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Originally Posted by JakeAcci
OTOH the more I study pedagogy the more relaxed I get about things being a bit contradictory. That’s part of the fun. There’s already too much small p positivism in music education. Art is about subjectivity.
That said there are anatomical reasons why I think this style is actually healthier for the hand than classical. Classical makes as healthy as possible the challenge of playing polyphonic music, but the relative athleticism of this repertoire and technique means you can get yourself into trouble if you don’t quite know what you are doing/have a shit teacher. As I have in the past. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...
So anyway, it’s annoying because for me four fingers is a lot more familiar and flexible, but I think you got to follow the sound. And of course no reason I have to always use that technique all the time.
So I’ll report back when I learn Donna Lee that way haha (we’ll see about that, eh?)
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05-06-2021 08:53 AM
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Originally Posted by JakeAcci
Mediant relationships are big and clever
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Originally Posted by jazznylon
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by christianm77
I listen WAY more to horn players, particularly sax and trumpet, than I do to piano players. But I do play sax and clarinet, so i'm not a frustrated horn player, just a mediocre one.
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(First post, but have been lurking for a couple of months.)
I’ve played bass (on and off) for 50 years, but started guitar only recently. I began on doublebass and took up electric shortly after. I abandoned DB after a few years but continued with bass guitar. I learned Simandl fingering—four fingers cover three notes with the third and fourth finger together—thumb behind the neck. Over the years I developed kind of a hybrid approach where sometimes I used the Simandl fingering while other times I would use one finger per fret.
I am finding with guitar that my third finger is the weakest and most uncoordinated, but I’m working on it.
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Originally Posted by DavidKOS
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Charlie Christian started on trumpet.
Cornell Dupree (not jazz, yet great) started on saxophone.
This video is excellent (for our purposes) because it is shot from below, providing a great angle on the angle of his left hand while playing.
Cornell did not use effects and played with a clean tone. You can see / hear that he is often 'singing what he plays'. Very vocal-like phrasing.
From Montreaux in 1971 with King Curtis
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Classical left hand with fingers 90 degrees to fretboard is one technique, not some pinnacle of correct playing, in fact it doesn’t work when you play Hendrix etc. Because in those styles, you strum all or most strings while muting with the left fingers. This gives the characteristic percussive sound. It’s only possible with fingers slightly flattened as needed. High precision playing, not at all lazy.
As for injuries, it’s about the entire geometry. Especially the wrist which should be as straight as possible. Which is a function of your shoulder and elbow, which in turn is dependent on your posture and guitar placement.
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Originally Posted by emkc
it doesn't seem to have affected my guitar fingerings, though.
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Marriage & Independence - Tennis Anyone?
Unfortunately, the ring finger is only good for the ring... the bands that bind...
I guess this is a great reason/excuse to play scales to develop/practice finger independence.
The internet tells me that squeezing a tennis ball in your idle hours may help...
Internet Anatomy 101 - It's A Nervous Condition
Unlike the thumb, index and pinky, the ring and middle fingers have no independent flexors or extensors...!
They can move only with the muscles common to all fingers.
In the forearm, the nerves are separated (Ulnar & Radial).
The radial nerve connects with the thumb, index and one side of the badfinger.
The ulnar nerve connects with the pinky, ring and the other side of badfinger.
The branching of the two nerves causes the dependence of the fingers on each other for movement.
As the nerves for the ring and pinky are intertwined, it's hard to move each one separately.
The same goes for ring and badfinger, but the middle finger can move more easily as it’s getting two sets of signals.
Simandl vs Sor
On double bass I use Simandl(124) in the lower positions, reserving 1234 for higher positions where comfortable. The ring finger mirrors the pinky as if tied together by an elastic (1,2, 3-4). This allows balance in the hand and the strength of pinky + ring is considerable. For me, Simandl meets the demands of bowing much better than 1234 could on the double bass. Pizzicato is something else. After a while, I came to enjoy the Simandl fingering very much, even on bass guitar in the low positions. Where you make the switch from 124 to 1234 depends on the size of your hand. It becomes second nature.
