Guitar Techniques for Picking and Fingerings

[destinytot]

Just started working with the new permutations. the same way i do in my video. It took on a whole new level of hardness lol had a great practice session so far this morning.... Destinytot what scale system do you use? caged(5 pos), 7 pos, or 12,14 Reg posted the 7. i personally use the Caged but I understand the 7 position system. The fingerings would depend on the system you've committed to learning. is that the question your asking? all my fingerings and pattern's fit right on top on the other patterns. and im sure Reg has those pdf's if you need them i too will be working with the 7 pos to stay in touch with all reg's teaching.and to fill in the 2 scales, removed form the 5 pos system And lol its a great system they both are.

I learned CAGED, but - like you - I'll be working with Reg's system to stay in touch with all his teaching. If there are PDFs for pentatonic and blues scales, I'd love to have a copy.

[destinytot]

It's interesting that there always seems to be a call to justify working on technique in isolation to some degree. I thought the following excerpts were particularly apt for the topic at hand. It's from Bert Ligon, who is neither known as a "scale guy" nor a "just transcribe and learn tunes" guy. It actually sounds very Reg to me:

"Part of a musician's development is the building of technique necessary to execute musical ideas.."

"..Playing music will develop some musical technique. However, learning to play certain things before hand gives the musician a better chance at creating a musical performance that transcends the technical difficulties of the piece. A major part of what we practice as musicians is control. This is no different from an athlete mastering the control of a backhand return, a curve ball..."

"...To master any sport, athletes, their coaches, and trainers break the event into smaller manageable drills to master individually before putting them all together. Drills imply repetition of singular concepts or motions until they become second nature. When we see an athlete or musician and speak of how natural they are, we are seeing the result of hours of practice and drill in order for it to appear natural..." - from the introduction to Bert Ligon's Comprehensive Technique for Jazz Musicians

Thank you, Matt -sounds like the golden mean.

[Pocket Player]

i do have a great pdf for ya but im avoiding it at the moment...to make sure its the exact same as reg builds the foundations on.... Reg ! do you think you can post the pdf for the complete system ? just so we all stay on the same pageand school of thought..

[destinytot]

Well, my left (fingering) hand has just had a jolly good workout on Reg's scales. I've never given that 1st-finger stretch a fair go until now. My left hand feels powerful and in control on each scale, but I'm taking them slowly.

(And Re. pentatonics, I couldn't help experimenting and thinking about fingerings that seem to offer mechanical advantage... just speculating, though.)

EDIT: Wow - these positions really help with reading!

[Pocket Player]

Well as for the modal advantages (ease) its very clear,for anyone. that's starting out.A subject i still have lingering questions about. Probably because i learned caged first. And i do love it>>>> That being said, unless your a strictly jazz player. 90% or better of the licks i see or have learned. Rock,country,and pop. kind of the starting point of this journey, to JAZZ ! unless cultural. Is licks from the caged system. and taught by most teachers. UNLESS you've gone to music school. or were lucky enough to have a real good teacher to start out with im not factoring in opening up the right internet page. i've taken music lessons almost my whole life. 25 years or so.... It wasn't till 10 years ago... That a teacher actually show'd me any system..what so ever.... just scale 1 pent and scale 1 major...and a few connecting boxes.... But never where these scales came from and why.... SAD I'd be a rockstar or a jazz king !!! lol lol joking... if Someone showed me this(shit) when i was 13 and not 30. And i did PAY for all that teaching. been with that teacher ever since.... and now i can actually play music to the point...i need to discuss modal interchange lol

P.s. The shredder's really like the 7 pos system too cause the 3 note per strings make for some blazing fast chops....if that's your thing.....but if you actually practice these permutations...and work them up to speed you get the speed and dexterity. and the Strength in your hands by default. its just a matter of how fast you really want to be or need to be. And lots of hard work lol

[Dioxic]

Reg, where did you get these fingerings from? They're exactly the same as the ones my teacher taught me. I'll have to ask my teacher, but I believe he learned them from Rick Vandivier who studied at Berklee with Path Metheny, Mick Goodrick, and some others.

[Reg]

I'm out of town until Monday
But I put the fingerlings together in the 60s. I don't believe they're anything but a system organized with the physical aspects of the hand and the fret board as the basis. I was also at Berklee with Mick and Pat in the mid 70s

[Irez87]

Reg,

An old guitar teach of mine gave me another layer to the digital exercise or whatever ya call it. You keep the pattern going vertically, but you leave finger planted on one string. Really works the hand. Be best to show in a video, but always paranoid about youtube.

