The Buddha said:
“Bloom where you’re planted“.
Fine advice, and with that in mind, I want to talk about minimizing your left(or neck) hand movement in an effort to familiarize yourself more deeply with just a small.portion of the fingerboard.
I’m going to use 2nd position as an example.
2nd position on the fingerboard is where your hand lands when your index finger is at the 2nd fret. Subsequently, your 2nd finger will be at the third, your third finger at the fourth fret and your pinky at the 5th. Your thumb is planted roughly adjacent to your index finger, and resting on the neck, providing a kind of pivot point for your hand movement.
Now you are going to explore all there is to explore from this position. The restrictions in place are:
No sliding your thumb around
Reaching for the first fret with your index finger only when necessary
Reaching for the sixth fret with your pinky only when necessary
Now let’s take a 3 chord trick, say F, C and Bb.
How do you voice these chords in as complete a way as you can while you’re in 2nd position,a nd adhering to teh above restrictions?
Some of the questions that might come up are;
- What notes do I need to build that chord?
- Where are they within the 2nd position?
- Do I need to think about chord inversions in order to make it work?
- Can my hand make that shape?
How about playing an F major scale from the lowest note you can reach (G – second finger on the 3rd fret of the E(6) string) to the highest (A on the 5th fret of the E (1) string?
By willfully imposing a boundary on your hand, you will develop a deeper and more complete understanding of your surroundings in order to express yourself and get the job done.
Go through a number of scales a and melody lines and see what come up. I think you’ll find yourself re thinking, and therefore expanding your approach to how you build chords and melodies. Have fun with it, and let me know how you get on.
Final thought:
Replace the word “hand” with “self” and you’ll get where the Buddha is coming from. 🙂