Position Choices

[raylinds]

As we all know, the same notes in the same octave appear many times over the fretboard. As a newbie to both reading sheet music and transcribing, I was wondering if there were any guidelines as to choosing which position when there are multiple options.

I tend to prefer the tone of the heavier strings, myself, so tend towards higher positions, all else being equal, as long as it doesn't result in spending an extended amount of time at the extreme high end of the fretboard.

It's probably a personal preference thing, but I thought I would get the views of the good people on this forum.
Thanks.

[JakeAcci]

For something that I don't have to improvise, I think about tone and playability. Sometimes a position shift makes something easier to play, either for the left hand or for the picking.

For something I have to improvise, I think of the above, but by default let my hand fall into familiar chord shapes.

[Drumbler]

Mickey Baker suggests the following positions as launching points (key of C):



and

[Nuff Said]

Originally Posted by raylinds

I was wondering if there were any guidelines as to choosing which position when there are multiple options.

What position are you going to move to next? would be a question I'd ask myself. When I'm practising a piece of music, like most players I find the positions where most of the notes fall with the least amount of hand shifting positional movement. I find this helps me to concentrate on the sound of the notes, not where they are.

Nuff

[raylinds]

Thanks for the helpful responses.

[Bflat]

A teacher told me if you are reading the melody from the Real Book, guitar should play an octave above the written music. He would have me pick a position that was comfortable for starters. He would also make me play it in a more difficult position (lots of stretches, etc..)

His rule of thumb was; locate the highest melody note and find it with your pinky. Then use the position closest to that. It gets you in the ballpark anyway.