[Reg]

Yea that's a great exercise but it is a different exercise, the point of the spiders or digital finger patterns is to get the fingers ready to start the patterns across strings which leads to better picking and fingerings for being able to play arpeggios and non scale type of melodic lines and improv.

Any and and all exersice are great, I try and have an end result or goal which hopefully results with technique that will translate into to performance. Not trying to say any way is better or worse...just again showing what I used the exersices for. All roads still lead to Rome etc...

[matt.guitarteacher]

Reg, I've been working on some of this since you posted. I was wondering if you might say something about how you actually hold the pick/picking technique and maybe how you arrived at it?

It IS pretty interesting BTW that "picking" problems often seem to have as much to do with some left hand issue.

Going to try and show and explain how I approached developing techniques of picking and fingerings for performing Jazz... and guitar in general.

[MarkRhodes]

It IS pretty interesting BTW that "picking" problems often seem to have as much to do with some left hand issue.

You know, Mark Stefani (-who posts here as JazzOnSix) said that Henry Johnson told him the same thing about Benson picking, that a lot of it is in the left (fingering) hand. Henry Robinett talks about the right hand following the left. Anyway, anything said to help improve one's left hand would be welcome. ;o)

[mrcee]

This is a good book.

http://www.amazon.com/EXERCISES-GUID.../dp/1575604027

[gnatola]

This is is the best thread I've seen on these forums. Reg, you have to keep it going. We all do.

Reg, how does one turn all of this into music?

Going to try and show and explain how I approached developing techniques of picking and fingerings for performing Jazz... and guitar in general.

Try and keep it simple, just working on these two skills and how to start and develop these skills to performance levels. No tricks or magic... and I'll try and posts as many vids as needed.

Would be great if others would also post examples and how they developed these skills. There are always different approaches that also work. But that's the point, getting to a skill level that works.

I'll also check out any vids and make suggestions that should improve your technique. I'm not looking to teach what to play, more in the direction of how to play, at least with respect to Picking and Fingerings.

So I organize my playings skills by developing basic starting or default starting points. These are my ground zeros... I don't need to think, their instinctive. They're where I start from, I then create relationships with and from them for development.

Example... I use the basic seven position fingerings based on 6th string roots. Using Gmaj as reference, I use fingerings built from each note of that Gmaj, Ionian scale working my way up the fretboard. Start with strict alternate picking, down up etc. This becomes your basic reference, very neutral phrasing and articulations... no accents except that basic down up or strong weak feel.

This basic starting reference, of Major Scale built on 6th string and scales built on each scale degree, generally called Modes with Guitarist, moving up the fretboard using the 6th string as reference becomes the basic starting point for everything else... scales, arpeggios, chords etc...

I know this is very basic and most already have this together... but this needs to become internal, instinctive to the point of like walking, you just do it and adapt for different locations. So you need this scale organization to make your fretboard become a large Grid. The example is Gmaj and scales built from G maj scale degrees.

If I said play A-7 dorian or 2nd degree of Gmaj. That same grid of your fretboard needs to now change to reflect A-7 Dorian as the target, not Gmaj. Same notes, different organization and guidelines for the notes etc... And of course this concept of fretboard being one large grid... is moveable, you can transpose or move as needed. Move that A-7 dorian up a half step or one fret... now your reference tonal target becomes Bb-7 dorian. You need to be able to play anything anywhere on the fretboard, this approach of organization using movable positions... movable Grids works easily, both mentally and physically, very easy to see or envision and hear as well. It's mechanical, you don't have to figure anything out once you get it down.

[gnatola]

This thread can't be dead already. It hasn't even gotten started.

[Pocket Player]

NAAAA its not dead yet. Were just all practicing ! and its been a really busy month and summer,for everyone i know i have a ton of question's still... I've been practicing hard on the finger perm's for a month and still have work to do...i'm sure will get rolling again soon . and stacking a few more layers. You can see a few of guy's really digging in too there picking, As we started this process... and are active in a few other thread at the moment,Working out a few wrinkles , in there picking. There a bunch of us right now !!! having daily revelations,in are technique,and playing. I really think ! We've all be just working hard on the first stuff... and SUMMER i've personally still got to get through more of these basic perms , and a few of the scale patterns. as i play out of the cage system, and need to really dig deeper into the 7 pos system this year. It just take's time i'm sure will get into basic harmony and start looking into basic chord substitutions , this year. But for Now building these foundations. Hows your practice going?

P.S destinytot, its been fun watching you ! and your daily discovery's i know your excitement, went thru the exact same thing... and the reason I love practicing so much... it's these daily,weekly Light bulbs going off.... keep up the hard work Buddy.

