The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi all,

    In the eternal quest to play over the changes better, I encountered some technical points of interest, and I was curious to hear your takes. I know this is getting in the weeds here, but hey let's go for it.

    A lot of situations occur where the fingering for the arpeggio/scale for the chord of the moment does not neatly lead into the next chord's fingering. This is most problematic at quicker speeds. Do you:

    a) Play out of your current fingering and transform into the next chord's arp/scale fingering through small shifts and stretches you might not otherwise do. Or,
    b) Preshift into the strong fingering for the next chord (which could be a little odd on the current chord)

    An example
    The major triad is a good case study. I explored all fingerings with all fingers, and found one fingering situation that is particularly annoying. Let's take Am-E7:

    On Am: Playing in 5th position. On the B string and you want to play a descending E triad from the E on the fifth fret once E7 comes up.
    On E: You either:
    1) Play out of the current fingering and transform: Play the E with your first finger, then the B on G, 4th fret, with your first finger again, making out for an awkward double pointer fingering with no roll. You could also string skip to the B on the 9th of D, not a bad choice but less ideal IMO.
    2) Preshifting for the next chord: You recognize what you are playing far enough in advance, so play the E with your 2nd finger leaving you perfectly positioned to smoothly finish the arp. Basically you shift into the E7 fingering.

    Let me know your thoughts! I tend to adapt my fingerings on the fly, which more often than not isn't nearly as annoying as this example, but option 2 seems mentally and technically easier and more logical to adapt to. I imagine it is a bit of a mix for the highest level players, but based on their hand movement option 2 seems more common.

    I'd be glad to post a video if this is confusing.

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  3. #2

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    My thought will probably be a minority opinion.

    I don't think about specific fingerings when I play. In your situation it would depend, of course, on what came before and what will come after, but, generally, I'd shift position. So, I would try to set things up so that I could play that E with my second finger.

    But, it's really an oversimplification. First, it depends on tempo. If the tempo is slow enough, any approach can work, depending on how legato you want things to sound. At a challenging tempo, I tend to think about picking and fingering jointly. I suspect that a great sweep picker can pick anything, but I can't. So, I need a fingering that is going to work with my picking ability. Generally, I have to avoid three notes in a row on different strings (descending in pitch). I find that I can execute surprisingly large position shifts smoothly, so that I'll shift rather than struggle with picking.

    I also work on situations where I'm not using one finger per fret with the occasional stretch (which is, I think, the most typical way these things are taught). I find that it's often useful to make one fret position shifts. So, say I wanted to play a descending line G F E B starting on B string 8th fret. I might play the G with my pinkie and the F with my ring finger. E with my second finger and B with my first. So, the line is facilitated by what might seem like an odd movement to play the F with the third finger rather than the second. Mostly, I use this technique for reading difficult lines -- I'm still working on getting it down without thinking.

    Wes, by the way, I believe was a master at shifting. He played his single note runs with three left hand fingers. Try to play West Coast Blues that way. In fact, if anybody knows a video or something which shows his fingering, please post it.

  4. #3
    Thanks for the input! It is definitely tempo dependent. At slower tempos, anything can really work.

    The example you gave with the unconventional stretch fingering is perfect, and exactly the kind of things I find myself doing. I think it is just the nature of jazz guitar. The kind of obvious thing I found out when I went through every major arp fingering with every finger on every string, was that the only real problematic fingering is when you have to play a perfect fourth with the pinky from G to B or with the pointer from B to G. Everything else can be organically enough morphed into.

    Good thought on the Wes thing. Not West Coast Blues, but I found this video pretty elucidating since the fingerings are present and accurate:


    Really, with most guys it just plain looks like a lot of shifting (Adam Rogers, Joe Pass) which makes me think the preshift tends to be the go to route. It makes sense if you are really visualizing fingerings or chord voicings as well. Otherwise, if you contain yourself to four fingers a fret and don't preshift, you are going to be doing a lot of compensating when changing between fingerings. Julian Lage and Lenny Breau are the two real examples I can think of where stretching is common. Honestly, I think I underestimate how quickly shifting can occur. History has demonstrated that the answer is 'as fast as you need it to be'.

