three finger technique

[magerlab]

Hello, friends!
my question is a bit stupid
after watching some videos of jazz masters( for example Wes' concert on 625 ) i see that many of them played with only three fingers. Wes used pinky for playing octaves and chords.
Even modern player Andreas Oberg plays like that.

So i have a question if anyone does play with only three fingers and are there any special fingerings for this technique?

[derek]

I am personally not a fan of 3 fingers only when playing lines. I am a big believer in using all 4 fingers on my fretting hand.

[Gramps]

If you're not going to use you pinky can I have it? :-)

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I hope you're not one of those crazy gypsy jazz guys that imitate Django down to hobbling a couple fingers?!

[saponsky]

I don't know if it's three-fingers-related but I've heard a lot about so called 'shell voicings'. For what I've read they are chords based only on the 1-3-7 notes. Can anyone provide more info about this, is this (as BDLH mentioned) related to the technique Django used?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Originally Posted by saponsky

I don't know if it's three-fingers-related but I've heard a lot about so called 'shell voicings'. For what I've read they are chords based only on the 1-3-7 notes. Can anyone provide more info about this, is this (as BDLH mentioned) related to the technique Django used?

Not Django, more Freddie Green. For example, a couple CMaj7 chords played with only 1-3-7:

X324XX
X3x45X
XX241X
7XX55X

[monk]

Charlie Christian, George Barnes, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Oscar Moore,T-Bone Walker, B.B. King and Bucky Pizzarelli all use (or used) a predominantly 3 finger left hand approach. This is because they employed a chord shape based method of looking at the fingerboard.

Swing, blues and bebop guitarists used this approach because it's a "natural" way of organizing the fingerboard.

The scale fingering/mode approach started to gain currency in the early to mid 1970s due in part to articles that were printed in Guitar Player magazine and later, Guitar World. Those articles were aimed at rock and blues players who sought entry into the world of jazz improvisation. Most of those articles were not written by jazz guitarists and had a classical slant. As a result, some players began to organize the fingerboard as scale fingerings rather than chord shapes. This gives rise to not only a different way of visualizing the fingerboard but also a different way of playing.

In his 1941 Guitar Method, George Barnes uses chord shapes to outline the fingerboard touching only once on the major scale before diving into lines and phrasing.

Likewise, in his excellent book Jazz Improvisation for Guitar, Garrison Fewell comments on Wes Montgomery's 'blues guitarist" fingerings. A careful examination of the phrases in Fewell's book reveals that most of them are played with 3 fingers and are also shape based.

Some of you may disagree but I believe that the best way to understand the evolution of jazz guitar is to approach each era and it's players from their perspective not ours.

If you want to sound like Christian or Barnes or Wes it's necessary to understand how they approached the guitar. It's not just a matter of getting the right notes but getting the notes right.

Regards,
monk

P.S. If you really want to put stretch marks on your brain, spend a few months figuring out how Django used his left hand. The benefits are enormous.

[derek]

Hey Monk, you aren't mixed up in that nasty flood in Nashville are you? All the big names like Paisley, Urban, and Gill have lost thousands of dollars of new and vintage gear due to the flood water damage. Just brutal.

[JohnW400]

Originally Posted by monk

P.S. If you really want to put stretch marks on your brain, spend a few months figuring out how Django used his left hand. The benefits are enormous.

I recall reading that John Jorgenson from the Hellecasters learned Django solo's using only two fingers. I think I read it in JJG magazine or Guitar Player. Makes sense.

[monk]

Hello Derek,
I lived in Nashville for over 10 years, working as a road musician. I moved back to my hometown in East Tennessee 5 years ago.
I've been calling friends in Nashville for 3 days. So far, all have been fortunate. The monsoon-like rain they received (14 inches in 48 hours) is mind boggling.

Aside to JohnW400,
I got to jam a couple of tunes with Jorgensen a few years ago and he can indeed play Gypsy Jazz with 2 fingers.

Regards,
monk

[cosmic gumbo]

The pinky is the weakest and most inarticulate finger on your hand, and you use it for convenience when a stronger finger is awkward to use. Train it well, but don't expect it to do what your other fingers can do, or you'll waste a lot of time that could be used for better things.

