Guitar scale fingerings - what is the priority?

[Groyniad]

how about some concrete detail?

the stripe system or cage system or 5 or 7 'position' system etc. continually generates moments in which you run out of room. the pattern goes from the bottom to the top e string - and if you follow it, then just as your line starts to reach a climax - you run out of room.

ways of changing position are not part of the (initial) system - so you have to do all that connecting up work on top of the learning the 5 or 7 'positions'. that was where i was at before trying to play really brightly with continuity and fluidity led me to the decisions i'm posting about here.

with the new fingerings designed to make e.g. donna lee playable at 240 and up - you start to move up the neck well before you run out of room on the top string- and you design them so you run out of room only when you run out of (comfortable) neck. this makes a huge and very concrete difference to the continuity of thought in your solos.

and btw - there's a very close connection between the three finger method and these more diagonal - (nearly) full neck - fingering patterns.

[Stevebol]

Richie can play. He's from Peru and much of his original material (that I have heard) is characterized as "Afro-Peruvian"---you should check up some of his stuff in that vein.

I did check out his other stuff. I just thought Autumn Leaves was a standout.

[MarkRhodes]

Reading over this thread, I'm reminded of the (perhaps apocryphal) line by the great cellist Pablo Casals. In his 90s, he was asked why he still practiced so many hours a day, and he said, "I think I am making progress."

[pingu]

All this effort expended on 'fingering' is interesting but a little puzzling as well. After all, the notes on the fret board are the same for everyone. Whether you choose to use the oft debated 7 versus 5 position approaches and four or three fingers on the left hand... My opinion is that there are numerous options to running scales on the finger board, starting with the Segovia fingerings and ending with Jimmy Bruno's or the kid down the street. The method I think is far less important than the result. And one must also acknowledge that the same two or more bar phrases can be played with different fingerings at different positions on the neck depending more on the range of the pitches of the notes more than anything else.

Ultimately, you settle on what works for you. In Django's case, he did not have options after his injury to his hands in a fire. And to some extent I think one's anatomy helps determine your style. Big hands, small hands, number of fingers, double jointed thumb, etc.

I still believe that the Segovia system of fingering the scale transitions in all twelve keys is a fine starting point. But whether it is Segovia or Jimmy Bruno's style, it is ultimately the end result that counts. As for the three versus four finger approaches with the fretting hand, I think that the three finger approach tends to result in a more angular phrasing, which is good for certain styles of jazz. Sometimes I purposely limit my approach to three fingers just to vary my styling of a song. In Wes' case I think it caused him to work harder to play certain phrases that way but was also responsible in part for his 'signature sound' which put him in the history books. Like Django.

yeah limits can be good ...

I can play straight no chaser
much better with 3 fingers ....
weird cos thats so chromatic
but true

mr b has inspired me to have another
go at Donna Lee , so unguitaristic innit
nice lines tho so worth doing

[Groyniad]

the seven areas are really there on the neck (they're part of the guitar! thanks for that reg.) - so there's no denying that those patterns are mapped out over the fretboard.

the pins on the board go where they go man - that's that.

the point is that there are different ways of playing - or fingering - these harmonic patterns - and that the most playable fingerings won't be the ones that go horizontally from the a bass note on the bottom string to a high note 2 octaves above it on the top string. these 'horizontal' fingerings may make the harmonic patterns mapped out over the fretboard easier to 'see' and remember - or learn in the first place perhaps. but they don't make tunes etc. easier to play.

fingerings that are optimized for fluidity and ease of execution at high tempos will move up and across the fretboard at the same time (so more diagonally) - and will involve many more physical shifts of the hand up and down - and will lend themselves more to lots of slurs (of various kinds) and also to the use of (mainly) 3 fingers

[matt.guitarteacher]

the seven areas are really there on the neck (they're part of the guitar! thanks for that reg.) - so there's no denying that those patterns are mapped out over the fretboard.

the pins on the board go where they go man - that's that.

the point is that there are different ways of playing - or fingering - these harmonic patterns - and that the most playable fingerings won't be the ones that go horizontally from the a bass note on the bottom string to a high note 2 octaves above it on the top string. these 'horizontal' fingerings may make the harmonic patterns mapped out over the fretboard easier to 'see' and remember - or learn in the first place perhaps. but they don't make tunes etc. easier to play.

fingerings that are optimized for fluidity and ease of execution at high tempos will move up and across the fretboard at the same time (so more diagonally) - and will involve many more physical shifts of the hand up and down - and will lend themselves more to lots of slurs (of various kinds) and also to the use of (mainly) 3 fingers

So, are you talking symmetrical patterns? It has occurred to me recently that symmetrical (sliding) scales kind of go up diagonally one way and triad inversions kind of "go up diagonally" the opposite way (succeeding, playable, close voiced inversions anyway)....

are you talking 2-fret shifts every two strings? What exactly are you describing?