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tony_C

    On Am: Playing in 5th position. On the B string and you want to play a descending E triad from the E on the fifth fret once E7 comes up.
    I think that's the point. I wouldn't predetermine a fingering unless it was absolutely necessary. I'd just think Am - E7, that's all, and let the fingers do the rest.

  6. #5
    That makes sense ragman. I guess 'programming' the habit of automatically preshifting into solid fingerings (when possible) better allows 'the fingers to do the rest'. Due to the wide variation in the improvised fingerings, it can get in the way (not to mention there are a lot of possibilities to work with). My technical facility usually lets me work through those spots fine, but I definitely have a tendency to not think ahead as often as I should and put my myself in conundrums.

  7. #6

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    This is technique - executing on the instrument the mechanics of producing the sound out loud that you want to hear. I think of the general purpose of technique development as making the translation from the mind's ear to the sound produced by the instrument:

    - as effortless as possible (so as not to be slowed down when playing the more complicated musical ideas)
    - as natural as possible (so as to not be confounded with overwhelming choices of how to execute)
    - as transparent as possible (so as not to be distracted by the mechanics from focusing on hearing the music)
    - as fluid as possible (so as to not cause discontinuities in rhythm or melody, other performance anomalies)

    From the standpoint of playing melodic lines and arpeggios, the first thing to do here is untangle some terms.

    Fingers per fret is a misnomer... we don't place more than one finger at a (string, fret) coordinate at any one time to play a note. The intended meaning is that of the ways to play the notes, there are some variations:

    - if you assign each of the four fingers to four consecutive frets, this means in order to play all the notes, this rule must be broken by:

    -- holding position and stretching an addition fret gap between the first and second or third and fourth, so the first or fourth finger stretches below or above the set position, these stretches breaking the rule, respectively.

    -- briefly shifting position by moving the whole hand, all fingers breaking the rule for a moment

    -- briefly shifting position by keeping the thumb in place and translating the fingers up or down a couple of frets, all fingers breaking the rule for a moment.

    (This also raises the question of whether a position is defined conceptually or mechanically by the location of the fingers or the location of the thumb)

    - if you play with three fingers, the assigned finger to assigned fret rule is broken almost immediately and constantly (in jazz) and all the above also applies, though a little differently.

    Fingering is a two edged concept; from a figure/ground perspective, the fingering may be a pattern displayed by the fingers, or may be a pattern displayed on the finger board... if one uses "finger" pattern fingerings, one is altering and changing these as one plays through changes and contexts, whereas if one's "fingerings" are actually referenced directly to the finger board, the changes are homogeneous with the individual finger positions within any "fingering" pattern - all the same principle throughout.

    Similarly, playing by ear, by playing a particular (string, fret) coordinate, one may know by ear what the other coordinates of a finger referenced "fingering" will sound like; or, one may know what the local coordinates on the finger board will sound like. So like above, an ear player may know what all the possible sounds are that come from a fingering pattern "fingering" (in fact a whole collection of them), or he may know the sounds of the coordinates on the finger board itself, beneath the fingers.

    The differences suggested in both paragraphs above may make a major difference in how one approaches the development of technique. I gather that some here use methods that start with reading music or knowing the chord harmony or scale harmony notes and either mapping those directly to the finger board or via a proxy fingering that accomplishes the same local mapping. In both cases I think the "position" plays a central role, allowing and indicating physically the notes, intervals, etc. I can't say more about and may already be incorrect, as I play exclusively be ear, so others may reveal more about this.

    For me, the actual mechanical reference is my thumb, from which the fingers stretch and about which the whole hand moves up or down with the thumb staying in place. For me, I don't really use fingering pattern "fingerings"; the thumb takes twelve heavily overlapping positions about which the fingers stretch to span about five to seven frets - my mental reference is always the finger board itself (the coordinates where the sounds I hear in my head are located on the instrument) and my thumb takes positions to support my fingers reaching those locations. My thumb position move "a lot" when I play, all by itself without. In essence from the sound I hear, I "play" the finger board, not my fingers. To me it is the most effortless, natural, transparent, and fluid way.

  8. #7
    While playing single position stuff is really good ear training and basic technique training, we guitarists seem to obsess over this "single position ideal" to a fault, in my opinion.

    The very real truth is that, eventually, long-term, you WANT to know how to shift between positions on the fly. Another truth is that there's really no better opportunity to practice this than in the beginning when you know probably fewer positions anyway.

