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How do you see the neck?


Floyd Rosenbomb

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Or do you even see the neck?

Maybe helpful to state if you favor being a lead or rhythm player, or what mixture of both.

 

For leads there is the cage system. Also, brute force scale memorization with all of the modes. There are some pretty good hacks, for example when you hear guys talk about how Hendrix might have looked at the neck based on his lead style. Maybe there are as many approaches as there are guitarists.

 

I'd like to hear from guys who do a lot of rhythm stuff, too. To get their thoughts on their approach and thought process.

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Strictly rhythm. Muscle memory and knowing the fingerboard. I'm not sure I understand your question but I try not to look at the fingerboard. When I do, I tilt my head forward enough to see the fingerboard and not just the edge of the neck. I also thank the Lord for position markers.

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The Cage system as you call it was called the box system in my day. Both are appropriately named because you can be bod or caged into them if you rely on then too much. They are good for blues straight rock and country and consist of 5 positions on the neck before they start repeating above or below and octave. Once you can play fluently within each of these boxes and learn to use fingering that lets you migrate from box to box without having to look at the neck as much.

 

When I first started playing it was on a Violin and I learned to read music playing in an orchestra. You couldn't be watching your hands and following the music score at the same time. All the playing was done with your eyes forward on the music or the conductor.

 

On guitar, if I've gone a spell without playing I may spend a bit more time orienting myself on the neck by looking where I am. After that I try an ignore it completely and just play sight unseen. After about an hours playing I can close my eyes and visualize where I am on the neck without looking. I may have to take a quick glance if I'm taking really big jumps on the neck and want to be sure I land on the right spot. Even then, I if I'm in the pocket I often don't have time to look and trust my skills and ears to get me there.

 

Same thing for chords. Its rare when I jump more then 5 frets with a barre chord and that's usually easy to do without looking. The exception may be with triads that scale the neck, but I still try and do it without looking because the eyes will slow you down and split your concentration. If I can do it without looking I know I have the music down. If I have to look, I probably need to work the part more so I don't have to.

 

A good way of breaking the habit and keeping your eyes forward is to video tape yourself. When you watch yourself play you see where your concentration is and where it should be. You want to keep that concentration forward on the audience as much as possible. Doing the same thing when you record can help a whole lot too. Find a fixed point of concentration in the room and focus on it and the playing will eventually become automatic. Its great when you have a hot babe in the room to concentrate on when you play but whatever serves as a substitute when your alone will work just as well. You'll find allot more comfort with this technique too. Fewer headaches pushing all that concentration through your eyes trying to make your fingers move.

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The Cage system as you call it was called the box system in my day. Both are appropriately named because you can be bod or caged into them if you rely on then too much. They are go...

 

My question was more figurative then literal.

For example, literally speaking I glance at the fret board if I need to but the vast majority of the time I'm not looking at the finger board.

 

Figuratively speaking I "see" the finger board in my mind though understanding all of the notes on the finger board, knowing the scale and modes of the scale, and adding in a little bit of large pattern shape awareness. That was the building blocks of how I "see" the neck anyway. At this point it's more about seeing it with my ears and just feeling where to go, but that is with in an improvisational context and based on a solid foundation.

 

I don't have as strong a foundation in chords. Of course knowing scales and modes I can build chords any way that I like. But to do that on the fly, I would think, would be easier if I knew some type of system for it. Perhaps the "FDA system" wankdeplank mentioned above would be helpful for me. I'll check it out. I do know that, if major key the 1 is major, 2 is minor, 3 is minor 4 and 5 major and 6 (and 7) is minor. But there is more to it, imo. There are approaches to setting up a rhythmic foundation, there are fingerings that lend to simplicity, I think it goes pretty deep if one is interested enough, actually. I'd like to learn more about that end of playing.

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I see shapes and notes. I learned the 7 shapes of the major scale and the five shapes of the pentatonic scale when I first learned guitar and for good or bad that is the way I see it.

 

I know the notes on the entire fretboard fretboard too.

 

I primarily use about two or three positions for playing over changes.

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I am basically a rhythm player and see the fretboard as a linear thing like a piano for barres and have maybe 8 regular barre fingerings for m7, 13th,etc' though I tend to live mostly in the 5th to 12th fret orbit. I am fond of rapidly sliding chords up an octave from zero to 12th which I call bell ringing but friends have a less complementary term :)

Hard to put into words but for me in essence the neck is about an arena for shapes and texture not notes

I do also make up chords that incorporate open strings to get a jangly or drone thing where I'm working a patern on 2 or 3 strings but they are all singing, that is obviously position sensitive (capo aside)

 

When I first started on electric guitar there was this ridiculous culture that the higher up the neck you went the more effort it took my teenage friends would actually start pulling strained faces rawk.gifwhen they went above the 8th fret like their wrist was on a piece of elastic from the headstock but is was all psychological.

I tend to shun standard open chords because I no longer like the sound (am I alone in that? )unless I'm doing a folk thing

 

 

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I'm a fingerstyle player and so I see the neck (or better, chord shapes) as they present the bass, the treble lead and sometimes a melody in the middle. I guess I "see" the neck more with my right hand, the left then forms the chords or notes that the song requires. I'll also say that I don't play many original things so I also try to "see" what the original player saw.

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i love mixing up scales and modes. I love mixing natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor, Middle Eastern scales, Asian scales with half / whole scales and Major with Chromatic and Whole Tones scales .... or get in a Allan Holdsworth mind set.

As for rhythm, I follow the bass and drummer, tightly or loosely .... depending on the mood being presented. Most important of all, I listen to the others I'm playing with .

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Very few guitar players play more than 4 notes at a time for long!

