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This is great.
Originally Posted by DonEsteban
As it turned out, I did it a little differently. That's because I didn't realize how important it was until fairly late.
When I learned to read,I started in the key of C. Soon, I was given something to read in G. I thought, "same as C, except all the F's are sharp". And, I did that for D, A and E, common keys to read in. On the flat side, it was F Bb Eb Ab and Db (you see five flats more often than five sharps because of the way things transpose for horns). In each case, it was learning which notes are changed.
I then had some trouble. I hadn't read much in B, F# or Gb. So, I had to drill myself to learn those keys. And,then, it turned out that it's a good idea to know the enharmonic equivalents like C#, G#, D#. You see them in chord symbols and you need to know the notes in the chord.
But, it's not infinite. It's doable. And, it pays off.
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03-09-2021 10:18 PM
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Yeah, I'm still much better on the left side of the circle of fifths because that's where we always are. Girlfriend and I pledge to make B Maj illegal because... well u know....
(F# gets a pardon because it's Gb in disguise... )
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If you play tune written with horns in mind, they tend to be in flat keys up to 5 flats. Most standards are like that. For the newbie: we play a lot in Bb because that puts the trumpet and tenor sax in the Key of C and the alto sax in the Key of G. Originally Posted by DonEsteban
Yeah, I'm still much better on the left side of the circle of fifths because that's where we always are. Girlfriend and I pledge to make B Maj illegal because... well u know....
(F# gets a pardon because it's Gb in disguise... )
I play a lot of Brazilian music. Often, the songs are written by guitarists, sometimes using open strings -- meaning they don't keep the same sound in a different key. So, you see E and A a lot. And, if the song is in E, the II7 is F#7. The VI7 is C#7, and you see those chords commonly enough that you have to learn them. Not just the 7th, but all the notes so that you know the altered notes too.
Sounds like a lot, but it's still 12 notes and a few enharmonic equivalents.
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A couple of respectful counterpoints if I may: This wasn't about learning scales. It's about a set of scale fingerings - and all that they imply. Originally Posted by DonEsteban
And they imply a lot - all diatonic scales and modes, stretching rules about when to reach back vs. forward (Leavitt style), arpeggios, reading, jazz language and improvisation - and all of it stemming from those fingerings.
And yeah, we really do need shapes and fingerings. Especially for burnin', and Jazz requires burnin'. Some fingerings support it, others prevent it, others fall somewhere in between. Turns out that specificity vs. randomness is actually needed.
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I agree with this 100% Originally Posted by Donplaysguitar
I feel that some on this forum, mentioning no names lol, are a bit wedded to one concept of music, a bit purist. In fact there's always more to be gained by trying different things. Pretty much all of the best musicians I know are highly practical and just use whatever they find helpful for doing music.
Reading again, is no different to improvisation or transcription in that it is highly context dependant and benefits from an eclectic approach. Whether a thing is right or wrong is dictated but the needs of the gig. (So, Tommy Tedesco puts position markers on the side of classical guitar neck, because the music is important not his sense of pride in being a 'proper' guitarist; Carol Kaye marks the timing in with pencil. And so on.)
Let me put it this way - if I'm reading a chart and see a riff based on the C minor blues scale, it would be inappropriate to play that line using proper 'classical' positions. A good session player sees that, and plays it three fingered with slides, vibrato and so on, because that's clearly what the chart needs. You reconstruct the sound of the part using ones knowledge of musical language and how they relate to guitar playing. So you have to get good at recognising musical objects. You can't just plug and play. It's almost as if music was an art (and a trade.)
But lest we indulge one side of a dichotomy too much you also need systems and so on. You can't have one without the other.
And shapes and so on are important to guitar playing. Really important. They are important for other instruments too.
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hey... I never put my name on the fingerings and what they can imply, take it off, maybe it will help open more doors.
I haven't played in almost a year, I'm sure I suck and my eyes are getting worse, LOL
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Elevating one's playing requires a balance. I think it's important to identify a core and not be excessively distracted from it. At the same time, it's necessary to pay attention (and certainly respect) other approaches. Originally Posted by christianm77
I hope I'm not the "purist" in your post, Christian. I've been advocating something here, not because I think it's necessarily better, but because it's an alternative I think is worth considering- and isn't frequently discussed. Notably, a couple of people posted saying they use this sort of approach.