    Learning to shift between positions/patterns/chords etc, while playing changes, is a very concrete skill which should be worked on in a deliberate way. Once you know how to "shift into" a new chord in a given position , it almost doesn't MATTER whether it's one fret away or five. if you CAN'T do it, you can't do it, and again, if you're ABLE to do it, you'll somewhat be able to do it no matter how far. The skill itself is somewhat a distinct entity.

    I gotta go. I could post something else on this later. I just think this topic is really important. It's one of the things that has the most potential to bog players down in meaningless worry and potentially misplaced efforts. It certainly was for me.

  9. #8
    Great posts paul and Matt.

    Fingering is a two edged concept; from a figure/ground perspective, the fingering may be a pattern displayed by the fingers, or may be a pattern displayed on the finger board... if one uses "finger" pattern fingerings, one is altering and changing these as one plays through changes and contexts, whereas if one's "fingerings" are actually referenced directly to the finger board, the changes are homogeneous with the individual finger positions within any "fingering" pattern - all the same principle throughout.


    I like this distinction! I think it is a great way of explaining the mental difference between the two approaches I described (as well as deeper things).

    I should clarify that I don't personally subscribe to a pure fingers per fret/in position method, but I guess that is at the heart of what I am discussing: That in the move towards a more fluid 'fingering' rather than 'fingers' approach, I started doing less exploration of clear shifting between 'fingers' patterns (which I am already pretty fluent with). Using the pure 'fretboard referenced fingering' pattern approach opened up my playing, but doing that instead of clearly shifting between conventional 'fingers' patterns has also put me in odd situations and opens up the possibilities to the point where maybe it is better to just commit to a specific 'fingers' pattern.

    I gotta go. I could post something else on this later. I just think this topic is really important. It's one of the things that has the most potential to bog players down in meaningless worry and potentially misplaced efforts. It certainly was for me.


    I agree. I have most definitely foolishly confined myself to positions, often for practice purposes, when working on playing fluidly across the fretboard would have been better time spent. Unlike piano where the notes are very visually obvious or wind instruments where you can basically think a note then finger it, guitar has an extra visual element. It is this kind of nitty gritty that can be a huge barrier on guitar, especially jazz guitar and playing through the changes.

    There are a lot of technical things I've found that you don't actually hear discussed often:
    Playing chromatics with the 1st and 4th finger slide/shifts (and in turn 'in position' chromatic scales), using stretches as sorts of shifts/pivots where you instantly collapse the rest of the hand into the stretch, or even just the simple fact that shifting one fret doesn't require you to raise your finger at all. You can slide and pick it and it will sound fine.

    For the hell of it, another example which I think works better since it isn't so limited:

    D minor 7 arpeggio in fifth position starting from the D on the A string. Play it to the C on the G string. Then you want to descend a G7 arp starting from B you could:

    1) Stretch and play the B on D and carry on from there. A totally valid solution, but I like looking at possibilities that don't include stretching.
    2) Shift the first finger back to the B, use the second finger on the G and stretch back to the F on D. This would be an 'improvised' fingering, something I often go for.
    3) Another 'improvised' fingering I have done is playing the B with 1, the G with 2 and then stretch/shifting/pivoting the pinky to get to the F on A.
    4) Preshifting by playing the B on the G string with the second finger. Now the whole G7 arp fingering sits neatly there. This seems less intuitive at first to me, but the preshift reconciles the rest of the phrase.

    1 and 4 really seem like the cleanest solutions, but I think having 2 and 3 esque solutions for various situations isn't a bad idea.

  10. #9

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    Here's a thought about the technique for shifting.

    For many years, I would fix my hand in a position and use stretches -- without moving my hand.
    So, I became accustomed to having my hand in a fixed position unless I was moving to higher or lower notes.

    But, when I started thinking about shifting I noticed that I tended to shift a little late. Almost as if I was waiting for the new note to arrive before I moved my hand. Hard to explain it better than that.

    I noticed that I could start moving my hand sooner, almost as if catching the note I needed on the fly and then quickly moving back. Hard to explain, but it feels different.

    I noticed it while working on Donna Lee -- which is a good platform on which to work out subtleties of fingering and shifting.