[abracadabra]

Have you guys seen the transcriptions on the Solo Flight website? The solos are all transcribed and tabbed to show how CC actually played them on the fretboard. Some of the licks seem pretty bizarre, inefficient, and more difficult to play than if they were in more normal positions. I've been learning some of them just to get a different idea of how to navigate the fretboard. Anyway, pretty tough, but even more so if CC was only using 3 fingers!

[monk]

I've seen the Solo Flight website. The guy who runs the site is performing a great service by posting the transcriptions. However, he has some peculiar ideas about fingering. He alleges that CC only used 2 left hand fingers when playing.

Barney Kessel wrote an article in Guitar Player magazine describing his meeting with CC. In the article he stated: "Charlie played probably 95% downstrokes...... He almost never used the 4th finger of his left hand." If CC had done something as unusual as only using 2 fingers I believe that BK would have mentioned it.

Guitarists like Kessel, Ellis & Bucky Pizzarelli who were influenced by CC and who saw him play use standard chord shapes as reference. There's plenty of video available of these guys playing in the Christian style and none of them is using strange fingerings.

If I were you I would disregard the TAB at that website and use the notation as a guide to create your own TAB refingered to standard chord shapes.

Actually, CC's phrases lay perfectly for three fingers and aren't difficult to execute. The big trick is connecting the phrases and that isn't so much a trick as common sense. Most of CC's style is based on major and minor triads and dominant shapes.

Regards,
monk

[sdr]

Lots of rock and blues guys mostly use three fingers for solos. Better for bends and vibrato. Also extends their reach with the pinky. I use four fingers because I have small hands and it would be difficult to retrain myself. I definitely see the benefit though.

[markf]

Originally Posted by monk

Hello Derek,
I lived in Nashville for over 10 years, working as a road musician. I moved back to my hometown in East Tennessee 5 years ago.
I've been calling friends in Nashville for 3 days. So far, all have been fortunate.

Regards,
monk

A musician friend of mine has been down there for a month and a half, he woke up, stepped out of bed, into a foot of water. car sunk, most of his stuff wrecked. got his guitar out.

The monsoon-like rain they received (14 inches in 48 hours) is mind boggling.

maybe climate change is real after all right? probably a lot of deniers in Tennessee.

[drobniuch]

The pinky is the weakest and most inarticulate finger on your hand, and you use it for convenience when a stronger finger is awkward to use. Train it well, but don't expect it to do what your other fingers can do, or you'll waste a lot of time that could be used for better things.

I heard that when you practice with all 4 the weakest will be the ring finger..

[magerlab]

i think the question is not the weakness of 4th finger but what "picture" or box to use when playing

[cosmic gumbo]

Originally Posted by drobniuch

I heard that when you practice with all 4 the weakest will be the ring finger..

That may be true, but when supported by the 1st and 2nd finger, wouldn't you agree it becomes one the the most articulate with bends and vibrato? Much more so than the pinky supported by other fingers, IMO.

[TommyD]

I've organized my fretboard in units of 4 frets because that's how I've organized scales in my head, with occasional necessary stretches to 5 frets above or below. I couldn't imagine ham-stringing my playing by switching to using only 3 fingers. When I see players doing it, like Peter Bernstein and others, I'm amazed that they can play descending runs across six strings.
When I learned, it was, "You have four fingers - why would you want to use only three?" The guys I learned from, and who I watched, all used four fingers; Tal, Pass, Hall, etc. Even Emily, (who always looks like she's hurting her tiny little pinky. I wince for her.)
If my pinky is lying over the note I want, why would I want to move my hand to place some other finger over the note? No thanks. And I probably had (past tense) the smallest, weakest fifth finger on the planet. No more. It's still skinny and small but it isn't weak.
There's no way to prove it, but I have a suspicion that using 3 fingers didn't come about out of critical analysis of the fretboard, arpeggios, and scales, but because, away from classical guitar, no one pressed four-finger technique on early jazz players. Even today, we see several great players, (e.g. Methany) flipping their thumb over the neck to hit notes. I think that too, is home-made technique.
Well, there's my $0.02. Bombs away!
Tommy/

[mr. beaumont]

I'd be royally screwed without a pinky.