Also, because I still don't think I understand "fingerings and all they imply". I'd still appreciate a very simple expIanation of that.
I use fingerings mostly for arps and then mostly in situations where I can't think fast enough for the tempo. But,then again, I don't play in a classic jazz guitar style. Maybe if I understood this stuff better, I could.
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I'm teaching a fella with perfect pitch.
It just occurred to me today, that he might need a different approach to fretboard mapping, perhaps one more in line with rpjazzguitar
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Your fingerings are great, if that is what you prefer. It's like you said, a lot of things can work. Originally Posted by Reg
For that matter, CAGED has two less than wonderful fingerings, and one of them actually sucks (at least for traversing across all six strings, but is otherwise OK). Even a CAGED devotee can think of 1-3 additional fingerings to use at times.
But I'm quite sure you know all that.
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This is a real question, not a troll. Would you explain exactly what "fretboard mapping" is? Originally Posted by christianm77
I'm having trouble grasping this term, as simple as it may seem to others.
If you already know every note on the fingerboard, instantly, what do you gain from "fretboard mapping"?
The student with perfect pitch, same as everybody else, it seems to me, needs to get to a point where he pre-hears a note and his fingers find it. I think that comes with a lot of time on the instrument. Great relative pitch can't hurt. The trick, I guess, is to get to the point where your fingers know how to compensate for the interval of a third between the G and B strings. It comes with time on the instrument. It would be faster, presumably, if all the tuning intervals were the same, like on a 4 string bass.
A good exercise for it would be learning the heads of tunes in 12 keys starting with a random fret/string/finger.
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Sure. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Let's say I'm a CAGED fingering player (even though I don't keep track of which fingering is the "C" or "A " etc.) CAGED offers me two fingerings for playing the C major scale from the 6th string on the 8th fret. One starts with the 4th finger and the other with the 2nd finger. Likewise I would play the C major arpeggio from those same starting fingers, and would play all arpeggio notes out of those same scale fingerings (the E and G notes that is). William Leavitt's system offers me those two starting fingers on the 6th string plus 3 more (starting fingers 3, 1, and 1 again). Starting from the 3rd finger I would stretch two frets to finger the E and G with my 2nd and 1rst finger (5th and 4th strings), and starting from the 1rst finger I would play the C and E on the 6th string with my first and 4th fingers, but for the G I would play it with either my 2nd or 3rd finger (A string). All of those additional fingerings involve stretches, either between the 1rst and 2nd fingers, or the 3rd and 4th.
In other words if you have scale fingerings with stretches the arpeggios that you play out of those fingerings also involve stretches. (And virtually everything else that you play because the scale fingering is the template).
Here's another way to think about it. If ones uses a non-stretch scale fingering approach, they do the same for arpeggios (with a few exceptions perhaps but never mind that for now).
As such we have 7 one-octave arpeggio fingerings for most four-part chords like Maj7, Dom7, Min7, etc. (two starting fingers per starting strings 6,5,4 and one starting finger for starting string 3.) Those 7 fingerings form a foundation from which we can form 2 and 3-octave arpeggios.
But Leavitt's approach, which involves stretches, offers offers more starting fingers per string. In the case of strings 6,5,4 it offers five starting finger options for those very same 1-octave arpeggios - you just have to stretch to play them. And again, the scale fingering is the template so everyting that you play stems from there, not just scales and arpeggios - everything.
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Understanding where the notes and intervals are on the fretboard. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
You know, that word ‘if’; it’s doing a lot of work in that sentence lol.If you already know every note on the fingerboard, instantly, what do you gain from "fretboard mapping"?
fretboard mapping is what you do to get the point where you can do that. I mean on piano it’s not necessary right? Or rather they show you the ropes lesson one and that’s all you need... I remember ‘this is middle C’.
As this guy puts it
But of course, that’s why this thread exists.
Well yes, but also no. I’ve had a few good friends with Pitch over the years and the guitar is always an interesting one for them.The student with perfect pitch, same as everybody else, it seems to me, needs to get to a point where he pre-hears a note and his fingers find it. I think that comes with a lot of time on the instrument.