  11. #10
    2 things that helped get me out of the boxes:

    1)Reg's arp fingerings.

    2)The Cellular Approach by Randy Vincent. The whole book is about phrasing lines by connecting arpeggios with slides and hammer- ons /pull- offs to emulate horn phrasing.

    There's lots of freedom in using slides and other articulations purposefully, not just because you can't find another way to play things. It's actually very specifically idiomatic to the guitar as well. We're missing something when not doing this.

  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Here's a thought about the technique for shifting.

    For many years, I would fix my hand in a position and use stretches -- without moving my hand.
    So, I became accustomed to having my hand in a fixed position unless I was moving to higher or lower notes.

    But, when I started thinking about shifting I noticed that I tended to shift a little late. Almost as if I was waiting for the new note to arrive before I moved my hand. Hard to explain it better than that.

    I noticed that I could start moving my hand sooner, almost as if catching the note I needed on the fly and then quickly moving back. Hard to explain, but it feels different.

    I noticed it while working on Donna Lee -- which is a good platform on which to work out subtleties of fingering and shifting.

    This kind of reminds me of a stretch+shift thing I do. If I am trying to get to a note four frets away, sometimes I start stretching to the note with my pinky, and then collapse the stretch pretty quickly kind of like letting a rubber band go back to place (maybe with a slight shift of the hand as well). This springs the hand back to a standard four finger per fret stretch. Often, doing this sort of combined movement feels smoother (and funner?) than a pure stretch or shift for me. It is almost like reaching your finger to the destination and then pivoting to it.

  13. #12

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    I've been thinking about this issue.

    Long ago, was introduced to 3 notes per string. So, a G scale starting on the low E at the third fret would go to A and B on the same string. I had always played G with the first finger, A with the third and B by stretching the fourth finger. Then to the next string for C at the third fret, and so forth.

    But, today, I tried it by playing the B with my third finger and then C with the fourth finger. That is, four notes per string.
    This requires some movement of the left hand. But, with just a minute of practice it is possible to get it sounding right at pretty fast tempo.

    Then, I realized that the key is the left thumb. If you leave it in the same spot on the back of the neck, then you're stretching. But, if you let it wander a bit you can avoid the stretching, at least for some lines. The left hand shift can be so quick that it can't be heard.

    The Segovia scales work this way.

    I also noticed that one of my guitars has a kind of a stickier feeling finish than another. And, that drier feeling finish made it a little easier to do the shifting.

    I'm wondering if there is some way to get that finish feeling drier. Powder? Fine sanding?

  14. #13

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    One of the most fluent and cleanest-sounding players was Jimmy Raney. But if you watch the videos he is shifting positions all the time. It worked for him!

  15. #14

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    once i got good on position for a chord and could switch form chord to chord fast i would .use different fingering for a chord and practice them so when I came to a song that required changes that require difficult changes I would try different position fingerings to enable smooth transistions. I Discovered Inversons pratceing this.

  16. #15

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    One way to get out of being stuck in positions is to switch between triad inversions on the same 3 string groups. I started doing that and it's giving me a new perspective on the fretboard. It's also a natural way to connect positions. So, say you're playing over E7 for a bar. Then instead of finding a cozy E7 position to "reside" for the bar, think G# diminished inversions on strings 2-3-4 (or 1-2-3). Nice phrases can be build by adding diatonic and embellishment notes while moving between inversions horizontally. It's exposing how I've been implicitly framing fretboard in such a narrow way.
    On a separate note, I prefer shifts to stretches in general. However one situation where stretches are necessary I think is when two notes that are part of a stretch need to be played legato. It's hard not to break the legato phrasing if you shift positions in between.

  17. #16

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    Do the great sweep pickers find it less important to shift?

    For me, a lot of the shifting I do is to make the picking easier. But, great sweep pickers don't seem to have that problem, or do they?

  18. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Do the great sweep pickers find it less important to shift?

    For me, a lot of the shifting I do is to make the picking easier. But, great sweep pickers don't seem to have that problem, or do they?
    I am a relatively fluid sweep picker and an economy picker by default, so that may have something to do with it. I am also pretty good with alternate picking so left hand fingering is largely a left hand concern for me. There are certain fingerings that let me sort of break my typical speed limit as well but those tend to be sequences.