Three finger less ergonomic?

[charlieparker]

I've spent the last week playing exclusively three fingers and my thumb is incredibly sore. My first finger was a bit sore, too.

It's been interesting because it really does force you to move around way more than if you are using 4 fingers.

I find my self sliding on the first finger a lot to play notes that I would typically finger 1-2-4 that I am now fingering 1-1-3. I find 1-2-3 doesn't work well when there is a fret between the notes fretted by the 2nd and 3rd frets.

I also find I end up doing a lot more stretches from the first finger to the 3rd to cover 4 or 5 frets which I think has been causing me thumb pain.

Overall, I've enjoyed parts of it because I think it can help unlocking movement more naturally, but I am concerned about the ergonomics of it. I've never had hand pain before using four fingers and thumb behind the neck.

[Christian Miller]

I've spent the last week playing exclusively three fingers and my thumb is incredibly sore. My first finger was a bit sore, too.

It's been interesting because it really does force you to move around way more than if you are using 4 fingers.

I find my self sliding on the first finger a lot to play notes that I would typically finger 1-2-4 that I am now fingering 1-1-3. I find 1-2-3 doesn't work well when there is a fret between the notes fretted by the 2nd and 3rd frets.

I also find I end up doing a lot more stretches from the first finger to the 3rd to cover 4 or 5 frets which I think has been causing me thumb pain.

Overall, I've enjoyed parts of it because I think it can help unlocking movement more naturally, but I am concerned about the ergonomics of it. I've never had hand pain before using four fingers and thumb behind the neck.

Can you post a picture of your left hand position when playing this way?


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[pamosmusic]

Also just worth mentioning that if your wrist position is unhealthy or you’re using too much pressure with the thumb or fingers, you’re going to have some trouble no matter what kind of style you’re using.

You’re always prone to slipping into unhealthy habits when you make technical changes, so if you’re making a change like this all at once, you’d want to be really really careful about those things.

Sometimes for mechanical changes like that, it helps to only do it for as long as you can stay really focused on that stuff. Like maybe you switch over for ten minutes a day so that you can be really attentive to those positioning things, then go back to what’s worked. Maybe after a week it’s fifteen minutes, then twenty, etc.

[charlieparker]

Can you post a picture of your left hand position when playing this way?


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I will try and post a short video later.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Can you post a picture of your left hand position when playing this way?


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It just dawned to me that the most positive way to play a guitar is (mainly) three fingers in a thumbs up position. Jimi. Keith. Peter Bernstein. Dem all positive vibe. Them all thumbs up.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

^ Thunbs up the neck

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

^ Thumbs up the neck mofos

[paulkogut]

Sometime back in the early 1980's, when I first started caring about this stuff, I recall reading in some magazine that "Wes never used his 4th finger..." It didn't really make sense to me, and I went back to working on the scale patterns that Howard Roberts and Arnie Berle detailed in "Guitar Player"...


A decade later, when the VHS tape of Wes on "Jazz 625" started getting passed around, it all began to make sense. It's not just 'playing with three fingers', its the position of the fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder etc that all worked together to allow the guitarist to play hard swinging bebop lines without the need to use the 4th finger. Check out Wes, Jimmy Raney, Peter Bernstein, Jimmy Ponder, etc. They seem to have some common points of left hand technique that affect their phrasing. Of course, what works best for a swinging bebop line might be less than ideal for a polyphonic classical piece ...

For the OP, it's impossible to say on the internet if it's minor 'shake it off" hand pain or 'you're about to have a permanent injury" hand pain. Take care of yourself and get medical help if you need it.

Best wishes for everyone's health and music!

PK

[Gilpy]

I’m aware that some great players used 3 fingers (or less!), but why would you want to limit yourself that way? What possible improvement could compensate for losing the flexibility and reach of your pinky?
And is this 3 finger technique just for melody lines or also for chords? I really don’t understand.

[charlieparker]

Can you post a picture of your left hand position when playing this way?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here is a YT short of a Wes tune I just was playing around learning this week. Please ignore the bad timing.

Three fingers and thumb - YouTube

[charlieparker]

I’m aware that some great players used 3 fingers (or less!), but why would you want to limit yourself that way? What possible improvement could compensate for losing the flexibility and reach of your pinky?
And is this 3 finger technique just for melody lines or also for chords? I really don’t understand.

With 3 fingers it naturally requires more slides and positional changes. I tend to stay in boxes more when using all 4 fingers. In particular, it's pretty easy to pivot to a new position either lower or higher when you reach up with your 3rd finger or back with your first. I find that using the 4th finger for slides and position changes somehow harder. Besides a lot of the greats I listen to play this way like Wes, Christian, etc.

And yes, it is just for melody playing.

[Mick-7]

It really depends on your playing style, if you frequently combine chords with single note lines like Joe Pass, Johnny Smith, Ben Monder, et. al., or if you tend to play lines that include a lot of wide intervals like Holdsworth or Monder, you'll need to use all four fingers. Joe illustrates that in this video, starting at about 37 minutes into it.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

It really depends on your playing style, if you frequently combine chords with single note lines like Joe Pass, Johnny Smith, Ben Monder, et. al., or if you tend to play lines that include a lot of wide intervals like Holdsworth or Monder, you'll need to use all four fingers. Joe illustrates that in this video, starting at about 37 minutes into it.