Musicians with perfect pitch need to learn music too and also need to practice of course, but it changes the game a little bit in interesting ways.
I think for those with pitch stuff like, you move the scale up a half step and have the same intervallic shape - the moveable shapes thing - is easy for me to understand and hear as someone with relative pitch, but for someone with perfect pitch I understand this is a real trip. They would hear Cm7 and Dbm7 as not the same basic thing, but two totally different things.
So the fretboard mapping needs to be all absolute pitch oriented rather than intervallic. Thing is I’ve done a massive amount of the latter and I think it works great on the guitar and for most students.
But that’s not going to work here. Just getting him to play triad shapes up and down the neck in different keys - it’s clear it’s hard for him to think and hear this way which I find very natural as I suspect most guitarists do.
It would be easier I think to construct the chords from pitches for him.
Anyway interesting thing to think about as a teacher. He plays several other instruments btw. Guitar is often a mystery to those who excel at other instruments. They may well play great, but understanding it as a reading instrument etc is just as hard for them as it is for the rest of us.
And for those with perfect pitch I wonder if the guitar is actually harder as the things that Chris McQueen describes above in the video that allow us to ‘hack’ the instrument aren’t always available.
But anyway the point is that your approach seems to avoid those hacks for how you’ve described it here... it sounds like you’ve taken pains to learn the instrument like a keyboard. In fact, this is not very common. And I would say even for those who have learned the neck like this, they may well flit between that and a more shapes oriented approach for improvisation and so on.Last edited by christianm77; 03-10-2021 at 03:49 PM.
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Looks like banned former user: fumblefingers is back for iteration three. Whatever, but he never posted actual playing. Just constantly criticized other members, like Reg, who actually did. Not cool.
The Pros and Cons of the CAGED System
Guitar Techniques for Picking and Fingerings
Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 03-10-2021 at 06:01 PM.
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First off, thank you for taking the time to explain this. Originally Posted by christianm77
Knowing where all the notes are is a matter of memorization. Knowing the intervals, I think, is a matter of time on the instrument. It seems to me that the goal is to have this knowledge so ingrained that it feels like it's in your fingers not your brain. Operationally, you play a random note (finger/fret/string) -- someone sings another note and your fingers play it. The horn player plays a phrase and then you play it, without thinking about the notes or intervals -- just ears to fingers.
So, the challenge for the teacher is to facilitate that level of learning. I don't have a prescription for that. I don't recall working on it and I don't recall learning it. But, I spent a lot of time on the instrument.
As far as "if" being the big word in that sentence, it does surprise me that so many players, apparently, don't know the notes well.
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well prescriptions are overrated.
As you touched on it before, it’s not necessary to know what the notes are called to play well. Even if you do, you might not necessarily know as you play them. FWIW I often have to ‘change brain mode’ to name a note when I am playing something improvised sometimes; I can do it quickly but the two things are not the same. My perfect pitch student can play shredding prog metal guitar solos and doesn’t know where the notes are 100%... so, yeahAs far as "if" being the big word in that sentence, it does surprise me that so many players, apparently, don't know the notes well.
The vast majority of guitarists I would bet, are shapes players. Guitar is a shapes instrument though, so much of its idiom is rooted in shapes. And TBH as alienated as I get from the guitar sometimes that’s something I think you have to respect to play well. That’s what people expect to hear.
No one hires guitar to be a second rate piano. They want to hear those licks and idioms.
Converting written material into idiomatic guitar shapes I would lay money on is one of the special skills that makes the best session players stand out... See above re; the blues scale example, for an obvious one.
So I think there’s a lot to be learned here ....
That means to truly master the instrument you have to do BOTH. Lot of work...Last edited by christianm77; 03-10-2021 at 05:27 PM.
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I dig BS.... it's fun. I love pushing etc... and seeing where we go, with BS.
The thing is I also like pushing when performing, like verbally telling band... hey we're transposing the tune to the relative or parallel Minor or major after this chorus. Or adding interludes, tags, vamps. Whatever feels right. Keep it live...
