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Well in the lessons I get the students to work them out for themselves. Sticks better that way.
Originally Posted by jockster
So we start with the major scale, and an octave shape, for instance:
x 3 x 5 x x
So the student then works out the C major scale octave to octave until they find a fingering that sits under the hand. Usually I encourage them to try a few different fingerings
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03-13-2019 03:54 PM
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Many thanks, much appreciated Christian
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It's good to know that you tried some different approaches and that this is working for you too. Originally Posted by christianm77
I get this from Frank Vignola, in some lessons he teaches the scale in this way.
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Are there 5 major scales or 7?Mecha N,One major scale, a multitude of scale fingerings.
To play a major or minor 2nd from most guitar locations there are 2 viable fingering options for each interval except
when we are too low or high on the neck. Christian's exercise is an excellent way to understand this.
Identify octaves and between them identify as many pathways as you can. Memorize the one(s) that feel best.
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I'm trying to follow this. Is there a book or website? Originally Posted by FwLineberry
Some patterns have a first finger reference and others a second finger reference. So, 1st finger stretch for some, 4th finger for others. I know it's based on chords somehow, but you have multiple fingers in the same frets in a lot of them?
The result is that many patterns which are only one note different have completely unrelated fingerings like one and four. I think it would be more beneficial to lean more towards fourth finger stretches or first finger stretches completely. Ritchie Zellon does fourth finger stretches . Reg and William Levitt do first finger stretches.
First finger stretches are argued by William Levaitt to be easier on the hands, with a dominant finger etc, but beyond that consideration, the fingerings with first finger stretches lineup the most nearly to the CAGED fingerings and chords which most are already familiar with.
Anyway, thanks for sharing details on this.
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Yes there is a book, page 4. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
The 7 fingerings that Miller includes on that page are the following Leavitt fingerings, from 1 to 7:
4C, 4A, 3, 1, 4B, 4, 2.
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Ok. That makes more sense written out. I wasn't seeing it right and was thinking of 1 as being 1A I guess. So, my mistake. Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
They basically all at least cycle together in a logical way.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
I haven't actually looked at Miller's book, so I'm making an assumption about her reasons for showing those fingerings based on my own use of the same fingerings for playing and teaching. I originally learned those fingerings decades ago from a book titled 'Styles for the Studio' by Leon White. I have no idea where he got them. I assume he may have been a Berklee grad. He has a website, but his bio doesn't give much info (Bio - Leon White).
It has only been recently that I see these fingerings attributed to Leavitt. There must be a current crop of guitar players online who have either gone to Berklee or worked through the 'Modern Method books'. When I first got online, nobody was talking about seven patterns at all. Everything was CAGED. Before that point, I had never even heard of CAGED but had figured out associating scale shapes with common chord shapes on my own with the addition of two shapes with the root under the middle finger.
In Whites book the shapes were labeled after the finger playing the root note and the string the root is on.
1-E, 1-D, 4-A, 2-A, 1-A, 4-E, 2-E correspond to Miller's diagrams 1-7.
Comparing these fingerings to the common CAGED fingerings actually shows that the CAGED fingerings don't line up well with chords that have the root under the first finger (E A and D shapes). In those cases you move the hand down a fret to play the scale starting with the 2nd finger. With the fingerings shown in Miller's book the scale is right there off the index finger without moving your hand. The fingering from the 2nd finger is still there it just fits a chord with the root also under the second finger.
This all seems like a bunch of nothing as soon as you stop playing in scale patterns and start moving around the fingerboard playing ideas and lines.
To Leavitt's point about first finger stretches being easier, the real benefit to Miller's fingerings is that you don't avoid stretching the 4th finger. If you want to play like Joe Pass of Jimmy Bruno, forget finger stretches. If you want to play like Allan Holdworth or Frank Gambale on the other hand, best not to avoid stretches.
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Jane Miller's book was my introduction to jazz guitar. I found some of those shapes challenging, but they are helpful for exercises later in the book. Stretching opens up the fretboard.
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Current crop? 7 fingerings? Originally Posted by FwLineberry
Well;
- I guess "current" is relative, Leavitt taught at Berklee from '65 to '90.
- And it's 12 fingerings, not 7.
Leavitt's three volumes were published in '66, '68, and '71.
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The part I'd question is the notion of anchoring any fingers.
I think it may be better to move your left hand up and down the neck - just a little bit - to make the stretches a little easier.
Moving along the length of the neck can be done very fast - and I'm not talking about a whole lot of movement.
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Leavitt did a pretty great job of codifying some of this stuff and giving it a name. So, a lot of people talk about "Leavitt's fingerings" as a way of describing things, whether the player or teacher who's using them learned them from him or not.
So when jazzstudent listed them by their "Leavitt names", I immediately understood that they all cycle together consecutively. His description of the evolution of scale fingerings through the cycle of 5ths is very helpful. If you played the Miller fingerings in single position, while changing one accidental to cycle down a 5th for each new iteration, you'd end up with an order of 4C,4B,4A,4,3,2,1 I think. I'd have to look back.
