Neck up vs neck down

[jazzrat]

I've been back into Dave Stryker lately and noticed his guitar neck is level or below.
Different kinds of players but it is in stark contrast to John Stowell and others with a more
vertical positioning.

Corey Christiansen, Adam Rogers a couple others.

Given the geometry of your elbow/hand relationship to he guitar and playing across the
strings, for me it seems I have a little warmer treble tone since my picking hand is not
traveling toward the bridge as I go up.

I actually asked Corey Christiansen about it. In his case he said it had more to do with him being a big guy with long arms so it feels right.

comments or just too much time on my hands.

Here's Stryker BTW with pretty nice semi-hollow jazz tone.

[Broyale]

I prefer neck up at a 45 degree angle as it allows me to play much more comfortably.

[Doctor Jeff]

Keef says guitar should be at hip level with neck up...

[ecj]

Keif's playing position looks little bit like Joe Pass'

[iim7V7IM7]

All postures can work....

Here are 10 of my favorites from flat to up....

Tal Farlow


Bucky Pizzarelli


Barney Kessel


Howard Alden


George Van Eps


Jack Wilkins


Jimmy Bruno


Johnny Smith


Joe Pass


Martin Taylor

[coolvinny]

I guess I'm in the Johnny Smith camp of guitar positioning. Also, it appears Billy Bean was happy to play standing (from the few pics I've seen) and he has a similar position. Similar to Bruno (I hink Bruno has the smaller bodied guitar in that pic).

[Hammertone]

John Stowell's playing stance is unique, IMO, much like John.
There's one other guy who (despite being photographed in a variety of stances) really does favour a similar stance, even though he usually plays standing up. Strange bedfellows, heh:

[Klatu]

So that's John Stowell wearing a wig?

[D.G.]

I play flat, or even with the neck pointing down a bit. I play seated. It just seems to work better for me. OTOH, if I'm playing classical, then the neck is up with the guitar between the knees and one foot on a foot stool. Regardless of how you hold the guitar, it is important that you keep your right forearm OFF the soundboard your belly off the back - obviously different physical builds may negate this. It's one of the reasons I don't play any kind of acoustic guitar standing up with a strap. Solid bodies are a different story.

[Scot Tremblay]

Here's a fellow, albeit a classical dude, who plays about as "neck up" as you can get....Paul Galbraith is his name and 8 string Brahms Guitar is his game. The guitar has a higher and lower string than the standard six.

[jads57]

What perfectly good waste of a Gibson Super 400 on Keith Richards,lol!

[jazzrat]

Any posture can work as stated but, I guess for me, and the point I'm trying to make is that;
with the neck up, my picking hand as it travels bass to treble across the strings is closer to the
bridge by the time it gets to the high E, rendering a brighter tone on the treble strings.

With the guitar in a flatter position the same movement across the strings stays parallel to
the neck pickup rendering a little warmer treble tone.

Splitting hairs I know.

[Gertrude Moser]

Check out this contrast:

John holds his guitar like that specifically because of the wide stretching Bill Evans type intervals he plays. He also tends to use very thin bodied instruments.

[mr. beaumont]

Which are mostly actually very "close" intervals.

Ah...The guitar. At least we can do those parallel Herbert Hancock chords easier than any piano.

[Moonray]

Johnny Smith also would have needed to have the neck up to play those
gorgeous sounding close voiced chords he played that involve stretches.

Another reason for neck up [at least for me] is that it suits regular
style RH picking....gives you a natural angle with pick to string...if you
like to angle the pick that is.
Personally I find I pick pretty much square on for the 6th string and gradually
angle as I move towards the trebles to even out the tone.

Didn't practice it....I just noticed a few years back that's what had evolved.

"Benson" pickers would probably benefit from a straighter neck angle to help
achieve the pick angle they need.

[iim7V7IM7]

Steve Herberman is also holds his guitar in an upright classical position...

[Klatu]

Here's a fellow, albeit a classical dude, who plays about as "neck up" as you can get....Paul Galbraith is his name and 8 string Brahms Guitar is his game. The guitar has a higher and lower string than the standard six.

I looked up this guy on Youtube and really enjoyed his work. Thanks for posting. Discovering talented artists is one of the pleasures of this forum.

[Jonah]

Came across it occasionally...

