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I think it is most common to learn horizontal (movable, CAGED, etc.) first, because you get a lot of bang for the buck with them. However, a lot of people get "locked in the box".
Did any of you master vertical (single string) before horizontal?
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09-19-2013 04:26 PM
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You're hitting what's become a sore spot for me. I've been thinking a lot about how guitar is learned these days based on talking to some instructors and reading websites especially the ones that cater to Rock-Shredders. Finger patterns like CAGE and other systems have become the heroin of guitar players. IMO these systems are for getting someone started get them some patterns and be examples for creating fingerings. Trouble is guitarist only learn the dots on a grid and don't bother learning the notes or intervals within them. Many only know names of notes on low-E and A strings because they need those to for the root notes of the pattern. Pick a note on like the D or G string and ask them to play a major scale from their and they give you the Trout look. Then mention to them anything that resembles theory and you get all the urban myths that if you learn theory you can't play with a feel. Or they point to a SRV or similar guitarist and say they didn't know theory. I say do you have the ears an SRV does and put in the hours in the woodshed SRV did???
Originally Posted by Jonzo
Okay, okay off soapbox.
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I wouldn't say master. But, yes. We learned the natural notes on the high E: E, F, G, and A. Then the B-string, the G-string, and so on. All in open or first position. That's the old Mel Bay book 1. That's certainly not mastery, but once that's in your head and under your fingers, you naturally think like that for the rest of your life as you work your way up the neck reading and playing.
I was kind of a theory geek, and I heard all of those excuses. So I experimented on my first born. When he was ready, 9 or 10 years old, I taught him 2 melodies in the open position, Mary Had A Little Lamb in C and Yankee Doodle Went To Town in G. Then I taught him nothing else. He went out and learned it all anyway.
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I wish I had never learned the notes on the low E and A strings first. It has plagued me for so many years. Only after a really long time of chord study have I been able to see the complete fretboard instead of visualizing everything relative to those two strings. Very very hard habit to break.
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I would agree with the above comments.
You can play scale patterns forever, but then pick a random location on the fretboard and try to play a scale or arpeggio from there and you can be stumped.
I think learning scale patterns is a must but also learning intervals within a string, between adjacent strings and between non adjacent strings helps a lot. I certainly have not begun to master this but understand its importance.
A simple and easy example of this are octaves.
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the answer to your questions is "no". why would one?
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I didn't do caged. I suppose the first formal scale fingerings I learnt were from the Sal Salvador and William Leavitt books.
I studied with Ted Dunbar early on who emphasized comprehensive fingerboard knowledge.
Playing 12 keys in 5 frets, multiple paths to connect octaves which included single string playing.
Single string is easier than horizontal conceptually because ascending and descending are never in doubt, each note occurs only once and intervals always have a fixed distance. Technique wise it does involve much shifting which can be challenging for a beginner but it would be great to get a jump on develop that important skill.
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I do not like very much the terms "horizontal" and "vertical" in relation to learning notes on the fret board. After messing around for six months or so on a steel string Stella acoustic guitar as a kid, I started classical lessons at twelve or so from a good teacher. He used Richard Pick's method (the Sixties) in which you learned to read notation from the get go. He quickly introduced me to Segovia's major and minor diatonic scales in all twelve keys to build strength and consistency of tone in the right and left hands and to reinforce a working knowledge of the fret board. Teaching proceeded with the etudes of Sor and Carcassi. An excellent way to create a musical foundation.
But my own development of my ears was based more on playing popular music at the time like the Beatles and other pop rock/country music, ultimately progressing through fusion to actual jazz. That evolution was based more on studying theory while at the same time focusing on chord study (construction), harmonizing the diatonic scales, transcription, and simply 'time on the instrument' to quote PR.
While I understand the CAGED system and appreciate the fret board logic, I never 'studied' it per se, because it was already an implicit part of my musical vocabulary and technique. I have never been a fan of that approach that emphasized 'playing a melody on one string'. Why? There are six strings and positional playing or learning to play a melody in various positions on the fret board is much more important and logical. I suppose that suggests more 'horizontal' orientation. At the same time, I think learning voice leading and harmonizing scales will more quickly lead to technical advancement, especially in the context of learning actual tunes. I think that last point is important.
