@Tom_Gilroy@carranoj25 Here’s the second one I came up with that was more “speed focused”. The first, while I dig it, sounds cool but is slower since it’s got more jumping around on strings.
The more I mess with it the more I think you struck gold with the EDC concepts. Really gives that Shawn Lane sound while being surprisingly easy to play, distilling most of the REH Lane material into EDC. I tend to avoid writing sixes riffs because I think they’re overdone, so I would just default to long scales to play fast stuff; this is a great way to not be linear while staying away from sixes. I tried to find you on Instagram to give you credit but couldn’t, I still mentioned you and the forum regardless!
Breakdown of this riff: I’ve been trying to come up patterns that fit in a 4-fret position (one finger per fret). So it’s a 4-5-4-5 style descent, but the last pattern omits the middle finger and just jumps to the last note, becoming 4-5-4-4. Picking is DBX I believe.
I know you said you don’t feel a limitation when you combine the ring and pinky fingers. If you were to play the riff with only fingers 1, 2 and 3, do you think you could go faster?
@joebegly I had mentioned to @Tom_Gilroy that 134 fingerings feel fine for me personally, and the speed limit to the riff I posted I’m pretty sure is the string changes for me. I could try to rewrite it to not be in the 4-fret box I mentioned and use 123 instead, would you like to try the riff out and see if the fingering is the limitation?
So…I am HORRIBLE with 1 3 4. So much so that I think I might have something wrong with my left hand. I tried for years to ‘fix’ it but gave up because there was no benefit for me. There was nothing (I was interested in playing, anyway) where I couldn’t re-finger to either 1 2 3 or 1 2 4 and it felt comfortable. One of the reasons Tom’s work has resonated with me is that I didn’t feel so bad about myself for sucking with 1 3 4 so much lol
I’ll give your riff a try. Immediately, the thing that jumps out to me is the ability to add some economy picking, which speed it up a lot for me. It will have to start on an upstroke for that, sort of like the Lane 4-note-5-note grouping lick.
@joebegly from the players I’ve seen / met, 134 is definitely unusual, and pinky use in general is quite low. I do appreciate that @Tom_Gilroy mentions why he omitted 134 and steers his videos towards 124 and 123, since that would likely be beneficial to most guitarists.
If you stray from straight alternate picking, the limitation might become fingering, but that would take someone that’s actually good at economy / adding in hammer-ons to find out (not me lol).
Right, agreed. For years I was a guitar teacher (scary though, I know) and when I started showing people 3 nps patterns, it was always interesting what people gravitated towards. There were some who would prefer 1 3 4.
Not to speak directly for him, but my understanding of Tom’s work is due to anatomical reasons, at the absolute fastest speeds possible 1 3 4 will not cut it for long durations. There are some outliers, like Paul Gilbert (and maybe YOU too ) BUT Paul Gilbert was not as fast as Shawn Lane’s top speeds.
Hi @Pepepicks66, I think you have much more potential for left hand speed that you haven’t yet realised (in both sense of the word).
Your fretting posture is angled, which helps facilitate (3 4) combinations. I’ve mentioned this in other threads and in some other videos. This posture has some downsides, but it may explain why (3 4) feels more comfortable for you at this time.
Most of the Shawn Lane patterns I discussed are most comfortable for me with what I call a parallel posture, as it allows for you to move the hand as a unit. However, (3 4) combinations are much less comfortable in that posture.
My belief is that for the majority of us, (1 3 4) will be significantly less comfortable in a parallel fretting posture than other combinations for purely anatomical reasons, being the strong dependences between these fingers and the length differential. The degree to which this may affect us may be variable, but I definitely feel it and Shawn had a definite, conscious preference for avoiding (3 4) combinations.
If I adopt a parallel posture and move my fingers as fast as I possibly can, (1 3 4) or (4 3 1) cycles strain my extensors after a few repetitions, but I can burn through the other cycles all day and feel no discomfort. If @Pepepicks66 were to adopt a parallel posture and up his fretting speed, he may well begin to feel the same strain that I feel.
A big part of my guitar playing development has been people saying, “Don’t use your pinky for that” and me ignoring them with excellent results
Your videos convinced me that I’ve taken my pinky stubbornness too far! I’ve been going through and replacing 134’s with 123’s wherever possible in my scale and arpeggio fingerings and feeling a lot more control.
I’ve been doing the scale section of Frank Gambale’s Chops Builder as a daily exercise the last few months because it is so completely exhausting for my hand. I’ve been slowly getting more and more endurance. Your videos made me realize that the 134s are the entire reason my hand is getting so tired. Now, it’s gone from a grueling endurance exercise to a super peaceful meditative exercise in literally a day! (I understand that going up and down a scale isn’t exactly what you’re talking about in the videos, but your observations are still super relevant)
Also, I’m glad that you mentioned that moving through sequences of thirds is so efficient for the left hand. I’ve always been able to fly through those until I get to the transition from the g to the b string and then I sometimes fumble. I’m realizing I’m less solid there because that’s where my fingering system becomes slightly less efficient. I’m coming up with new fingerings that are much stronger
When you’re trying to sequence third’s diatonically up on the higher strings do you stick to 3nps or do you drop a note on the g or b string to make the pattern in one position? I’m coming up with pretty good solutions to keep it 3nps, but this is the first time I’ve noticed the more conventional “one position” scale layout having an advantage
For the thirds patterns, it depends on the speed and texture I’m going for. At a “normal fast” I stick to 3nps and I maintain a cycle direction, but I may switch between (1 2 3) and (1 2 4) combinations if I feel it’s appropriate.
