I’ve discovered an issue with shifting to lower positions on the fretboard where my thumb begins to cause friction where it contacts the back of the neck. This happens during speedy, light playing, and not so much when shifting to high positions. I’ve experimented with allowing my nail to glide along instead, but I don’t like moving my thumb, even if it is fairly subtle.
Any tips for keeping these position shifts light and smooth?
Gloss neck, satin neck, unfinished neck?
How are you positioning your thumb? I’d been going with the classical thumb behind the index or middle finger and have been forcing myself to have it go out to an angle, like Rich Graham is doing in this video Probably one of the best solos I've ever played. - YouTube
That’s been helping quite a bit. I’ve also found that glossy necks cause friction/stickiness more easily than other types.
It is a gloss neck. The guitar is an ibanez S MIJ from 1990ish. I believe Alex Sklonick played this model for a while. It’s a very thin wizard neck. When I switched over to this guitar again after a 2 year break I almost hurt my tendons in the first week because I was doing too much pinching.
My thumb position is fairly dynamic. When playing on the high strings I’m near the middle of the neck, somewhat diagonal, and sometimes almost on the tip of my thumb.
The super light shredding stuff isn’t my wheelhouse, but I’m making progress by changing my fretting technique. I’d be interested in a comprehensive book on left hand technique for electric guitar, since I see so much disagreement and muddled thinking on the topic.
Dig around @Tom_Gilroy’s posts. The one I found most immediately useful is this one Videos on fretting principles
His more in depth post on fretting cycles was very good although somewhat academic Efficient Digital Cycles
Or you might consider hiring him for some lessons specific to fretting hand technique since he had posted about it a bit ago.
EDIT: Personally I found the points about preferring power grip over pinch grip where possible very useful - I still am working on unlearning pinch grip and making sure my hand/thumb is at a good angle to avoid extra tension. Going back and consciously relaxing both my fretting and picking hand throughout my practicing has been helpful, if for no other reason than it’s forcing more neural adaptation because it’s changing something about how I’m playing. Either way, it’s helped clean things up.