Finally, I think it is vitally important for guitarists not to become "locked in the positional boxes", especially in thinking about improvisation. My goal is always to play what I hear in my head and in my heart. To play lyrically what I can sing within the technical limitations of the guitar with its six strings and some twenty or so frets. In that regard, I think of playing single note or double stop lead guitar lines more like a game of 'chutes and ladders'. That is a tough concept to communicate articulately or to demonstrate, but it is rather something for the individual guitarist to develop in their own stylistic context. Ultimately, in my mind it is all about voice leading, integrating melody and chord harmony and colors, and the freedom to play with intuition from your mind and heart. And that is something each musician needs to learn on their own. In the end I try to think of the guitar fret board not in two dimensions but more as a hologram - multidimensional synthesis.
Jay
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I think people have differing aptitudes, skill levels, motivations and work ethics. I'm not sure that the system you start with has as much to do with where you end up as do those personal characteristics. Some people will learn CAGED and stop. Would they have continued working and learning had they started with "vertical" rather than "horizontal"? I doubt it. On the flip side, I'm sure a lot of great players started with the Mel Bay->CAGED thing but their own personal characteristics of aptitude, skill, motivation and work ethic made them not stop but continue learning what works best for them.
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I like to think of guitar as a compilation of 6 independent instruments.
I have found the idea of playing within limitations to be a useful study path.
Position playing or playing within a set fingering is probably the most common version of this.
Working within the limits of one string taught me more understanding of the tonal palette than I could ever know playing position where string changes occurred whenever I ran out of fingers.
From one string you can then check out string pairs, trios, etc.
It gives you a chance to explore the effect of the G-B major 3rd tuning in depth.
(4th tuning players ignore the last comment)
I like that. Length, plane, depth, time, possible futures, time travel, alternate universe, etc.In the end I try to think of the guitar fret board not in two dimensions but more as a hologram - multidimensional synthesis.
No place for boredom within a multidimensional synthesis.
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There all systems and methods to get you to the point where you can play anything.. anywhere on your guitar...
Different guitars have different performance results... what you play, depending on where you perform on your neck.
Personally... I don't need to think about fingerings or organizational patterns unless I'm trying to produce a specific sound, a sound or style which is produced from a specific method of performing.
I would think... playing the hardest stuff first might not be possible. But I am from school of not practicing very slowly etc...
If you can't feel music at faster tempos... it doesn't matter how much you practice s l o w l y etc... your not going to be able to play at faster tempos.
Reg
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One of the recent threads on another forum posed the question, "Do you really need to know all of the notes on the fretboard?". I find a question like that absolutely bewildering and can't imagine a player of any other instrument asking a similar question. As far as not learning any theory, it shows in questions like "How do I know what the root of a chord is?". Originally Posted by docbop
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Courtesy of Mr. Mel Bay? Originally Posted by AlainJazz
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Yes Brian, it was good ole Mel Bay.
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Bako - I like your response to my comment.
But in effect, I'm serious about "thinking" about musical phrases that way - not 'thinking', but almost visualizing the phrases like a hologram, rather than even in a linear manner in terms of time. It is a kind of way of grasping the intention as a whole rather than as a string of notes in a linear temporal sequence. Like swallowing the whole enchilada at once rather than a bite at a time. Kind of like achieving a certain state of mind and consciousness where you visualize the goal and let your subconscious take the role of getting you there. Hard to explain but I believe it is productive.
Jay
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Originally Posted by AlainJazz
Same here. Must have been the Duane Eddy influence of the 1950s.
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it only takes time...
to know where you want to go is the first thing....but don't get caught speeding...
in any book...one page at a time...read it play it digest it understand it...next page...
Duane Eddy was my first influence....Mel Bay Guitar Primer was my first book,the red one before Grade 1..
Scales in all positions will make the fingerboard seem smaller as you progress...knowing all the notes (at least to the 12th) is a must have thing...to know where you want to go you need to know where you are...!!
time on the instrument...
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Not sure I'm following you on this one Jn.?.? If you pick a random location on a fret board and try to play a scale or an arp . . as long as you can identify to root, and know a corrosponding fingering for the arp you wish to play . . why would you be stumped? Originally Posted by jnbrown
Last edited by Patrick2; 09-25-2013 at 03:54 PM.