Or even rhythmic transposition.... either just "direct" or more commonly using "transitional" rhythmic modulation. BS term for... ex. Your playing a swing tune in 3/4 and you "transition" into dotted quarter feel... then make the dotted quarters... half notes... and you've now "transitioned" into 4/4 time, usually for a double time feel that can be more fun. Where I'm going is that if you haven't really played enough gigs to trial and error enough to have that and much more memorized, or like fingerings, learn how to play and not really understand what or how your playing.... you can miss a lot of Fun.
I'm very loose on stage or dives, more commonly dives... Like RP ... I don't need to think, I can feel what's being played and typically where it can go. It's not really that big of a deal. Most pros are better than me
that's just what it is. Fingerings helped me organize and understand how and what I'm playing. It's not like I'm carrying around printed cards etc...
Disclaimer.... I don't practice, I got practicing out of the way when I was young. I understand what I'm playing or hearing. Not that it's that difficult. When we were kids... 6 month to a year and your good to go. As we get older, gets into years thing, I guess.
I guess my point is basically the same as I've always said.... get your technical skills together, so you don't need to figure things out.... all you need to do is make choices. And yea sight reading should be a given... but generally it's more of a memory aid for guitarist. Maybe because so few guitarist understand music, and rely on the memory as compared to understanding... approach that sight reading becomes a memory thing... I don't Know.
Obviously great players make anything work.... I'm not in that group. I like music to be easy... FUN.
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Charlie Christian played out of shapes. I believe that Joe Pass did also. Warren Nunes played out of scales and triads. I'm not suggesting that these masters played shapes exclusively.
I don't think I can name a guitarist who clearly didn't play primarily out of shapes although some of the more modern players are so angular, I wonder.
I think some bandleaders hire guitar because they want a little more space in the band's sound. Not that a pianist couldn't do that.
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Ain't nobody criticizing Reg. Some players just don't like stretch fingerings after playing them and even advocating for them, for years.
To each his own. How sharing an opinion translates to some kind of malice is beyond me. Maybe someone's a little over-sensitive or insecure or heaven knows what.
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I think maybe it's part of the "fingering and all that implies" stuff - knowing what you want to play, and position, and fingering, but also knowing ahead of time what you want to play and a path forward, planning position to use specific fingering - because of technical aspects, play-ability, phrasing, tone, hand mechanics, etc. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
There is a thing of choosing a position, staying there, and adjusting fingering in order to play anything in any key without shifting, as an academic practice exercise. There might be some people that sometimes play like that in performance.
There is thing of discarding position and playing fluidly all over the finger board, which may also be an academic practice exercise.
There is another thing of choosing and shifting position constantly because of limited grasp of possibilities and having to use the few forms with which one is familiar or confident, distributed all over the finger board.
The first time I saw a video of Wes I was struck by the way he hears ahead and plans his playing (because of the constraints of using his thumb). He makes lines and phrases that seem to "naturally" set up his hands for the subsequent line or phrase. He moves position, but if you are hearing/watching it as a guitarist, you feel in your ear and hand that he is deliberately staging placements and motions of his fingering with a strong sense of knowing the position advantage for what is needed ahead - he doesn't just use position and fingering, he plans a "fingering path" to best execute his playing.
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Again, thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. So,we have two answers, and, unsurprisingly considering it's about music and guitar, the two answers are not the same. Originally Posted by pauln
I'm also confused, for the record, by the phrase "fingering and all that implies". I know some fingerings and I have no idea what they imply. Or, at least, what that phrase refers to -- maybe I know it under some other name.
I find it to be like this. It's my turn to solo. I know what the first chord is. I have to start somewhere, so I pick a note. Maybe I've already thought of a melodic idea, so I start on the first note of that. Or, maybe, I have no idea what I'm going to do,so I pick a chord tone, hold the note for a beat or so, at which point I've usually thought of the next note I want to play. My intention is to decide on the second note based on a melodic idea, not a fingering. In fact, I see paying attention to a fingering as more likely to damage the melodic idea than strengthen it, at least in my hands. If you're already thinking about a fingering, it seems that you've already chosen a harmonic idea perhaps more than a melodic idea.
