Originally Posted by
christianm77
I'll link to (now the forum's own lol!) Miles Okazaki's thoughts on left hand technique, in reference to Charlie Christian:
"There is no known video footage of Charlie Christian, but the consensus among players is that he used a majority of downstrokes with the right hand, and mostly three fingers with the left hand. A well-known quote, again from Kessel, describes some important details:He rested his 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers on the pick-guard. He anchored them there so tensely that it was like there almost wasn’t a break in the joint. He almost never used the 4th finger of his left hand.”
(Kessel in Guitar Player, Oct ’70)
This description of the left hand makes sense, given the logical fingerings that can be used to play the solos, and is supported by the few pictures that we have of Christian in the act of playing. In certain circles of guitar playing, tucking away the fourth finger and putting the thumb over the top of the neck is considered improper technique. I would side with the contrary view, that this is an absolutely natural way to approach the guitar when the goal is strong articulation, groove, and rhythm. Using primarily three fingers does not at all limit speed or harmonic options — look at all the stuff drummers can play with two sticks! 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."
Miles seem to purposefully adopt the same type of left hand for single note stuff.
For myself, I'm kind of in a slightly crappy halfway world. I think the three fingered, or more accurately put, heavily pronated thumb over technique with lots of shifts is great, and I also think the classical independent stretchy fingers left hand is great.
As my early tuition was more classical, I still tend to use my pinky - but not particularly well.
So I've been doing some exercises to address that - particularly left hand ligado stuff. TBH I'm not sure it's made much difference.
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (Christian Scott)
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