Fingering: Stay in position?

[acsenray]

My history is as a violinist. As such, I am used to keeping my hand in a particular position as long as possible and then switching when necessary. You choose your position to minimize position switches.

When I do scales and arpeggios on the guitar, however, I find it very difficult to stretch my hand across a fourth or a fifth, which is routine for the violin.

Is my hand too small for the guitar, or is the technique for guitar different in this respect from the violin? Am I supposed to move my hand position up and down constantly, even when I am staying in a "first position" block of a scale or arpeggio? Or am I supposed to keep my hand in one position and learn to stretch across a fifth?

[acsenray]

learn to stretch across a fifth?

Obviously, what I mean to say is "stretch across a fourth" (fifth fret). You'd have to be a giant to stretch across a fifth on a guitar.

[Crossroads]

No, you do try to stay in position. Just like violin.

And here's the shocking truth - you are expected to learn how to stretch your fingers over apparently impossible distances, no matter how painful that may now seem! :eek:

In fact, if you do enough really intense left-hand exercises of the right type, then even with very small hands, you eventually find that you can make quite big stretches whilst staying in any particular scale position (that's if you don't seriously injure your hand in the process!)

I know that may seem impossible. And probably seems too painful to be true, but actually it is true!

Of course it does make things vastly easier for guys like Paul Gilbert and Steve Vai who have freakishly long fingers like some ET type creature. But that's just the luck of the draw .... the rest of us have to practice a LOT, through quite alarming pain barriers, to get even near what they can do easily and naturally.

If you are playing electric, then a good source for those basic exercises is Troy Stetina's book/CD Speed Mechanics. And a good source for working on licks for the stretched 3nps scale runs is Paul Gilbert's DVD "Intense Rock". Of course you might not like that sort of musical material, but those are good sources to work from to build your left hand technique (and of course also alternate picking technique on the Gilbert DVD particularly).

Of course others may disagree with what I've said ... so lets see :) .

Ian.

[ChainsawGuitar]

...I disagree about the pain part, I've never had any pain and I have small hands.Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai etc... have just practiced alot to get where they are.

I can reach a forth from the first fret, but I dont really know any music that requires a stretch of more than a third- the strings of the guitar are tuned so that theres no real need to stretch further, you just go to another string :) the strings being tuned in forths...

[Crossroads]

...I disagree about the pain part, I've never had any pain and I have small hands.Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai etc... have just practiced alot to get where they are.
Maybe it depends not so much on the actual size of our hands, but more about how easily the fingers can stretch apart?

I always found it was excruciating. That continued for at least 10 years of very serious intense playing. And it's still a problem even to this day.

So perhaps we each have very different flexibility in our hands and fingers.

Though, in other respects neither I, nor I think anyone else would ever think my left-hand fingers were inflexible in any way at all ... in fact absolutely the reverse after all these years of playing ... ie they seem super flexible, but in fact it's still painful to make wide stretches, and of course that inevitably makes for mistakes too (unless the licks are practiced thousands of times).

But it's really interesting to hear different peoples experiences with this.

Ian.

[ChainsawGuitar]

This links in to my whole playing technique, and I think you've just hit it on the head there- its about how your hand can stretch apart, when we work these muscles, we play better.

[Blutwulf]

Putting my thumb slightly above center on the back of the neck (as if I were pinching the fretboard with thumb and middle finger) gained me a lot of real estate on the fretboard. More than I've ever needed, really.

[Jed]

While many (most?) self-taught guitarists will change position all the time (in order to stay in the "boxes" they know and love so well), "proper" guitar technique calls to stay in position as much as possible. In practical usage, advanced guitarists change position continuously.

If you can learn how to play in position, at most there's a major 3rd stretch. Larger intervals involve moving between strings. As you get deeper into the fretboard you'll find it easier and easier. It only seems difficult until you know the fretboard well enough so that it no longer matters.

I found that 2-octave triad arpeggios (nine fingering variations per triad root & type) was a great and practical way to learn your way around the fretboard. It's a fair amount of work but once you know the fretboard, the guitar becomes a pretty simple instrument.

cheers,

[fingerpikingood]

i can stretch a fifth on a guitar but i never do.

i don't particularly try to stay in any given position either, unless it fits nice with a given chord.

I often like to stay around the root chord zone. but also i'll slide up and down depending on they way the pattern works with what i want to play.

i only really ever stretch if i want to play a chord that requires a stretch. or playing a chord shape and then kind of soloing over it with my free fingers.

i don't see why in most cases i wouldn't just slide my hand around all over the place, up to the 13th fret for just 3 notes and then down to the first, whichever. sometimes i want to play in the steel strings, sometimes in the wound ones.

sometimes i'll play with my right hand some notes if the stretch is too hard for my left.

it probably makes a difference with what kind of music you play.


but for me, except for some spots being more conducive to certain chords, i'll go all over the place.

the difficulty is, that sometimes if say you're playing over a major chord, and you diddly up a few frets now your close major chord uses all the steel strings (maybe you figured it out but i figured i should say i play acoustic, predominantly so all my references are always to that) and playing the chord using all the steel strings sometimes is not what you want, so you then you need to super warp back to the position you want, but honestly any slide from one end of the fretboard to the other can be done in such a short time, that i don't see really why you'd be so strict on staying always in the same positions.

although certainly doing so and practicing that way i think is a great idea to learn your fretboard neighbourhoods. but i'm all about the travelling myself, not for the sake of it, but as an extra option when that's what you want.

[Crossroads]

The reason we try to stay in a particular position, is the same reason that classical musicians play that way - ie it's more efficient and minimises the risk of all sorts of unwanted noises & mistakes associated with shifting about all over the place.

