves nagging of one kind or another and it is making me antsy and I’m supposed to be on my Easter break lol. Sometimes I wonder if I should teach different techniques to different kids just to give me more variety in the nagging at least.
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That's what I'm talking about. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
But I mean just to make them posture their right hand properly is already difficult. Some just get it, and some don't and always fall back on their wrong habit because it's more comfortable for them.
But I tend to think it's easier to switch from free stroke as a default to rest stroke than the other way around. Maybe I'm wrong.
Problem is I don't remember how my journey to that was, all I remember I hated my Classical guitar teacher when I was 13 yo or so and just quit. Got into CG much later and appreciated much more.
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Turns out if you constantly nag kids mostly they don’t like it
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Not wrong at all. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Thing is, you don't switch but add the free stroke. Setting up the attitude helps a lot.
Advertise it, and assure that it will become comfortable soon.. and that it is not supposed to work instantly as the rest stroke did.
Well, there are a lot of trouble with the "correct shape" of the hand also. It tends to have a mind of it's own when not keeping an eye on it. Got to reshape often.
Similar thing helps then. Instead saying "your hand's shape is wrong, lets get it back to the proper one", the attitude should be "the hand should be flexible and playable with any shape you want, to get more tones out of it".
Then the main concern is to keep the wrist more or less straight and the fingers work properly. And let them try all kinds of angles.
Basically you are giving a new option.. a mandatory option but still, a feature and not a nuisance.
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They hate it. Hey teacher leave them kids alone! It's a fine line between letting the kids just have fun with music and maintain the rules that you know will benefit them in a long run... You don't wanna lose a student but where do you draw the line? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
One thing is clear it REALLY gets on my nerves them trying to play Classical guitar broken chord pieces with the rest stroke. I will not tolerate that! lol
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You mean add the rest stroke? I'm confused, you said I'm not wrong with starting a student with free stroke and adding the rest stroke later. Originally Posted by emanresu
Attitude yea sure, but it's not an universal fits all thing.
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Oh, you said "switch as default". But the default can be either one for a specific task and both should be in the inventory. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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Perhaps it would prevent potential confusion if you staggered the introduction of the different strokes - by which I mean introduce one stroke one week and the other the next... Or maybe a few months down the line.
I guess if it's young children you're teaching and they're complete beginners it might make sense to start with rest stroke since presumably they'll be starting with single note melodies and rest stroke is a good 'default' technique for that.
On the other hand some people (not me) find free stroke easier and in general this stroke is the more commonly used one - which means one can with justification describe it as the default RH technique for classical guitar, used for arpeggios and chords etc.
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One time a kid came up to me in class (I teach a couple of whole class lessons at a school) and asked if we could play Another Brick. I was tempted, I won’t deny. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
I did get them playing Master of Puppets. I love my job.
By the time the broken chord thing is specifically an issue I feel I can frame it in terms of musical effect instead of ‘do this cos I say so’. Maybe.
Pedagogical questioning is the way forward when I have the patience (so generally not the last lesson before lunch lol.)
Although one kid I was teaching the other day looked at me when I asked him a leading question and said “you tell me, aren’t you supposed to be my teacher?”Haha. Can’t win. Take that, Paul Harris!
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The reason why I tend to teach rest stroke first - especially to kids - is because IN THEORY it is possible to control which string you play without staring at your picking hand and without pulling the hand out from the guitar to avoid the next string - two things almost every beginner student does if you teach free strokes. Originally Posted by James W
In theory. Sometimes in practice.
I would say with them amount of practice that goes on at that stage (!), we are talking about a matter of weeks or months for the muscle memory for basic technique to gel, not days. So chopping and changing isn’t an option for me at least.
Tbf it’s like this if I’m learning a new technique. It takes me a lot more practice due to my Old Brain of course. I have to practice only one physical thing for about a year until it sticks. It was like that with rest stroke picking.
So it ends up being what we I’ve decided is the Party Line on Technique until such time as it becomes reflexive. Boring, but I at least try to teach it with some humour and fun.
But others might be better at getting their students to practice haha.
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*shrug*. i give smileys for homework and for five smileys you get a shiny fender medium pick. problem solved Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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But don’t they all inevitably end up going down the sound hole? Originally Posted by djg
*shrug*. i give smileys for homework and for five smileys you get a shiny fender medium pick. problem solved
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that is the best part of the lesson! how many shake-that-pick-out-of-your-guitar competitions i`ve held over the years.... Originally Posted by Christian Miller
also, wanna see my photo collection of broken headstocks and stamped-on 3/4 guitars?
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I think, free stroke is easier and more intuitive. That's how a kid starts playing right away if you tell them to use i m technique without telling them how it's done. No one in my practice default to rest stroke unless i show them. Originally Posted by James W
Of course, i m by itself is not intuitive for beginners because the first thing they do is start playing with their thumb haha. That's the most natural way of picking I guess? Wes got it right!
Pick is the worst to teach. Most young kids find it uncomfortable, it takes a while, and sometimes i give up. Do whatever you want kiddo.
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