It is not about using three fingers exclusively but using the pinky very seldom for melody playing. For many chords you will need four fingers of course.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

With 3 fingers it naturally requires more slides and positional changes. I tend to stay in boxes more when using all 4 fingers. In particular, it's pretty easy to pivot to a new position either lower or higher when you reach up with your 3rd finger or back with your first. I find that using the 4th finger for slides and position changes somehow harder. Besides a lot of the greats I listen to play this way like Wes, Christian, etc.

And yes, it is just for melody playing.

Maybe one of the reasons for Peter Bernstein advocating putting a lot of emphasis on comping while practicing is that it is almost impossible to comp convincingly staying in a box all the time. (It is a great exercise to practice the nearest inversions and to study voice-leading of course trying to comp a whole tune within a few frets.)

[Christian Miller]

Here is a YT short of a Wes tune I just was playing around learning this week. Please ignore the bad timing.

Three fingers and thumb - YouTube

Yeah I’d stop doing that if I were you.

As I suspected are trying to do this with classical position.

What I observe - Your thumb is behind the neck and you appear to be stretching between the first and second fingers by opening the first and second finger knuckles. You are planting your thumb somewhat in a position and sliding the fingers around to get the notes, pivoting the hand from the thumb to make the movement, not moving the entire hand. I think this is asking a lot of the individual fingers in terms of pressing down the notes.

It’s an awkward halfway house and if I’ve learned anything about CG technique is that halfway houses can lead to issues.

If you want to explore this, I’d say, get that thumb over the neck and pronate the hand by about 30-45 degrees. Your thumb should be somewhat behind the hand towards the note and not at any point be planted in position. The whole hand shifts to make the notes where necessary. The neck sits in the palm of the hand and with the thumb can be used to exert pressure where necessary.

It should feel like you aren’t really playing properly, a bit ‘stupid hands’ for want of a better term.

On the whole the whole hand should move as a unit, stretching of individual digits should not occur much if at all. However your third finger will have a bit more reach in this position. Think about using the forearm to shift, not the fingers.

I model it reasonably well in this video. As does Mr Benson in the thumbnail, naturally

It’s a misnomer to call it three fingered really, discussing an effect rather than the cause of the technique which should IMO be called ‘pronated thumb over.’

It’s not that you use three fingers instead of four on purpose so much as if you get your hand in that slanted thumb-over position, the fourth finger is naturally much less useful. If that makes sense.

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[Peter C]

I would guess there is no "one size fits all". If your pinky fingers resemble those of Pasquale Grasso or Gilad Hekselman, you'll tend to naturally integrate that digit into your playing. I have no idea if their respective teachers actively encouraged them to do so. For (the vast majority of ?) other players, it's going to be a "3+1" situation, to varying degrees.

JM(non-scientific)O, without giving a lot of thought to variations of wrist/thumb positions, which are likely to be determined by the above anyway?

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

I would guess there is no "one size fits all". If your pinky fingers resemble those of Pasquale Grasso or Gilad Hekselman, you'll tend to naturally integrate that digit into your playing. I have no idea if their respective teachers actively encouraged them to do so. For (the vast majority of ?) other players, it's going to be a "3+1" situation, to varying degrees.

JM(non-scientific)O, without giving a lot of thought to variations of wrist/thumb positions, which are likely to be determined by the above anyway?

"In 2008 Pasquale studied under Walter Zanetti at Bologna’s Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini and earned a degree in classical guitar. Here he developed his own approach to jazz guitar, combining classical tradition with Chuck Wayne’s modern technique." (Wiki)

[MarkRhodes]

I was taught to play one-finger-per-fret but I prefer the sound of a three-finger approach. (More sliding into and away from notes, which is a sound I like.)

But the main thing, as has been said before, is your left hand's "habit of being" (to lift a phrase from Flannery O'Connor.) If your palm faces the ceiling when you play, you'll use the pinky more. If your palm faces the body of the guitar (not the neck), then a three-finger approach will prove useful. As Christian has pointed out before, if your hand is in that position (which it has to be if you're a thumb-over-the-neck kinda guy) the ring finger can reach as far as you'll need to go. Also, if you are a thumb-over-the-neck guy and you play a phrase where you want to use your pinky, you are likely to change your hand position, so the notes AFTER the pinky-fretted one may prove awkward.

I learned 3 note per string scale fingerings, and they use the pinky a lot. (I don't know of any shredders who are primarily 3-finger players.) My pinky works fine. But I prefer a non-classical hand position (thumb over the neck, though it's not always that way.) My hand is going to be in that position a lot when I play, so it makes sense (to me) to allow for that and finger things accordingly.

Also, for those of us with a bluesier background, it's much easier to bend (especially a large bend) with the ring finger than with the pinky.

[charlieparker]

Yeah I’d stop doing that if I were you.

As I suspected are trying to do this with classical position.

