Position Playing

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From the course by Berklee College of Music

Guitar for Beginners

1288 ratings

Berklee College of Music

Guitar for Beginners

1288 ratings

Grasp the essentials needed to begin playing acoustic or electric guitar. You'll learn an easy approach to get you playing quickly, through a combination of exploring the instrument, performance technique, and basic music theory. For students who have long thought about picking up the acoustic or electric guitar, this course will provide an easy-access foundation that will get you playing. When first learning guitar, it is important to have the material presented in stages, in an enjoyable way that allows you to grasp the basics of the instrument and music. The course begins simply with the parts of the guitar, the names of the strings, tuning, and technique—whether finger-style or pick. It then explores the basics of music theory with such topics as scales, triads, power chords, and fingering and shapes. At the end of this course, students will understand the structure, parts, and accessories of the instrument, in addition to an understanding of its basic maintenance. Electric guitar players will learn the operation of their instrument along with basic options for amplification, effect pedals, and sounds. Students will also learn to develop correct technique and apply theory concepts to their playing. They will have the foundational knowledge necessary to pursue most intermediate guitar courses.

From the lesson

Scales: Construction and Fingerings

In this lesson, you will dig into scales. Don’t be intimidated. Some of you may have heard of, or practiced, scales. It might have been during piano lessons. Most likely it wasn’t very exciting for you. Hopefully you'll find the approach to scales in lesson 4 much easier and even fun.

Position Playing3:55

Meet the Instructors

Thaddeus Hogarth
Associate Professor
Guitar

[MUSIC]

Let's talk about position playing.

Now position playing

basically refers to where on the fret board you're placing your hand.

If I'm playing something in this position,

[MUSIC]

One, two, three, I'm playing in third position.

If I were playing the same thing in this position,

[MUSIC]

That's the first fret.

So now I'm playing in first position.

If I were playing in this position,

[MUSIC]

One, two, three, four, five.

Now I'm playing in fifth position.

So for the most part, if this is fifth position,

That finger would cover the fifth fret.

This finger would cover the sixth, and so forth.

So we have a four fret span that's covered by the four fingers of the left hand.

The only thing is now that you don't cover all of the notes.

Within this four fret span, there are other notes that we could reach.

So what we're going to do is we stretch to get those notes.

These are called finger stretches.

So this is fifth position with a finger stretch.

If I were playing something like this,

[MUSIC]

I'm really playing in fifth position with a first finger finger stretch.

[MUSIC]

For that reason, we might actually define position playing

as one fret below the fret that is covered by your second finger.

Because you might not even use your first finger.

[MUSIC]

Even though I'm not using my first finger, I'm still playing in fifth position,

because my first finger is ready to cover any notes that I need to play

in fifth position, even if I were playing.

[MUSIC]

Now, you might be asking, well,

why do I need to learn all of this position playing stuff, anyway?

Now the reason for this is really simple.

We're going to be moving on to scales.

Now scales, it's important to learn them in various positions.

Now, the reason for that is because,

let's use the analogy of getting to know the streets in a city.

If you get to know this neighborhood really well, and

you get to know this neighborhood,

then you have a comprehensive knowledge of the entire city.

Versus the one street that goes through all of town and

that's the only way you know to get from point A to point B.

So basically what we're going to do is divide the fretboard

into various positions.

And using that as our foundation, learning this really well,

then learning this really well, learning this well.

And then eventually, we can really seamlessly link them together, and

move to various parts.

And so that's the whole reason for position playing.

So to recap, position playing,

you might define it by being one fret lower than your second finger,

your middle finger, on your left hand or fretting hand as you see.

So we'll, first position,

[MUSIC]

Third position

[MUSIC]

Fifth position.

[MUSIC]

Now we're going to do fifth position with a finger stretch.

[MUSIC]

We're really in that position and we're doing a little stretch.

[MUSIC]

Now we can also stretch with our little finger,

this would be second position with a finger stretch.

[MUSIC]

Second position with a finger stretch.

[SOUND] So that's all about position playing.

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