[Stevebol]

I like the image of "the whole fretboard lighting up like a runway". And when "the hand is angled towards the guitar's body", the articulation seems better with three fingers.

But I'm half-guessing my way around the fretboard, so I'm visualising it at the piano - away from the guitar - and using colour-coding (magnets on a whiteboard):
Attachment 25891

Seeing it BIG helps. EDIT These little magnets are luminous - so hopefully the fretboard really will light up like a runway.

I used to think using the 4th finger might be essential for jazz. It doesn't matter if it is. There are plenty of 3 finger and 4 finger guitarists. There's a simple exercise that can strengthen the weaker fingers. It's probably very old and comes from violin, cello, etc...
The strongest fingers in order are 1,2,3,4....right?
So, with the left hand;

1,4,3,4,2,4,3,4

I think I have a tendency to keep the 1st finger anchored and lift it slightly on the last 4.

Do it over and over again and don't hurt yourself. If it starts to hurt, stop. It's just a strengthening exercise. To amuse yourself while you're working out try it on different locations all over the neck. Swing, don't swing, whatever.
It might not solve any problems but it will give you great endurance when you're playing.
You'll have one damn strong pinky finger.
Maybe you already knew this but just in case you didn't it's a fun exercise.

[destinytot]

The strongest fingers in order are 1,2,3,4....right?

i'm not sure, but I think my 2 might be the strongest.

[destinytot]

If I played a line sounding more like a scale than a melody, I'm pretty sure it would be with four fingers.

But since starting to use three fingers in the last couple of weeks, I've found that three fingers respond better to my musical ear and imagination - faster, with more accuracy, and - most importantly - in a way that is more inspiring than with four.

I can also press hard more easily on heavy strings with three-finger fretting; I feel I have greater control and expression.

[Stevebol]

i'm not sure, but I think my 2 might be the strongest.

We might think the 3rd finger is strong because we use it so much but actually it's not as strong as the first 2. It doesn't have to be. I wouldn't look into it too deep and it's just an exercise to strengthen the weakest finger- the 4th in a semi-musical way.
It works. It's been used for ages.

[Stevebol]

If I played a line sounding more like a scale than a melody, I'm pretty sure it would be with four fingers.

But since starting to use three fingers in the last couple of weeks, I've found that three fingers respond better to my musical ear and imagination - faster, with more accuracy, and - most importantly - in a way that is more inspiring than with four.

I can also press hard more easily on heavy strings with three-finger fretting; I feel I have greater control and expression.

I stick with 3 fingers basically. Still it doesn't hurt to have a strong super-pinky.
Just in case.

[mbself]

I like using my pinky extensively. I say extensively, but I mean by comparison to what I observe most players use it. I'm nowhere near the player you guys are.

[destinytot]

I stick with 3 fingers basically. Still it doesn't hurt to have a strong super-pinky.
Just in case.

I'll definitely apply that - thanks, man!

[christianm77]

I don't mind having the 4th finger ingrained from my classical days - it's very handy for complex Bird/Raney type stuff.

But when I started learning jazz, I also practised some Wes phrases a lot, so I learned to do the 'three-fingers and a lot of slurs' thing too. I don't really find it problematic to use either method.

I haven't really thought about it before, but perhaps I sort of switch between the 2 approaches in a solo, to get some contrast. So I might play some boppy/chromatic stuff, then when it's getting a bit too 'note-y', I might chuck in some bluesy Wes-type phrases to break it up. Probably something I should consciously practise!

Sounds similar to what I do.

I thought of relearning. But TBH, it's better to just get on with playing.