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Because my first perspectives were classically based, and because they included Laurendo Almeida's method book, going up the neck was a large task tackled early on, so yes, I learned to see a unified fingerboard almost before I learned the 5th fret wall or the positional cage. Originally Posted by Jonzo
But as ColinO points out, a first step is just that-a first step. Finding comfort at any point is important, and positional playing is certainly one way to make order out of the very uncomfortable chaos. Honestly, I remember that it was ALL hard. Horizontal. Vertical. Skating on the rink (the combination alluded to in The Advancing Guitarist) was all so strange and non intuitive. But each perspective presented a danger of getting locked way.
I will say that personally, knowing the linearity, the single string navigation, may have seemed stranger or "harder" had I found safety and comfort in the CAGED system first; but that speaks more to the nature of comfort than the task of learning the instrument.
If I can offer my own observation, I did find that when I learned horizontal playing, I found my ear played a greater part in guiding the learning of the hand. I often felt the opposite was the case in position playing. In playing to this day too, there is a "lyricism" that I fall into with vertical playing. For me, it's my voice's way on the guitar: the sense of high and low are very clearly defined in space.
I hope it all becomes irrelevant to you soon.
David
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I'm inclined to Reg's kind of thinking. At any point on the neck you know what kind of sound you get, depending should you play one way, or another and you decide which sound (Way of playing on micro level. On macro level we all play own unique style.) is adequate for that particular moment, with regard to previous couple, and hopefully foreseeing the next.
Guess that's what guitarist vocabulary really means. It's not that much about words as it is about figures, idioms and meaning. Slang.
Also, I have problem when visual is introduced as main aspect. Ok, we all see it, at least somewhat, as axes system of a kind, one axes to up and down, the other to left and right, but introducing more than that, I don't know? Hologram???
From my limited point of view, at any point on the neck, you have 7 to the left and 2 to the right, on a string below are 3, 4 and 5, and another one further below are 6, 7and 1(8va). I would not go much more visual than that, because everything else is just shifting this basic picture along the axes.
Of course, all above if we are talking "playing". If it's about practicing, I wouldn't know, except, everything ads to it, being scales, licks, tricks, tunes, ...
And to concrete question, I first learned notes per string (note, I don't say I know them all now, at least without some counting), then major and relative minor scale in position, and that would be that. The rest was noodling around.
About CAGED system first I've heard last year, or one before.
I'm 46.Last edited by Vladan; 09-24-2013 at 04:54 AM.
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If you know CAGED really well, that implies you know in between the 5 positions as well. Slipping to the left or right of a CAGED position shouldn't be a problem, you have to do that all the time for certain arps, or enclosures etc. Favouring a CAGED position in not a problem, it's an advantage as the fingerings will be more playable for an idea you wish to play, particularly at faster tempos.
The main problem is range. If you hear a line that goes higher or lower than the position youre in, you have to get good at figuring out how you're gonna get into a different position without interrupting the flow. I try to practice moving to adjacent positions from every string, using index or middle finger as a transitory guide to the new position. There are very few lines I hear in my head that require traversing more than 2 adjacent positions, but I try to shift positions even when I don't really need to, because it varies the sound of the lines. I try to learn all my devices, lines, licks etc in all 5 positions and practice linking them. That's hard enough for me!
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My regret is that I didn't spent more time actually being able to hear the sound of each note and interval on the guitar, I spent too long concentrating on being able to physically play the notes in all the positions and along each string.
I feel that there has to be a balance when practicing the instrument, between learning the mechanics of playing the instrument and training your ears to distinguish each note on the instrument.
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Guy, did you EVER hit the nail on the head. The situation seems to be that some people get really good with the kinesthetics, enough to really fill the time with activity. Sometimes it's a long time until the ear catches up. Many teachers and methods don't put that skill right up there with fingerings. It's not the same. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Then there are those who have found their ear. Their integration of skills is something so natural that they take it for granted that others can do it too. Maybe they don't teach it as a separate skill either.
My early teachers gave me plenty of things to memorize. Learning to think like a singer, that came on my own later.
Good point Guy.
David
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I know that most of us, myself included learned to play across the neck before dealing with up and down.
What we are familiar with is generally easier than something new, but is there anything about single string playing that makes it harder than position playing?
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On a single string, every key is a different pattern. Across strings, you just move the same pattern.
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