For example in the following shape, I may use (1 2 4) combinations for the entire pattern, or switch between (1 2 4) and (1 2 3) where indicated:
The fretting combination (1 2 4) for whole-half is unusual, but it is highly efficient and is very useful in certain situations and for certain scale shapes
If I’m trying to play woopledybloop nonsense fast I’ll stick to 3nps, ensure the same digital pattern throughout and include a unision between the G and B or a chromatic note if necessary. At those speeds the individual notes don’t really matter so much, and these compromises can be necessary to maintain the efficiency of the fretting cycle. See here:
That first of the two fingering felt incredibly silly… until it didn’t! (That 3-2 move to play d to f# is not something I’ve done but I like it now)
I’ve spent most of my afternoon writing out all my favorite four note chords and their four inversions as arpeggios alternating — 2 notes on a string then 1 then 2 then 1 then 2 then 1 — because they work absolutely perfectly with this concept of “fastest most efficient.” Is that something you’ve noticed and explored at all?
I’m seeing now that “212 Arpeggio Shapes” is actually a common topic along guitarists. I’ve used these shapes by chance when they were the obvious fingerings but I’ve never been so systematic about using them before. I’ve been figuring out all the inversions and avoiding 143 fingerings and it’s feeling really good
It’s quite an unusual move, but it’s very effective and valuable in many contexts.
I’m familiar with the concept of 212 arpeggios and I have a few shapes and inversions under my fingers. Tim Miller has an ebook on the topic, which I’ve bought but not studied in great depth. From a cursory review, it seems some shapes are immediately amenable to the EDC principle and others are not.
This feels ok to me in an angled fretting posture at “normal fast” speeds, but I don’t like it at all in a parallel posture.
It doesn’t really feel “bad” in parallel posture, on the fatigue/strain from (3 4) combinations doesn’t set in after two isolated reps of the cycle, but I can definitely feel that I wouldn’t want to play that fingering sequence at my fastest possible speed many times in a practice session.
Yeah for sure, i use that fingering because it makes use of the nearest unoccupied fingers. Descending i use a similar pattern to the first one you wrote - or the unison fingering.
Btw, have you every tried played these intervallic sequence patterns with string skipping? They end up sounding pretty cool
Yes, I have. I’ve also practiced with diminished and augmented shapes, moving the shape symmetrically across the neck, moving chomatically, etc. You can get a lot of mileage from these basic coordinations.
This was really great, thanks for sharing this. I do have a question regarding transitioning digital between the two digital cycles:
When going from ‘reverse’ to ‘forward’ digital cycle, it feels efficient to play 4-2-1-2-4 however the transition wouldn’t fall under a ‘slide’ or ‘reveal’…nor does it have the 3-4 combination.
Would you consider this an efficient transition…at least as efficient as 1-2-4-2-1?
It’s not a major problem if the 2nd finger frets the same string at the same fret in both instances. However, it is not maximally efficient, as the 2nd finger has to fret, lift and fret again with only one note duration.
No, not as efficient.
It might not be much of an issue at a normal fast speed, but as you push further 4-2-1-2-4 will be the limiting subsequence in a sequence otherwise built from EDCs and the efficient turnarounds.
Thanks for that. I have other thoughts - for whatever it’s worth.
One of the benefits I’ve found through this EDC system (perhaps unintended) is new melodic sequences at ‘medium fast’ speeds (i.e. dialing in triplets between 16ths against a constant tempo). I think there are wider musical applications here outside of the ‘fast-efficient’ application.
A challenge I have is traversing diatonic scales across the g-b string (using exclusive EDC’s)…it trips me up (unless adding chromatics like the common b9 or #4)…I’d like to see others solutions. The 2nd/3rd finger on ‘same fret, adjacent string’ is really neat…I don’t think I would pull it off past the 10th fret…but lower is something I’ve never done but feels good with the wider fret spacing.
Another benefit I’m finding is the 3nps ‘shred clichés’ (as known on the forum) have new life when sandwiched between some of the less common patterns found in the EDC’s examples. I love the ‘clichés’…but shy away from them after playing though a number of songs because of the repetition…now they have more uses.
Having a number of picking motions (or solutions) is close to a ‘must’ for really taking full advantage of the EDC’s at top speed. My economy picking is very hit and miss (pardon the pun)…I probably would have been scared off of this concept prior to having at least a helper motion in addition to a primary motion.
) BUT Paul Gilbert was not as fast as Shawn Lane’s top speeds.