Viva Roma!
There's an Italian School of fingering using fingers 134. Again, the ring finger is "tied", this time to the middle finger (1, 2-3, 4). Both systems are equally good. Both systems allow accurate intonation due to the ease of equalising the spaces between the digits used.
Fast Guys Do It 123! - Tilt The Neck Twice - Where Does It End?
One can't help but notice all the speedo's working with fingers 123 and only using the pinky now and then. Of course there's the "tricks" of string bending, hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides that more than make up for four fingers. I made the mistake long ago of taking the classical technique too seriously. I learned that positioning the neck until right for you (between vertical and horizontal AND with the fingerboard tilted up a bit rather than perpendicular to the floor) is more important than anything -and not to be strict with technique. Tilting the fingerboard really helps with some difficult chords. The natural anatomy of the hand limits speed somewhat, and 123 fingering avoids that. But we do pretty well in spite of it. Virtuosity is overrated...Last edited by StringNavigator; 05-07-2021 at 01:02 PM.
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I watched the video, Christian and gave it a go for a night. What I found in my brief explorations are that somethings are easier with three fingers and some things harder.
In particular, I found position playing and running scales in position more difficult with three fingers, except for two notes per string stuff.
However, I found moving around the neck much easier which goes to Lage's point that it is hard to shift when using the pinky. When I finger something three frets away my hand naturally tends to move towards that finger, so it makes for a sort of pivoting motion that makes moving up the neck easy, and vice-versa when going down from the the third finger to the 1st.
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Originally Posted by charlieparker
Anyway; position playing. So, I always feel that the goals of position playing really have nothing to do with musicality. Is it a thing worth having in the long run? By which I mean, do we want to position players when improvising, sight reading and playing compositions? And if not, how important is it really for learning to play?
(these are the types of questions I find myself wondering when yet another Grade 1 classical student is flummoxed by the idea of second position requiring different fingers for the notes they’ve been playing for a year already....)
Quite a lot of the stuff I actually play when doing jazz, if not most of it, really resists traditional position playing; the Barry Harris stuff for example, lines I learn from various musicians or music I learn (often written by non guitarists). Usually the fingerings that work best combine positions or use many mini shifts. I don’t find bop particularly unguitaristic in fact, but I do not find it sits well ‘in position.’
in fact my fingering system such as it is is based on guidelines like, always keep a chromatic neighbour on the same string as the target tone, try to not use the same finger twice when moving string, and so on, rather than any positions as such. I’d much rather shift than break one of these rules.
I learned a lot by copying Mike Morenos fingerings and this is the type of thing he does, as well as Lage Lund.
Furthermore the idea of planting ones first finger in a position can have a number of negative effects on left hand technique.Last edited by christianm77; 05-09-2021 at 11:45 AM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
There great jazz players doing both so at the end of the day I think it's mostly about preferences and what kind of things you want to play.
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Originally Posted by charlieparker
(I would think the answer a fairly self evident no, but maybe others differ?)
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...Would you ever want your fingerings for a piece of music composed or improvised to be dictated by the position?
I'm not sure what the schooling is on position playing. I had to figure that stuff out for myself. For me it was about learning how to navigate the entire fretboard.
I still don't get the either or: 3 finger vs 4 vs shifts vs positions. I don't see how any one of these things disqualifies the others.
To me it's like the 'down-strokes are best' thing. Why limit yourself? My upstrokes are just as good as my downs. You just have to learn how to do it. I also need slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs and bends. (some don't though)
If the goal is to sound like the bop guitarists of yore, then mostly 3 fingers and lots of down strokes will probably get you there quicker.
If the goal is to be able to play everything including the harder stuff by Parker, Henderson, or Eddie Harris, you're probably going to want some more tools.