You can get great color with choice chords of 3 or 4 notes. :)

Dunno if you're counting the same note in different octaves but as a rhythm player I routinely play 5 or 6 notes. If that's the mark of a bad guitarist I'm guilty as charged.

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Basically rhythm playing, with some lead thrown in to annoy the neighbors....

For chords, it's almost instinctive. Where ever my hand happens to be, I play the chord needed. Yes, I look at the fretboard normally. For the rare bit of lead work... it's more of a "muscle memory" thing. Kinda the Box approach. Kinda the 3 notes per string approach, kinda just following the key of what needs to be play.

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Dunno if you're counting the same note in different octaves but as a rhythm player I routinely play 5 or 6 notes. If that's the mark of a bad guitarist I'm guilty as charged.

 

I was counting the number of strings played, so different octaves would still count as two notes.

I wouldn't consider a guitarist "bad" if they routinely played 5 or 6 note chords, however certain chords (like barring across all six strings with the first finger) do waste a lot of energy.

 

When I mentioned "Very few guitar players play more than 4 notes at a time for long!" I wasn't thinking of the garden variety first position folkie playing open chords, but rather, seasoned players who play along the entire neck.

 

Rockers got smart when they figured out that only strings 4, 5 and 6 or 3, 4 and 5 are required for power chords. :)

 

If I'm comping behind someone, I'll usually play 3 or 4 note chords.

If it's a chord melody then it will depend on how rich or sparse I want the sound.

Sometimes it will be just two note chords, other times all the way to five or six.

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I learn by patterns and shapes. So, I see patterns and shapes. I can do about anything on the guitar if I can learn the pattern. Even extremely complicated stuff. Yet, if I don't see the pattern, it's very difficult for me to learn. For example, guitar tabs... I can't stand that. I don't see a pattern. It takes forever for me to sit there and put all the notes together to find what the pattern is.

 

But if I see someone play something, I see the pattern and can instantly do it.

 

I learned a long time ago my strong point was being a visual player. There are some players who are not visual and are ear based. I have a good ear because I've been playing a long time. But I still cannot listen to a complex song and figure out what they are doing completely on guitar. But if I see that song in a live music video, I can play it. I need a visual representation of it.

 

It's the same thing with drums. Some of the things that sound like the hardest things to do, ended up not being as difficult once I seen someone do it.

 

We did not have youtube growing up. If I would have had youtube I would have been a lot better a lot faster as a teenager. I didn't grow up in a musical family and I'm from a small town where no one really played guitar and the one's that did just played the cowboy chords for the most part. Once I met a guy who played metal and seen the patterns I could finally play the guitar. 2 years prior to meeting him, I had been playing guitar and failing.

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I play lead guitar primarily although I don't make much of a distinction between lead and rhythm. I don't really like playing with other guitarists in the band - because I like to have control over the "space" between the notes - and usually prefer three piece over anything else. I was profoundly influenced by Andy Summers and the Police during the 1980s.

 

I am a piano player and I approach the guitar the same way. I "see" the chords, scales and other patterns based on what the notes are and a strong understanding of music theory. I first heard Larry Carlton with The Crusaders and thought "that guy knows all there is to know about the guitar but he just closes his eyes and plays" and I decided that is what I wanted to do.

 

I learned the fingerboard by using the Tommy Tedesco approach of picking a note then finding it in as many places on the fingerboard as possible. Having played the guitar for a while I've become used to certain "grips" as one of my teachers used to say. Being able to see/play triads in different places with different grips is probably the most valuable tool that I have.

 

I'm also influenced by players like Ritchie Blackmore (who I studied), Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour who seem to "compose" their guitar parts based on the harmonic structure of the song.This provides the opportunity to be subtle in the approach to soloing and not be trapped in the box. I really like the way George Harrison's guitar parts became as much a part of the Beatles songs as the lyrics because of the subtleties in his playing and his respect for the song.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Some cool answers in here.

 

A thought on the discussion of playing 4 or 5 note chords. The down side can be that it limits what the other instruments can play. If you use a lot of 2 note "chords" this leaves a lot of room for a soloist to work, for example.

 

Does not mean that 4 or 5 note chords are wrong, its just that you can do 2 notes and let the other player to 2 notes and those 4 notes tend to make something interesting.

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I am a piano player and I approach the guitar the same way. I "see" the chords, scales and other patterns based on what the notes are and a strong understanding of music theory. I first heard Larry Carlton with The Crusaders and thought "that guy knows all there is to know about the guitar but he just closes his eyes and plays" and I decided that is what I wanted to do.

 

I learned the fingerboard by using the Tommy Tedesco approach of picking a note then finding it in as many places on the fingerboard as possible. Having played the guitar for a while I've become used to certain "grips" as one of my teachers used to say. Being able to see/play triads in different places with different grips is probably the most valuable tool that I have.

 

 

I admire your approach to the guitar. I have similar influences, though I lean very heavily to the jazz side now and have many jazz guitar influences (Breau, Wes, Garland etc.)

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I admire your approach to the guitar. I have similar influences, though I lean very heavily to the jazz side now and have many jazz guitar influences (Breau, Wes, Garland etc.)

 

I'm moving in that direction too. I really like Kenny Burrell's bluesy approach to jazz. I like Robben Ford a lot too. I'd describe him as a Blues player with a jazz vocabulary and Kenny Burrell as a jazz player with a blues feel. It's as if they are approaching the same place from two different directions.

 

I've convinced my band to play some George Benson and Wes Montgomery tunes in the first set - although it's easier for me to do that stuff after I've played a set or two but, by then, the audience wants to hear some rock 'n' roll dance tunes.

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