[neatomic]

the great cellist Pablo Casals. In his 90s, he was asked why he still practiced so many hours a day, and he said, "I think I am making progress."

genius casals

that's it gents..we are never there, but always traveling..and forward.. hopefully

cheers

[christianm77]

with the new fingerings designed to make e.g. donna lee playable at 240 and up

Who wants to hear that, apart from other jazz guitarists? I'm not being flip.

I start to wonder if many of the things we are looking to achieve technically (myself included) are utterly lost even on non-guitarist musicians. Such as a true legato... Pianistic voicings etc.

Non-guitarists want a guitar player who sounds like a guitar player. Peter Bernstein is everyone's favourite....

[MarkRhodes]

I used to think using the 4th finger might be essential for jazz. It doesn't matter if it is. There are plenty of 3 finger and 4 finger guitarists. There's a simple exercise that can strengthen the weaker fingers. It's probably very old and comes from violin, cello, etc...
The strongest fingers in order are 1,2,3,4....right?
So, with the left hand;

1,4,3,4,2,4,3,4

.

That's like a "monster" exercise in Troy Stetina's "Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar." You do it in sixteenth notes (without picking; it's all hammers and pulls; strictly a left-hand-only exercise.) Do that for a minute or so and you can really feel it!

[Stevebol]

I'll definitely apply that - thanks, man!

Stop when it hurts. be careful.

[Stevebol]

That's like a "monster" exercise in Troy Stetina's "Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar." You do it in sixteenth notes (without picking; it's all hammers and pulls; strictly a left-hand-only exercise.) Do that for a minute or so and you can really feel it!

This is a little different. It's not hand isolation. It came from bowed instruments. Stick with the left hand pattern and do something with the right hand. It's definitely coordination. I'd stick with up down picking. I just tried it on electric bass and it's a b. I'm a 3 finger bass player and that won't change. I do some right hand isolation with bass. I have to do more right hand isolation with classical guitar.
I've had some struggles having started light classical guitar late in life.
I tend to do exercises like that swing and no swing. Scales, arps too. Everything. I don't do that stuff too much anymore.

[Moonray]

4 finger player here .....but....not into it as a rigid precept.

I did play/teach classical guitar for 30+ years .....so that gives you a very broad
view of the fbd layout.

Of course the classical approach can "hurt your playing" in the jazz sense that you can
get very dependent on the text....[score]

It can be a long trip back from there to coming up with improvisations on the spot.
But that's OK .....there are gains in the awareness of the musicality of what you play.

With regard to the relative strength of each finger ....I found when I took up classical at
age 21....that I could make reaches with the 4th finger easily that other students seemed impressed by.
After some reflection I realized that playing rock and blues as a teen in bands had developed the 4th finger by playing
those "Honky Tonk" or Chuck Berry boogie figures on strings 6 and 5 or 5 and 4.

You know the kind of thing .....root and 5th .....root and 6th and in some cases, root/5th root/6th and root/b7th [ouch]
....try that last one in F starting at the 1st position.

Well, to a 14 year old who lived for music and the guitar....I was determined to be able to play these figures anywhere
on the fbd .....I didn't have a teacher to tell me it was hard....[that was pretty clear anyway]
....but I thought,well the guy on the record can do it so it must be possible.

Long story short[er] .....I found that I often led with the 4th ....just as much as with the 1st or 2nd.
Hand position played a part in getting that strength and agility in the pinky.
I'm talking about thumb behind the neck except for bends and so on and the neck up at a slight
angle.

Years later I got into the Leavitt LH system added onto the CAGED forms that I just had the dumb luck to
learn through an ancient book by Nick Manoloff called The Complete Manual of Chords and Harmony For Guitar.
It was published in the 30's.....and what do you know....it wasn't one of those stoopid "Chord Encyclopdedia"
type of things.
What the author did was give you say the C chords up the neck on one page ....sometimes with additional
doublings of chord tones in parenthesis ....and it took you through in the case of C ....through the C, A, G, E, and D
forms and in that order ....as I said earlier what pure dumb luck to find this gem at 14!

BTW....the author never expounded on any system like....this is CAGED or whatever....it was just there....and it
was one chord per page....in the 5 fgs ...always from the lowest to the highest available on those old 12 fret
guitars....and he did this in all 12 keys .....so I just went along and learnt the whole shebang and soon
noticed the pattern that recurred no matter what key.
He covered Major, minor, Dom 7ths and diminished finish .....a great platform.
The "notey stuff" ...ha ha....scales ....were not covered in this volume, but I didn't think of them like that and were pretty easy to suss out orbiting around each voicing.

