The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    I'm firmly in the 'it depends' camp.

    Do you use this technique when playing a head like "Freedom Jazz Dance"?
    I use both techniques for this head. Oddly, I find I can play the section towards the end that's (for me anyway) basically a 5 string sweep faster and more cleanly using a combination.

    One thing about my fingers is that they're wide at the tip so I use the previously described rolling thing a lot. I've ended up with my 3rd finger for the... um F & B flat, 4th for E flat & G and 1st for A.

    Lately that F is on the 5th string. First time around I played it differently (47 years ago...GAK!). It has to do with how I like to play what's on either side of it. Lately I've been goosing it. At Eddie Harris tempo lot's of different things work for me, and they all sound a little different.

    More generally speaking, I think it depends mostly on the phrasing we want to hear. It also depends on where we've been before and where we're going after the one-note-per-string passages. Miles playing the Dance on Smiles isn't the cleanest, but it's very charming.

    I've noticed one thing about laying them down over the years: it's much harder on the joints. Mine anyway.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

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    It definitely helps in blues and country playing when bending on double-stops. In many cases, one string will require a tone bend while the other only has to move a semitone. Using two fingers (usually the 2nd and 3rd) gives better control and accuracy of pitch. There seem to be a few camps among jazz guitarists: those who suggest all consecutive string/fret passages should be performed with different fingers, others who limit its use to the 3rd and 4th fingers and finally, those who roll everything regardless.

  4. #28

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    I use roll when I use a "general purpose fingering", for example like when improvising or playing a melody by ear that I haven't practised. Where I need a fingering that works but I don't have time to think about it.

    But the method described in the original post I sometimes use as a "customeized fingering", when I practise a piece and I have time to think about which fingering options I have before drilling the piece into muscle memory (but even then i often end up using rolls).

  5. #29

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    The Berklee Method written by William Leavitt teaches finger rolling. The technique of using different fingers for each note seems to be a pretty standard classical technique.
    I like finger rolling and have never found it a detriment to technique. I think Leavitt liked it because it allowed fingerings to stay in particular positions. Leavitt‘s scale patterns are all based on staying in the finger position dictated by using finger stretches of the first and fourth finger and finger rolling.

  6. #30

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    Frank Gambale's cheesy but effective picking workout video had fingering in which he would use two different fingers in the same fret rather than rolling one.

    I practiced both ways and had more clarity when using two fingers, but for me, it was a little more difficult.

    Check out 0:55 - 0:64 minutes


  7. #31

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    I started practicing this after a good bout of multi-string-one-finger and it has seemed to help me synchronize right and left hands and facilitate smoother flow and speed. Certain chords, in which both ways are options, also seem to have more clarity with individual fingers per note [ e.g.
    X
    X
    5
    6
    5
    5
    .

  8. #32

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    You see.. I believemost of the diffrences come from the fact that rock, jazz, blues, bluegrass styles originate from amateur self-taught playing... these styles of music reflect that. And amateurs do what seems easier at the beginning...
    And also with this music - relatively simple - you can afford it...
    The possible negative impact (not in all cases it is negative!) is that the technica is strictly connected with style. THough maybe it is the best technique that can ever be... why would one expect bluegrass player try flamenco? On the contrary I would prefer he would stay within his style and explore its possibilities to the extremes instead of superficially swithcing between styles (as I do)

    In classical there is a technical school, and school is methodology and efficiency... at school people are often taught things the efficincy of which they cannot understand at the moment... because the teacher knows it will help later.
    Besides classical technique - if I may say so - has tendency to elaborate very detailed control over the instrument... which in my opinion has negative impact too.. they begin to think their technique is 'objectively universal' and can play anything anyhow...
    though they may have more technical versatility this is of course still not true.
    Besides it is often results in 'indifference and objectiveness' of performance becoming an aethetic ideal.. whic is a catastrophe for music.


    Jazz is somewhere in the middle... it is already rather complex so one can hardly play it without educated or systematic approach and serious consideration of technique... on the other hand being rooted in blues and other root music it keeps lots of expressive means of these styles and techniques...

    But to be honest if you compare with classical teaching... I cannot remember that any jazzguitar teacher I talked with or watched masterclasses cared much about the fingering you use.. most of them talk about musical tools but how you do it is up to you.. and it is mostly because each of them also began as a self-taught who elaborated his own approach to fingering...

    If you come to classical classes: fingering will be one of the first thing to be discussed.. when you play calssical piece it is impossible that you do not know the fingering... with years of experience you do not need to think it through all the time of course... but any moment you just know exactlly how you play it.

    and to be honest you can often see aspiring jazz or pop players trying to overcome some complex line or changes technically... and you can clearly see that all they need is just change an angle a bit, change fingering, release the hand .. of something like that.
    But all they do is just repeating ... maybe eventually they overcome it too.

  9. #33

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    When it comes to executing things on the guitar, necessity is the mother of invention.