That said, there's a great Jimmy Bruno video where he plays just a few simple notes on a Bb arp or scale (can't recall) and makes a great melodic and rhythmic statement. It's a fantastic demonstration of great jazz from the simplest of tools. I think the solo could have emerged from a fingering pattern, although it didn't have to.
So, I understand that great jazz can be based on a very different approach from what I'm suggesting.
The usual caveat applies. To play a lot of notes really fast requires some preparation. I don't listen to that style much, and I can barely play it, but I understand the point made earlier that burning is part of jazz.Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 03-11-2021 at 02:22 AM.
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I notice Wes in common with Pat Metheny favours low positions and keeps mobile up and down the neck.
In both cases i habitually transcribe their lines in higher positions than they are actually played.
They do a lot of work in 1st-3rd.
The tone of guitar is somewhat different there. Mike Moreno notes that the guitar sounds punchier there, with better intonation.
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Furthermore I remember reading somewhere that they thought Wes used a diagonal position of an extended arpeggio, like this one, as a skeleton for scales etc
—————————8—12
—————6—10
———-7
5 - 8
–—
——
(This is to be played with three fingers, heavily pronated left hand and lots of shifting ala blues guitar. You can see the left hand stance in the vid.)
You can see how diagonal his positions could be. In common with some of the blues guitar diagonal positions you go from low positions to high positions very organically.
this is something traditional positional playing doesn’t encourage so much. Again as Julian Lage points out we are conditioned to think of a leap from say 5th to 12th fret as a big jump but in fact it’s not a large motion for the arm to make. By learning positions you can get conditioned into thinking movements are bigger than they are. Self taught players like Pat, Wes, Django or Jimi Hendrix don’t have this mental conditioning, and move along the neck a lot more.
Lage Lund’s ideas on position are not dissimilar. He favours a shifting mobile left hand that compresses and stretches as it needs, and this makes sense as his improvisational language appears to be more based on triads and chords than scales.
He feels that using the little finger as with a piano stops the hand ascending the fretboard easily and it should only be used for direction changes.
Wes (and Pat) are primarily three fingered ‘thumb over’ players. But Lage has one of the most legit left hands I’ve seen in a jazzer so it’s interesting. Most of my ideas re the left hand are borrowed from Lage.
but then you get super positional players like Adam Rogers who is a big scale guy. Strategies vary. I love both players very much.
Which just goes to show really.
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Interesting - I guess it is big for classical music where the nuances are so delicate that it can affect them... but not that it is impossible.. Again as Julian Lage points out we are conditioned to think of a leap from say 5th to 12th fret as a big jump but in fact it’s not a large motion for the arm to make. By learning positions you can get conditioned into thinking movements are bigger than they are.
And I think in jazz it is less important...
Tbh I think that it is not necessary for every player to learn every possible approach... if it works for someone in position - fine for him, if it works in diagonal playing - fine too...
I guess each one eventually expands it if he feels he needs to do that...
I personally played a lot in 'position' but there was a period when I intentionally broke it and began to study the neck diagonally... and eventually I got some kind of mixture of it.
An interesting excersise that Andrey Ryabov showed me: when you play a scale or an arp upside down... you move your hand from top frets to low frets but the arp or scale goes upwards...
it really breaks some patterns and the way the fretboard is systemized.
I actually think it is an endless trip... I feel like my mapping of fretboard is always changing and it becomes more and more multi-dimensional.... but I dont fell like I will ever say: I know it...
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I have got my fingers in a knot a number of times because of playing by ear only. Funny with piano improv I did that too.
When improvising I think most of us think in licks and lines, groups of notes rather than single notes. Jens Larsen recommends exercising scales not just as ladders, with different intervals. Btw that’s how Yitzak Perlman got picked up by Heifetz when he was just a kid.
Question: is it ok to play a harmonic minor scale root on G string and then kind of shrink your hand a pinkie plays 3 and index the 4 on B string and same on the way down? I feel it’s a bit piano-ish as opposed to just shifting your hand
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I kind of do that. Only I know the scales from piano. But I like to sing the note names and imagine them on the fretboard. Works for me except I don’t drive to work unfortunately.. Originally Posted by DonEsteban
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