[NSJ]

Gotta have the pinky---I've been reworking the fret board to a "triad" centric technical approach (4 triads x 3 forms--root +2 inv x 12keys) whereby the associated scale AND arpeggi is immediately available from that shape with minimal movement--- to accesss the scale or arpeggi, gotta have that pinky available and ready at a moments notice.

[Christien]

Originally Posted by abracadabra

Have you guys seen the transcriptions on the Solo Flight website?

Hey can I get the actual url for this website?

[cosmic gumbo]

Sometimes I'll immobilize my index finger by wrapping it all up in tape, or tape a short pencil to it or sumpin', and proceed to play my guitar, do solos, scales, chords, etc, with the available 3 fingers. What I found was, the brain kind of naturally compensates for your immobilized index finger and starts sending messages to the other fingers on what they have to do without thinking too much. This works the shit out of your pinky and really forces it to another level of dexterity. Think Django. The brain really does compensate. When you restore use of the index finger, it feels like there's nothing you can't do. Has anybody else ever done anything like this?

[RAQ]

I once hit my index finger with an axe (a chopper not a guitar) - by accident, not on purpose - while I was have lessons from a classical guitar teacher. I had to spend about a month with it strapped up and managed to play my way through my exercises without too much trouble - had to re-finger a few moves, but was surprised how well I was able to keep playing. Apart from the pain and blood loss it was actually beneficial

[abracadabra]

Originally Posted by Christien

Hey can I get the actual url for this website?

SOLO FLIGHT (Home Page)

it's a great site -enjoy

[monk]

Several people here have mentioned Pat Martino's book Linear Expressions. Those who've studied the book or PM's videos are aware that he employs what he refers to as "Line Forms" to improvise.

Even though PM uses a linear basis for his improvisations, the line forms are related to chord forms. Specifically, five minor 7th shapes.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, many early swing and bebop guitarists used chord shapes as a point of reference and predominantly played with 3 LH fingers using the pinky as an auxiliary digit.

Here is a recent video of Pat Martino playing at a workshop. There are some good LH close ups. Notice that he employs a predominantly 3 finger approach similar to Christian, Wes and the older players. I thought this might be of interest in that his "real life" approach is different than the fingerings given in his book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COyOxqyEeTs

Enjoy,
monk

[TommyD]

A really close look at your utube tape reveals, I think, that P.M does use his LH pinky on the fret board. He doesn't use it as much as I hoped he would, but it does snap down to the strings once in a while. His (and other master players) mostly-3-finger approach discourages me though. I've spent years developing 4 LH fingers playing style. Three finger playing is a whole new ball of wax; it means more hand-jumping - a little arithmetic makes it look like 25% more!
I can see why guys do the 3-finger thing though - the ring finger is the slowest flexion responder, and probably ends up slowing us down. There's an anatomical reason. For a good portion of it's length, its flexor tendon is physically attached to the pinky tendon. All the others are independent for their full length.
Can I say it? Scheiss!!

tommy/

[TommyD]

CORRECTION; I should have said that the ring finger ends up slowing us down when we try to play using 4-finger technique.

[monk]

TommyD,
A really close look at my post reveals that I said "predominantly played with 3 LH fingers using the pinky as an auxiliary digit" and "he employs a predominantly 3 finger approach similar to Christian, Wes and the older players"

I didn't say that PM or Wes or anyone else used 3 fingers exclusively nor did I state that they never used their pinkies. The key word is predominantly.

I watched the YouTube video carefully several times before I made my post and tried to be clear in my statements.

My main point is that Martino's real life playing approach is very similar to other great jazz guitarists and is different from what is given in his book, which leads me to believe that the editor is at fault. Unfortunately, the people who suffer are the people who buy the book in good faith.

I can understand your frustration. I was in the same boat as you once, trying to play everything with 4 fingers and using scale forms as my reference. However, for me, things became much easier when I switched and it didn't take that much time.

Your anatomical observations are right on the money and there is the added factor that the ring finger and pinky share a nerve bundle that make alternate articulation difficult.

Regards,
monk

[TommyD]

Monk said: "Your anatomical observations are right on the money and there is the added factor that the ring finger and pinky share a nerve bundle that make alternate articulation difficult.

Regards,
monk"

They ought to be. I dissected a hand in anatomy class. The lack of freedom of individual articulation though, can be traced more to the unusual tendon arrangement than to neural factors.
t/