Topic: Playing standing

[big joe weems]

Do most of you players transition easily between playing sitting and standing? Is there anything you’ve learned about making that transition more easily? I’m finding it difficult to play while standing, but would like to be able to do it! Suggestions??

[blueshome]

Prefer sitting,but you already know the answer re standing - practice!

[Pan]

FWIW, I nowadays always wear a guitar strap, even when practising at home, so I can play either sitting or standing up. Therefore I no longer have to worry about getting a correct sized chair, or a footstool etc. on a gig. Makes life so much easier, at least for my aging and aching back. 

Cheers,

Pan

[Rivers]

I do both. It's easier with an open back banjo since it's thinner. I spend half my practise time in my shop, playing & singing, sitting down, and the rest wandering around doing the same. Tip: You really do need a good strap adjusted just right for both sitting and standing.

Sitting down is where I work on stuff in detail. Wandering around is where I find out if I've really got it down.

[waxwing]

Funny this should come up. A couple weeks ago I stumbled onto the old footstool I used to always carry around.

That was before Steve James impressed upon me the importance of standing if you are going to perform, particularly if you are also singing. Probably around 2005 at Port Townsend. I agree with him and feel that standing I can really get the performance of the music out to the people. I think this applies whether I am standing on the cement at a farmer's market or on a stage in a large auditorium.

Like Pan I tend to wear a strap when I do sit down. I actually tend to practice standing about 80% of the time. Transcribing I do sitting, mostly. I think if I were going to record again I would practice sitting because I feel I can be more accurate, not to mention maintaining correct positioning to mics. I guess performing I worry less about accuracy and more about playing music, and getting that across. I agree with Rivers that getting the guitar in the right position is important but I have a range so I can change the strap length a little if I want a little change.

FYI: Almost everyone who I know that performs standing attaches the strap to the neck heel. It balances better and the guitar will stay where it is in those spots where your hands kinda come off the guitar momentarilly.

Wax

[Rivers]

Yeah I just can't bring myself to screw a strap button into the heel of some of my guitars though! 

[Norfolk Slim]

I have rarely ever tried to play standing.  It changes the angle of everything- particularly the fretting hand, I find.  Most of my favourite contemporary players play and sing sitting down and I have never felt that it detracts from what they do.  I can see that if you are in a busy place, where people arent specifically there to see you- it may well offer more presence and dynamism. 

And yes- there is no chance of me screwing a pin into the heel of my favourite old guitars!

[waxwing]

Haven't really noticed that the strap button has any effect on the sound?

I guess I'm not a guitar collector who also plays, but more of a player who likes the sound dynamics of old, not really collector condition, guitars. And every day I express gratitude for being able to play the guitars that I play. But that doesn't mean I can't modify them for best usability.

I did get a nice vintage black bakelite strap button for the little Stella that looks pretty damn appropriate to the era. (See pic below. Notice the home made leather button hole with D ring.) The Stella sports a jagged crack across the top from waist to sound hole, was converted to X bracing for a portion of its life, reconverted by Neil Harpe, has a well bellied top and has had the finish sanded through in spots for a respray, all before I got it. I put on some fat oval frets about 15 years ago, and about 5 years ago I drilled out for an end pin jack for a MiniFlex internal 2 mic. Obviously, percentage of originalness is not really an issue. But great sound acoustic or mic'd. Paul Geremia said "Sounds like Charley Patton" and played Pony Blues on it. The strap I use is a vintage woven cord supplied with old Nationals, which Lenny, from San Luis Obispo, said he quite often found, virtually unused, in old cases. The D ring allows me to adjust with a taut line hitch.

As always, I think people should decide what's best for them. Just reporting my experiences to someone who seemed to be requesting just that.

Wax

[Rivers]

I should mention that I have read that a good luthier can make a screw hole disappear real quick. Easier if it’s into bare wood rather than iveroid etc

So if you ever changed your mind or needed to sell it in original condition it wouldn’t be a big deal.

This subtopic is current with me. I just pulled the railroad spikes out of my #1 banjo fretboard where I’d installed them years ago. I never liked having them there and switching both my instruments to nylgut strings, which are fatter than steel, clinched it. So out they came.

[blueshome]

I resolve the standing issue in a crowded room by sitting on afolding bar stool to give the height.