Fingering / left hand

[blindbl]

Hi,

I have no problems fingering up and down multi-octave scales. My fingering problem is this: how do you finger
when moving from one string to the next on the same fret?

Example: moving on root notes from a G to a C on the 3rd fret of the E and A strings. Or, say, playing R-3-5-Octave triad
ie G-B-D-G (E string 3rd fret- A 2nd - A 5th - D 5th).
In this case, all the recommended fingerings I've seen say play both the D and the G with the pinky, and the general
consensus seems to be to jump from string to string with the same left hand finger. I've found this extremely
difficult to do without 'collapsing' the finger I'm using, and I end up in a very awkward position, pressing too hard.

On the other hand, switching fingers ends up putting the hand in a twisted kind of position and not set up to
access subsequent notes well.

Any suggestions? I am learning jazz, and oddly enough this feels like my biggest problem right now. It seems odd to
me that all the books I'm learning from give endless scale fingering patterns, but none of them address this technique. It's driving me crazy as it inhibits my walking, which otherwise is going very very well.

Thank you for any ideas.

- Brian

[blindbl]

Seriously, has no one out there encountered this problem .... ?

[bag_of_dirt]

I'm new to this and all, but isn't the collapsing thing just called a finger roll? I'm practicing it now, and sucking at it, but it's covered in one of my books.

edit, here's a thread: Noob 'finger roll' question

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding the issue.

[IvanMike]

I think a good deal of us just flatten the finger out sort of like a guitar player doing barre chords, but we mute the string we aren't playing. It's good to learn to jump to the next string entirely, but this also works. Going a string lower when using your little finger on say, the C at the 5th fret of the G string, a lot of times I fret the G at the 5th fret of the D string with my ring finger temporarily for the jump, and then the pinky takes over. May not be the best technique, (i am trying to improve my own technique), but that comes pretty natural to me. Having the finger not collapse when using the same one takes practice, but then again, so does everything else.

[mambo4]

I either barre the 2 strings or use one finger on each string, depending on the context. In the context of a R-3-5-Octave triad I usually use my pink to barre the 5 and 8ve. But if the line I am playing leads to even higher notes, I will usually shift position up 2 frets when going from the 3 to the 5.

[IvanMike]

i re-looked at the post and realized i misunderstood and thought you might be doing more complex things. In the case of the arpeggio you really want to learn to use the same finger on both strings.

try this exercise on two adjacent strings (the numbers are both the order of your fingers and the fret order as you should be playing one fret per finger. This gets you doing nothing but switching from string to string with the same finger.

-12--34-43--21-
1--23--4--32--1