My goal is freedom for the heart and mind to roam the musical universe unconfined.
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Originally Posted by ccroft
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Originally Posted by ccroft
I mean I could address specific points of disagreement but most of things I want to say are covered in the vid. BTW some of the biggest names in contemporary jazz guitar are primarily ‘three fingered’ or thumb over pronated players.
Bottom line is I’m suggesting maybe some people try something a bit different. I don’t honestly think everyone should play with three fingers FFS. There’s a fair amount of diversity in left hand approaches for my favourite players.
Some people might like it tho.
And I think some people think it’s ‘wrong’ to play like this.
Anyway in a wider sense a lot of great practice can be done by adopting apparently arbitrary constraints and working within them. That’s one of the surest routes in my experience to more freedom and not playing the same stuff...Last edited by christianm77; 05-09-2021 at 03:42 PM.
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Originally Posted by DavidKOS
One of the great many things that drives me completely mental about JGO is the level to the which people see any invitation to try something new as an invitation to debate at great and tedious length why they shouldn’t try it.
The worst thing is I’ve been that person.
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Sorry Christian. I really didn't mean to be arguing with you. I did watch the vid a few days ago, and I totally agree with your "why not give it a go" invitation. I have in the past, and I learned things that added to my palette.
I did quote you, but I guess I got caught up in the 'great and tedious debate' having just re-read much of it on a Sunday afternoon. What I was really trying to get at is that there is no one best way. You know... the other side of the whole tedious thing. You clearly were not advocating for one or the other in your video.
I agree with the value of learning from constraints. If you're a photographer you'll learn a lot if you decide to work with just black and white for a while.
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Originally Posted by ccroft
I wish them, and you, all the best in pursuit of this goal.
But my perspective is fundamentally different: every guitarist I love---whose style thrills me---is somehow "confined." That is, they have definite habits and preferences. They are not equally likely to play a line this way as that way (and another dozen ways besides). They do what they like do. They put themselves---their style (which is by definition 'confined') their stamp---on what they do. Barney Kessel said of Herb Ellis that he always signed his work. You knew it was Herb. There are more adept guitarists who have no identifiable style. They are adept every which-a-way but as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, "There's no THERE there." Wes and Django and Charlie Christian had more "there" than any other 3 jazz guitarists. They were all confined. Studio players may wish to be unconfined---chameleons, able to blend in anywhere and never stand out---but having a style is by definition the opposite of that. It is being distinctive. It is being much more likely to do some things than others, and much more likely to play one certain way than others.
Bird always played like Bird, Prez like Prez, Johnny Hodges like Johnny Hodges. They were all confined, and it helped them stand out.
I don't say this to argue with you. I do wish you all the best. I'm sure you wish me the best as well, along a different path.
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I hear you Mark. I'm a long way from my goal. I may have developed some habits though!
Maybe the diff is that I've always been more attracted to horn players. More interested in playing like Bird than Herb for EG.
All the best to you and others of like mind!
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Originally Posted by christianm77
He can clearly get around the neck, though, but I would say that a lot of his faster stuff is in a single position.
Whereas a guy like Benson has runs that span the entire neck.
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Originally Posted by charlieparker
The question wasn't quite that though.
To put it another way, does position playing serve a purpose other than teaching?
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Originally Posted by ccroft
Most often, people pass on what they were taught. It gets really crazy sometimes when people get quite emotional when challenged on something that mildly contradicts something they were told 20 years ago... I think often teachers just pass on what they were taught without necessarily understanding underlying principles versus malleable details.... sometime contradictions are hint at a deeper syntheses. Sometimes they are just contradictions because - guess what - music isn't a science.
maybe it doesn't matter, if you have a system and it works (and don't blame the student if it doesn't of course), but it does make for some frankly silly debates.
And as anyone tell you jazz is all about heutagogy anyway (although maybe not using that word exactly haha....)
Elias Prinz -- young talent from Munich
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