An that's my story.......Oh.....sorry I seem to have gone way Off Topic....getting old and rambling.....my
students used to laugh among themselves and sometimes to me....that they'd wait to see if I remembered
where we were before the long elipse I'd been gone on......ha ha

So.....back On Topic ....I agree with the idea of having the whole neck available to you....it's up to each of us to find out
how by close observation, experience, instruction etc ....and I'd be willing to bet that every player has still got little
gaps that can be filled ......

As for Reg's great overview that you ought to have a default approach.... one that won't let you down and subsets
of ways to negotiate the fbd for particular situations/special effects etc.I strongly agree.

Oh and finally.....I don't believe in the word "stretch" with respect to finger movements in the case of playing
a guitar....for me it's "opening" the fingers from each other....see the way Leavitt teaches by opening the 1st and 4th....but there are many many
examples of this throughout even low intermediate classical guitar repertoire.

And it's not about finger length....I think far too many players think that long fingers are a help.....in my
teaching time I saw people with long fingers that couldn't open the hand and furthermore I noticed that they
were kind of more disconnected from the fingerboard by the fact that they were further from where the work is.

And for the record, I have a fairly broad hand but short fingers....sort of like the late great Danny Gatton
who could play very wide spaced voicings when required and had a "closeness" to the fbd,in the distance above
the string that he had to travel to play a given note or notes.

It would be instructive for any player to forget about the guitar for a moment and look and the hand you've been dealt
and see how you can make the best of what you have.

I hope this doesn't shut down this great thread as my posts are wont to do.

[grahambop]

Sounds similar to what I do.

I thought of relearning. But TBH, it's better to just get on with playing.

Also it's just occurred to me that before playing jazz, I went through the whole teenage rock guitar phase for a few years. So I was playing endless Hendrix and Page type solos with loads of string bending (i.e. pentatonic bluesy kind of stuff). So that probably made me familiar with the approach where the first and third fingers are used a lot more than the others (to get the strength behind all those whole-tone string bends).

[destinytot]

Stop when it hurts. be careful.

I'm a Tai Chi player and use 'soft limits'.

[christianm77]

Also it's just occurred to me that before playing jazz, I went through the whole teenage rock guitar phase for a few years. So I was playing endless Hendrix and Page type solos with loads of string bending (i.e. pentatonic bluesy kind of stuff). So that probably made me familiar with the approach where the first and third fingers are used a lot more than the others (to get the strength behind all those whole-tone string bends).

It can sound sometimes like there's a disconnect between a player's blues vocab and their jazz vocab because they switch from 'grab'n'whack' to 'proper' technique. It's good to play everything the same way as much as possible I think...

[destinytot]

4 finger player here .....but....not into it as a rigid precept.

I did play/teach classical guitar for 30+ years .....so that gives you a very broad
view of the fbd layout.

Of course the classical approach can "hurt your playing" in the jazz sense that you can
get very dependent on the text....[score]

It can be a long trip back from there to coming up with improvisations on the spot.
But that's OK .....there are gains in the awareness of the musicality of what you play.

With regard to the relative strength of each finger ....I found when I took up classical at
age 21....that I could make reaches with the 4th finger easily that other students seemed impressed by.
After some reflection I realized that playing rock and blues as a teen in bands had developed the 4th finger by playing
those "Honky Tonk" or Chuck Berry boogie figures on strings 6 and 5 or 5 and 4.

You know the kind of thing .....root and 5th .....root and 6th and in some cases, root/5th root/6th and root/b7th [ouch]
....try that last one in F starting at the 1st position.

Well, to a 14 year old who lived for music and the guitar....I was determined to be able to play these figures anywhere
on the fbd .....I didn't have a teacher to tell me it was hard....[that was pretty clear anyway]

....but I thought,well the guy on the record can do it so it must be possible.

Long story short[er] .....I found that I often led with the 4th ....just as much as with the 1st or 2nd.
Hand position played a part in getting that strength and agility in the pinky.
I'm talking about thumb behind the neck except for bends and so on and the neck up at a slight
angle.