[destinytot]

P.S destinytot, its been fun watching you ! and your daily discovery's i know your excitement, went thru the exact same thing... and the reason I love practicing so much... it's these daily,weekly Light bulbs going off.... keep up the hard work Buddy.

Thanks, man! I'm getting more confident by removing all guesswork. I'm noticing what doesn't work, thinking about why not, and trying something else instead.

[gnatola]

PocketPlayer, can you give examples of permutations? Thanks.

[Pocket Player]

Here ya go my friend

[Pocket Player]

just work on the 3 and 4 finger perms the 5's are a whole new can of worms lol enjoy !!!

[Irez87]

by "0" do you mean an open string? I've done 2's and 4's before, but the 5's idea is interesting. I know it's not the point, but I usually try to find a musical application for these exercises. I will take a pattern on one string and create a line that works around it. You get some interesting chromatics that way.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Found these again looking for something else:

I just love the fact that Reg obviously never reads the comments on his youtube page. They're obviously just for the forum. There's a lot of, "This sounds like you're finishing a conversation you started somewhere else" and "Dude, you go too fast. You're not going to get subscribers if you don't slow it down." I appreciate his doing them for us.

Here's a real one: "Hello, amazing playing, so can you play slowly for human please ? "

Ha, ha.

We probably should go through and add thread links in the comments section as we view them from within forum discussions here so that people will know the context.

Reg,

I hope all is well. I imagine your'e busy.

[fathand]

I'm new here Reg, Thanks for the pdf! I needed that!

[MarkRhodes]

Okay, I have the seven scale fingerings and arpeggio fingerings down. Working on the extended arps (1, 3 5, 7, 9, 11, 13---13ths, I guess we call 'em) Not blazing fast or anything, I just know where I'm going. So say I'm learning a tune---this week, "This Can't Be Love" and reviewing Ellington's "I'm Beginning to See the Light," which I hadn't played in years. Straightforward tunes, nothing mysterious but I enjoy singing them, so... My question is about fingering the heads of tunes.

Say "This Can't Be Love" in Bb. The head begins with Bb, A, Bb, F. Nothing hard about that. But if I am thinking in terms of these scale fingerings, this would be the Ionian fingering, Bb and A on the high E. Sweet. But when I started playing it, I was using the Bb on the B string, 11th fret---the whole 8-bar A section lays out better there. I know my way around that 'shape' from Herb Ellis' shape system. But that's not helping me learn THESE fingerings. (Or rather, use them when learning tunes.)

Is this something we should think about, or something that will start happening of itself as we become more used to these 'defaults'?
Also, should things we already know and have cause to play again be fingered the new (-to us) way, or do we leave 'em the way we learned 'em?

(Not agonizing over this, just wondering.)

[fumblefingers]

I'm going to be a contrarion but that's OK because i've earned it - i paid a lot of money and moved halfway across the country on my own dime when 22 yrs old to train with a Berklee teacher, and subsequently played Leavitt's stretch fingerings for 25 years like a good "factory" boy should. So...

No.

there is no reason to play a head with any fingering other than the optimal one for bringing out the best tone, feel, dynamics etc. of the melody.

Leavitt was a pit band player (and studio player?) he was a fine guitarist for certain and i'm sure that he could negotiate jazz just fine - BUT - like Mickey Baker - he was not known for being a great jazz guitarist of any measure.

the greatest motivator for using his fingering system is sight reading. you can avoid shifts and looking at the neck while reading the music in front of you. great! but for improv, or anything else for that matter?

watch the hands of Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Raney, and George Benson, just to name three.

[srlank]

You know, I had a similar experience as FF. When I first started learning jazz I learned off recordings at first, playing with school group and trying to fit in licks. But then I made the biggest mistake of my musical life, and began to isolate, primarily playing with my own playbacks.

About this time I learned those Berklee fingerings and then dedicated myself to taking ALREADY-WRITTEN transcriptions of horn players and playing them strictly within these fingerings. My phrasing deteriorated, but I wasn't aware enough at the time to realize this. I actually sounded much, much better the first couple of years that I was just transcribing and probably knew 2 scale fingerings.
Then I had to put jazz guitar on hold for awhile due to life. When I came back to it, I went through the Jimmy Bruno method. I made more progress, because his main emphasis was to create your own melodies while improvising, but here again you stuck to a fingering system that did not allow for any natural phrasing and feel. It was extremely sterile.
Personally, I think I just carried it too far. It was great to have some sort of reference, but once I had the reference, I needed to break from it, find new pathways and play fingerings which were more organic to the sound I heard in my head (or what I stole from those who inspire me).