What I observe - Your thumb is behind the neck and you appear to be stretching between the first and second fingers by opening the first and second finger knuckles. You are planting your thumb somewhat in a position and sliding the fingers around to get the notes, pivoting the hand from the thumb to make the movement, not moving the entire hand. I think this is asking a lot of the individual fingers in terms of pressing down the notes.

It’s an awkward halfway house and if I’ve learned anything about CG technique is that halfway houses can lead to issues.

If you want to explore this, I’d say, get that thumb over the neck and pronate the hand by about 30-45 degrees. Your thumb should be somewhat behind the hand towards the note and not at any point be planted in position. The whole hand shifts to make the notes where necessary. The neck sits in the palm of the hand and with the thumb can be used to exert pressure where necessary.

It should feel like you aren’t really playing properly, a bit ‘stupid hands’ for want of a better term.

On the whole the whole hand should move as a unit, stretching of individual digits should not occur much if at all. However your third finger will have a bit more reach in this position. Think about using the forearm to shift, not the fingers.

I model it reasonably well in this video. As does Mr Benson in the thumbnail, naturally

It’s a misnomer to call it three fingered really, discussing an effect rather than the cause of the technique which should IMO be called ‘pronated thumb over.’

It’s not that you use three fingers instead of four on purpose so much as if you get your hand in that slanted thumb-over position, the fourth finger is naturally much less useful. If that makes sense.

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Thanks for the detailed feedback. I was trying to do what you are suggesting but I was having trouble reaching the bottom two strings. Maybe finger length is important for this style. I have shortish fingers. I also watched some others and from I saw there thumb tended to slide under the neck when playing the base notes. I take your point about moving the hand though as opposed to anchoring at the thumb. I will experiment a bit more with the points you suggested.

[pamosmusic]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I was trying to do what you are suggesting but I was having trouble reaching the bottom two strings. Maybe finger length is important for this style. I have shortish fingers. I also watched some others and from I saw there thumb tended to slide under the neck when playing the base notes. I take your point about moving the hand though as opposed to anchoring at the thumb. I will experiment a bit more with the points you suggested.

Here's an interesting question.

I do a decent bit of three finger playing, but my technique is super classical still and I use the pinky quite a lot.

So my question is ... have you ever worked on a Segovia scale?

[charlieparker]

Here's an interesting question.

I do a decent bit of three finger playing, but my technique is super classical still and I use the pinky quite a lot.

So my question is ... have you ever worked on a Segovia scale?

I've seen them before, but I've never really worked in them. I believe they have shifts in them of I remember correctly. I will take a look at them.

[pamosmusic]

I've seen them before, but I've never really worked in them. I believe they have shifts in them of I remember correctly.

Yeah it’s a super rapid shift from the third finger on, for example the third string fourth fret B, to the first finger on, for example the third string fifth fret C, and back again.

I never really practice Segovia scales anymore, but I do a lot of horizontal single or paired string playing and that’s how I move.

So when I’m moving horizontally I almost never do it by stretching. Part of that is just that I have always preferred a shift to a stretch, but part of it is a necessity because of the classical hand position I mostly use.

[bediles]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I was trying to do what you are suggesting but I was having trouble reaching the bottom two strings. Maybe finger length is important for this style. I have shortish fingers. I also watched some others and from I saw there thumb tended to slide under the neck when playing the base notes. I take your point about moving the hand though as opposed to anchoring at the thumb. I will experiment a bit more with the points you suggested.

To piggy back on this so CP can see these different positions in action. And though I'd share some old local content

Nice, Yesterdays! Great tune.

Basically, don't have your guitar so high up and tilted. 3 finger typically players rest the guitar or strap it at lap height so the wrist doesn't have to extend too much to get the thumb over. Here's a vid showing two different ergonomic positions (of the players sitting down), one where the neck is tilted up and played in a more classical style (he even switches into 3 finger thumb over when doing more bluesy stuff) and one where the neck is more level and played w a mostly 3 finger, thumb over technique. For C Jam Blues the solos start a few min in.

One way to find a nice 3 finger position is to lay your relaxed forearm down on your leg. It will likely be in a range between supinated (wrist at the ceiling) and wrist pointing to the right.

[ccroft]

Good discussion. To the original question "3 finger less ergonomic?" It depends on what you're playing and how you hold the guitar. Look at Pass. Look at Bernstein. Totally different approach in this regard, but they can both play pretty much anything. The clip posted by Bediles is a great comparison too.

I say let the music be your guide. If you're a 4 finger guy and you want to play Joy Spring you'll figure out how to get the right phrasing without re-jigging your whole technique. Using the pinky doesn't stop you from moving the hand.

More importantly, don't impose something on yourself that hurts. Stay comfy. That's ergonomics.

Might be worth noting that the old guys (like myself) never thought about this. We didn't have Youtube. We just picked up the dang thing and tried to get something out of it we liked.

[Peter C]

Being 99% self-taught, I must have figured out way back that routinely sliding between 2 notes wasn't going to work in some situations. Anyway, just out of curiosity: does anyone not play a simple 2-octave C maj scale like in this short vid?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e2qOl...?feature=share