Reg's would be 4,3,2,1,1A,1B,1C. So, his cycle farther forward, and Miller's cycle back more. Combine them and expand to 1D and 4D, and you end up with 12 fingerings. Each cycle ends one fret away from the beginning of the next cycle at the beginning of the pattern. The CAGED analogues would be 4,3,2,1,1A. So that's the main area of overlap between all. Caged fingerings cycle in a similar way.
None of this is hugely important or anything, but I find it interesting and helpful for a way of organizing how people are approaching things.
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Yep, it's the strict anchoring part that can be a bit tough on the hand tendons. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I think you're getting the wrong impression. The idea of anchoring fingers 2 and 3 doesn't mean you can't ever shift the hand. It's based on the fact that those two fingers lack the mobility that the 1st and 4th finger have, so they only cover notes on one fret apiece while the 1st and 4th move between two frets as needed. It's more like those two fingers are the point of reference for the hand position. There's nothing dictating that you can't shift to another position or move the hand to cover a difficult stretch. I always taught students to stretch as far as comfortable then move the hand if you need to. that way you minimize the hand movement.
This only applies to playing in a position. As soon as you start shifting positions and combining positions it's a different situation.
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Ha, I'm exactly opposite. Anyway I'll put that Rosenwinkel quote out again, which sums up my attitude towards single note scale positions, and he's better than me innit:
"At a certain point in my life when I was really practicing all the time and really shredding a lot to get to the next level, my elbow started to have some pain. It forced me to take a real hard look at the mechanics of my playing and identify reasons why I was doing something wrong. It’s simply a symptom of doing something wrong.
It turned out to be a good thing, because I realized if you are playing single lines, you never have to stretch your fingers. So I developed a technique for myself where you can play all up and down the neck without having to stretch out your fingers the way guitarists do. One thing I do know is if you are experiencing any pain in your hands, you should never play through the pain because that could cause some serious damage."
I've injured myself stretching (poor posture) and while good posture is certainly possible, there's a lot of pitfalls. In terms of hand health I advocate the idea that is better to shift than stretch.
Most of my favourite players are rampant shifters.
Which is not say there isn't benefit to playing in position, but position playing is like a phase you go through. Eventually the whole neck should be one long position.
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Reg has a video where he talks about "the angle" and playing these "stretch" fingerings. It's more of a violin type approach and not so much stretching perpendicular . The perpendicular stretch thing can be dangerous, and I don't think it's really sustainable.
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Yep. I made the violin point in the three fingers thread but I think it got submerged. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
Mikes Okazaki has this to say about the third finger stretch:
"...And the third finger easily spans four frets when the hand is angled towards the guitar’s body. This approach is clear in the video footage that we do have of Wes Montgomery and George Benson, who modeled their styles after Christian. I once had the pleasure of sitting with George Benson in his house and listening to this very solo on the record player, while he pointed out his favorite lines."
Now Reg is more legit most the the time but when you stretch back with the first finger the effect is to put the hand in that more pronated position.
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If I'm using CAGED shapes, I can do most anything without stretching. That's my basic mode of operation. But If I choose to play 3nps I can as well. I could do a whole solo and never extend my hand.
Last edited by DS71; 03-18-2019 at 11:53 PM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
That's been my point, as well. Position playing is like a gear you can shift into and out of at will. How you chose to handle a position only matters in regard to what you're trying to play in that position. Once you no longer desire to play in position, it's a different matter. People get hung up on these patterns and how you're "supposed' to finger them when that might be 10% of what you'll be doing with the notes of a scale.
I'm glad I learned finger stretches and I use the ability all the time, but if not stretching serves what you want to play there's no need to stretch.
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Yeah it's weird, I kind of feel I learned to stretch so as not to, if that makes any sense.
Obviously you need to stretch for chords.
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I learned 3nps as a teenager, when the stretching didn't bother me. I think that probably contributed to the habit of not moving my hand up or down the neck.
Now, with arthritis, the stretching does bother me and I've had to adjust my technique. Moving the hand to facilitate a 5 fret span is part of that.
But, the ability to play a two octave scale in one position doesn't come up any more. I can't say how much it helped me get to this point. But, if I had it to do over again, I'd probably do it differently.
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
If I had it to do all over again I'd avoid patterns as much as possible and spend a lot more time working up and down the strings.
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Leon whites book styles for the studio used these fingerings back in '76, but they came from his own book Sight To Sound in 74-75. Students of his in LA know the story that Jay Graydon put leon on to a good reading teacher who played trumpet. The teacher said "I can help you read but I know nothing about guitar." So - Leon made them up for reading. That is, for looking at music and not the left hand. Then he made you shift out of the positions as others do because you don't need the positions anymore. You can move from the outside note of one position to the next adjacent position on any string (1st or 4th finger). I don't know where Miller got her fingerings.
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Are these scale fingerings valuable for improvisation? Or are they really for practicing?
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Here's the scales I work with and one good thing about them is they give you more notes to play with than any other scales I've worked with in the past. These are Warren Nunes' scales out of his "Solo Patterns Jazz Guitar" book that he wrote back in 1977. Steve Crowell teaches using these same scales in his books as well as he used to live with Warren Nunes back in the day.
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