Years later I got into the Leavitt LH system added onto the CAGED forms that I just had the dumb luck to
learn through an ancient book by Nick Manoloff called The Complete Manual of Chords and Harmony For Guitar.
It was published in the 30's.....and what do you know....it wasn't one of those stoopid "Chord Encyclopdedia"
type of things.
What the author did was give you say the C chords up the neck on one page ....sometimes with additional
doublings of chord tones in parenthesis ....and it took you through in the case of C ....through the C, A, G, E, and D
forms and in that order ....as I said earlier what pure dumb luck to find this gem at 14!

BTW....the author never expounded on any system like....this is CAGED or whatever....it was just there....and it
was one chord per page....in the 5 fgs ...always from the lowest to the highest available on those old 12 fret
guitars....and he did this in all 12 keys .....so I just went along and learnt the whole shebang and soon
noticed the pattern that recurred no matter what key.
He covered Major, minor, Dom 7ths and diminished finish .....a great platform.
The "notey stuff" ...ha ha....scales ....were not covered in this volume, but I didn't think of them like that and were pretty easy to suss out orbiting around each voicing.

An that's my story.......Oh.....sorry I seem to have gone way Off Topic....getting old and rambling.....my
students used to laugh among themselves and sometimes to me....that they'd wait to see if I remembered
where we were before the long elipse I'd been gone on......ha ha

So.....back On Topic ....I agree with the idea of having the whole neck available to you....it's up to each of us to find out
how by close observation, experience, instruction etc ....and I'd be willing to bet that every player has still got little
gaps that can be filled ......

As for Reg's great overview that you ought to have a default approach.... one that won't let you down and subsets
of ways to negotiate the fbd for particular situations/special effects etc.I strongly agree.

Oh and finally.....I don't believe in the word "stretch" with respect to finger movements in the case of playing
a guitar....for me it's "opening" the fingers from each other....see the way Leavitt teaches by opening the 1st and 4th....but there are many many
examples of this throughout even low intermediate classical guitar repertoire.

And it's not about finger length....I think far too many players think that long fingers are a help.....in my
teaching time I saw people with long fingers that couldn't open the hand and furthermore I noticed that they
were kind of more disconnected from the fingerboard by the fact that they were further from where the work is.

And for the record, I have a fairly broad hand but short fingers....sort of like the late great Danny Gatton
who could play very wide spaced voicings when required and had a "closeness" to the fbd,in the distance above
the string that he had to travel to play a given note or notes.

It would be instructive for any player to forget about the guitar for a moment and look and the hand you've been dealt
and see how you can make the best of what you have.

I hope this doesn't shut down this great thread as my posts are wont to do.

Great post, man!

[destinytot]

In another blinding flash of what may be obvious to most, I've just started (consciously) using kinesthesia - to 'see' with my fingers so that I don't have to use my eyes (or direct my gaze) to 'look' at the fretboard while reading.

Thanks to my whiteboard and coloured magnets - plus a tiny bit of mental effort - I've started connecting notes on the stave to visualised fretboard, in a way that allows me to read music on guitar.

It happened after downloading the free Richie Zellon ebook, about which Mark kindly shared a link today. I know what I most want from Richie's course, which I'm starting in two weeks; I realised that the ebook has little (if anything) to do with Richie's structured teaching programme, but I was excited about the transcriptions - because Richie written/prepared them.

Well, I was really p***ed off that I couldn't read transcriptions of phrases that interest me, even though I could easily pick them out - and analyse them - by ear.

But when I 'looked' (with my eyes) at the written notation on a page, 'felt' (with my fingers) for notes I connected to a fretboard in my mind and (today) to solfège syllables - not sung, butread silently from the page - I was able to turn otherwise abstract markings (notation) into specific sounds (coherent musical phrases).

For me, an 'aha!' moment... valuable because it's a way to internalise (beautiful) sounds - produced externally, confirmed internally, then reproduced (played).

I've only been able to access written sounds by means of a keyboard or by singing from notation (if it's diatonic), so this is a big deal for me.

Personally, I think creating visual references (to support aural ones) - away from the guitar - is the most effective way to reinforce the acquisition of fretboard knowledge for improvising or embellishing music.

From now on, I'll be using recordings, the stave, the keyboard, solfège singing, and the guitar fretboard - for thinking (in preparation for playing).