That doesn't mean we don't change positions to make full use of the instrument from the 1st fret to the 24th. And it doesn't mean we are restricting our technique to playing in fixed scale box positions. You can still move freely through different interconnecting scale patterns or arp. shapes etc., ie if you think that way in terms of patterns (you might just be thinking in terms of sounds and intervals, if you know the instrument well enough).

But in general it's much more efficient to play individual passage in one particular position, especially if the piece is really fast or really tricky/awkward in terms of finger movements.

If you watch really great musicians (guitar or other string instruments), then I think you will notice they try to stay in position that way, to minimise unnecessary movements. Alternatively, it may look flashy to fly about all over the place with your left hand, but usually that's not a good or serious way of playing.

Of course there are exceptions. Paul Gilbert for example has excellent technique, but he likes licks with big interval skips, so his stuff often requires bigger finger movements and bigger position shifts than are strictly necessary ... though he also has very long fingers with a huge reach, which makes that sort of playing easier for him than for most of us.

All the above just my chatty 2:cents, and very much all just imho. :)

Ian.

[daystar]

...I disagree about the pain part, I've never had any pain and I have small hands.Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai etc... have just practiced alot to get where they are.
What about Shawn Lane? His left hand moves in what I consider to be an almost freakish sense. How much of that is genetics and how much practice? I think if I practiced 10 hours a day from now on I wouldn't be able to pull of some of those stretches as I have small hands (Or so I have been told)

[Crossroads]

What about Shawn Lane? His left hand moves in what I consider to be an almost freakish sense. How much of that is genetics and how much practice? I think if I practiced 10 hours a day from now on I wouldn't be able to pull of some of those stretches as I have small hands (Or so I have been told)
I'm not sure Shawn is a good example for what you are saying though.

Because, although Shawn has described himself as seeming to have a good deal of natural talent (he was being very modest about it), it's nevertheless clear from everything else he's said that he did in fact practice for 10 hours a day (or whatever the actual figure).

And the way he's playing is very obviously highly practiced and clearly quite big strain on the stretching of his left hand.

As I say - if you practice the right exercises enough, then you can significantly extend your ability to stretch to what once seemed impossible intervals. But still it's a long and very painful path to achieve that ... or at least that was my experience.

It's obviously true that players like Gilbert and Vai practiced a heck of a lot (as Chainsaw says), but I don't think that changes the fact that their unusually long fingers make it vastly easier for them to play wide stretches ... Paul Gilbert's little finger is about two inches longer than mine for example!

Ian.

[fingerpikingood]

ya i know what you mean, for like quick staccattoish runs you end up needing to stay in the same neighbourhood but even at that, there will come a time where you need to switch shape so it can be done, you can choose when you want to switch shape. but if you want to play really fast runs your changes must be few and far between.

but like someone else said there can't be too large a stretch for soloing until the top or bottom string because you can always just go to the next string, but as for chords then you might be in a pickle.

and of course although maybe showmanship might be important, to me musician wise, doing something just for flash I don't support.

but like you said, you can stick around in the same area when it is possible, but there will come a time when you have to leave, and as for those stretches, maybe you'd be best served to play one note a large stretch away and then come back to where you were originally, in which case the stretch is useful, and i do do that sometimes, but also it might just be easier to move position.

what's nice about guitar is sometimes i like to make a move like that a slide in which case i definitely will change positions.


another thing i do sometimes as well, which is classically "bad technique" is i'll often fingerpick over my fretboard, which is a little harder to do particularly without fingernails if your strings are close to the fretboard, and gives a quite different tone that you may or may not want,

but it also allows you to more easily use your right hand to either play harmonics or to finger tap some of those extra notes that require a stretch. you can even play chords with huge stretch of a full octave that way.

[ChrisJ]

Maybe think "jump" rather than "stretch."

Big stretches or leaps, more so than strength require flexibility, so being relaxed is the key.

This is a fun exercise:

http://chrisjuergensen.com/intervalic_4ths_phrase_1.gif

More here:
http://chrisjuergensen.com/intervalic_ideas.htm

[acsenray]

I guess what I was thinking about was practising, say a major scale, starting on F (1st fret, low E string) in a 1-3-5, 1-3-5, 2-3 pattern. I can't start on F with my first finger and stretch to A (5th fret, low E string) with my pinkie without shifting my hand at least a little.

Or perhaps this is not a good fingering for a major scale in the first place?

[ChainsawGuitar]

I guess what I was thinking about was practising, say a major scale, starting on F (1st fret, low E string) in a 1-3-5, 1-3-5, 2-3 pattern. I can't start on F with my first finger and stretch to A (5th fret, low E string) with my pinkie without shifting my hand at least a little.

Or perhaps this is not a good fingering for a major scale in the first place?

Heh I wish I could say that was just a bad fingering for the scale...but its not particularly. You could play the same scale with the pattern 1-3, 0-1-3, 0-2-3 but, I'm afraid to say that for the 1-3-5 pattern, you do have to learn to stretch that far...coming from a small instrument such as the violin I can see how this is daunting for you, and I sympathise!

Just think how hard it would have been if you'd tried to learn the bass! Although, to be fair, the 1-3-5 fingering is almost never used on the bass due to the stretch...

[ChrisJ]

It is a pretty standard 3nps pattern that will take a little time to get used to from where you are starting. Ultimately all these patterns will eventually blend together and you will see the fretboard light up like a christmas tree. Practice as many patterns as you possibly can, ie: standard CAGED patterns, (http://chrisjuergensen.com/the_major_scale.htm) 3nps, 2nps,open string hybrid scales, ( http://chrisjuergensen.com/openstring_hybrid_scales.htm) etc..