If on holds guitar like cello, why not holding cello (or gamba) as guitar Marin Marais - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
)))

Seriously - just two points really matter IMHO:

- the hand position should be convinient for playing music - two words: playing and music

Playing is the most convinient, rationa, helpful way for hands to work wit the instrument
Music is what should be result of it. And music has styles, and some styles are stictly conncted with the technique - and jazz is one of it.

seems to be simple.. but... classical postion is very rational, I was trained in it, but when cwme into jazz guitar it took me quite long to understand it did not work - for me at least... classical position presumes certain fingering approach - in general based on position principle with each finger against fret where possible. All 4 fingers are practically equal.
Musical it is setup to read music or to play learnt music as easily as possible... and to have any time ability for clean full range articulation. Of course there are exceptions - but in general it is like this.
Classical performance is school, because classical music is itself gives good basis for forming perfomance school

Jazz techniques were established by self-taughts and they made regular self-taught 'mistakes' (misues of the 4th finger, 'wrong' wrist angle, thumb over neck), but all these 'mistakes' made certain special articulation, phrasing, fingering that formed a style. All these 'mistakes' worked for something in music.
Jazz articulation is much more stressed and kitchy originally... classical is much more in itself.
Besides jazz fingering is the continuation of composition - it should be first of all helpful to find onself on the fretboard - especially at high speed.

Now when lots of trained musicians come into jazz guitar, and when jazz became professionally taught (however strange it may seem to me) - so now we have a choice...

In classical guitar the position is established for musical requirements of style.

In jazz it should be the same... but in jazz there is practucally no school, except style itself, so for every general advantage of 'correct' schoolish position there is always an advantage of traditional 'wrong' position taken in certain musical context

But of coust we should not hurt ousrelfand miss the other important point

- it should not hurt hands/arms/back etc.

[Keira Witherkay]

yes a flamenco or neck up and fairly high held guitar allows great access... but can look a bit "dorky" if you know what i mean

but and i say this as a performing muso .... the player should look and feel comfortable with the instrument ....i remember in 90's those bass players wearing the bass so high up maybe it suited their style but it looked ridiculous ....

so yes functionality is prime

but looking "cool" does the player no harm with their ratings in the modern day

where we no longer just listen to music as we did till the mid 80's but now we watch music ....thanks to mtv...and now you tube ...

where i must say i discover and watch/listen to artists more than i listen to cd's ....

so remember even the music industry is beyond just listening it's show biz and the camera is always rolling in the 21st century

[Jabberwocky]

Steve Herberman is also holds his guitar in an upright classical position...

I love love this tone, electric mixed in with an acoustic voice. I note how Steve Herberman rests the lower bout on the seat between his thighs. Now, why hasn't someone created a guitarist's playing chair with a cutout in the seat and a U-shaped or flapped braced support that allows the guitar to be rested on it. The support could be made height adjustable for different sized guitars.

Classical guitarists are eschewing foot-stools because of lower-back issues. And yet nobody has thought about the guitarist's chair as an integral part of his set-up. Either that or we could go Paul Galbraith style with a cello-esque endpin or adapt a drummer's throne to support the lower bout of the guitar when the guitarist plays seated. Cellists and Paul Galbraith rests their instruments via the endpin on a wooden soundbox to augment the tone of their instruments. Not a bad idea.

Not having to support the weight and the balance of the archtop would free up the arms and hands to play with more technical facility.

How about a wooden U-shaped support attached to a height-adjustable 'pegleg' ? Any luthiers here up for it? We could adapt a Manfrotto or Gitzo camera monopod; it just needs to screw right into the wooden U-shaped support.

[MarkRhodes]

When I play standing, the neck is angled up a bit.
When I play seated, which is most of the time, if I place the guitar on my right thigh (-which is what I'm doing now, though it's not what I was doing a few months ago) the neck level is even or slightly downward. I've wondered some about this.

I think it's mainly a matter of my size. I'm 5'11" but my legs are short. There's a lot of space between my thigh and shoulders. My arms are probably a little long. So this seems to work for me.

[paulkogut]

I play with the guitar worn fairly high and the neck pointed up. What I get from it are advantages in fingering close interval stretches and grand barre voicings. What I lose out on are the Barney Kessel thumb-on-bassnote voicings and leverage for Stevie Ray type bending. Like any aspect of the guitar (string gauge, body and neck type, picking style, amp choice) you can't have one thing that does it all, you make the choices that give you the most with sacrificing the least.

Here's a recent concert video of my reharmonization of "Body and Soul". I'd have a hard time getting some of the cluster and barre voicings with the neck pointed down.

PK

[Greentone]

I have always tended to play my archtop guitars neck up, like Joe Pass, or more radically held...like T-Bone Walker: http://images.wolfgangsvault.com/ima.../PMP059-FP.jpg . Depends where I set the guitar. If seated, I tend to put the end of the lower bout on my right thigh, resulting in a neck up hold. If on a strap, I tend to T-Bone the guitar.

[fumblefingers]

I looked up this guy on Youtube and really enjoyed his work. Thanks for posting. Discovering talented artists is one of the pleasures of this forum.

He's a master. Studied with Segovia. (Really). A number of critically acclaimed CDs. Naturally he has to transcribe keyboard music to do his thing. Incredible player.