What are Frets on a Guitar – Fix the Buzz Sound by Placing your Fingers in the Right Place

Hey. I’m Will. Thanks for joining me here at my home studio.
I’ve been meaning to do this forever and I’m finally getting
to it. I’ve amassed all these different topics of problems
that I see with my students, especially people who are learning
online. What I’ve done is I’ve got all the cures to the common
mistakes that a beginner or intermediate or pro guitarist is
going to make from learning right here on the internet and on YouTube.

What I want to talk to you about today is the buzz and that
rattle and that nasty sound we get on the guitar. You know that
one? Or maybe you’re building a chord and it ends up sounding
like this. Nasty stuff.

So here it comes at you from the Guitar Doctor. That’s what
my Skype students call me anyways. And coming at your point
of view. So let’s spin this around and check it out.

Here is that sound that we just heard. I’m going to give
you the tip right off the bat. Just get that finger higher
up on the fret so it sounds nice and clear.

I just want to bring to your attention some parts on the guitar.
Just like these are the tuning pegs and these are the strings,
these silver bars on the neck are called the frets. Maybe you
knew that, but a lot of people get this confused. This area –
say if we’re talking about the 3rd fret. A lot of times they
think that this is the fret, this whole area. So that’s like
the fret zone. That’s where you put down your fingers.

Now, I want to bring to your attention the buzz test. If we put
our fingers as low as possible on the frets, just go ahead and
do that for yourself. I want you to intentionally get a buzz-y
sound. There’s that nasty sound. All I want you to do is just
be aware of how hard you’re pressing.

Now, just slide your finger up as high as you possibly can and
apply that exact same amount of pressure and try it again. Pretty
cool, hey? Same pressure; nasty buzz sound. Same pressure, up
high-up on the fret, out of the buzz zone and there you go. This
is super handy for just making everything that you play sound better.

There are times when we can’t get our fingers high-up on the
frets and one of those times is when we’re playing chords.
So I want to show you an E minor chord real quick. We’re going
to use our peace symbol fingers and we’re going to grab on the
2nd fret here on both the A and D strings. As you can see it’s
pretty tricky for my fingers to get side-by-side here, right?

What we need to make sure is that as long as one of the fingers,
in this case it’s my 2nd fret on the D string, is high up. See
it spilling over; it’s looking good. As long as that guy is in
good shape, then this one will follow. But if this one’s down,
then this guy just gets right in that buzz zone. Just make sure
all your fingers are nice and high-up on the frets when you’re
making chords and I promise you that – here’s a D chord for
instance. You just snug those guys up nice and high-up on the
fret and you’re going to sound great every single time.

I’m going to be recording more videos like this, some more
cures to the common mistakes that a guitarist is going to make
from learning right here on YouTube and the internet.
Until the next one, keep on ripping it up.