First Position?

[JohnBarr]

What does the phrase "first position" mean?

First finger on the first fret?

Thanks,

John

[FreeSpirit]

First position is when you are playing you use the notes between frets 1-4. Maybee frets 5 if you don't like playing open strings.

[Pacman]

Depends on the literature. The position FreeSpirit describes is called "half position" for double bassists, and I call it that for electric as well. First position is one fret higher.

[CrazyArcher]

Positions have numbers according to the fretwhere the 1st finger is. This way, 1st position is as you told, JohnBarr.

[Richard Lindsey]

To me, 1st finger on 1st fret = 1st position, 1st finger on 3rd fret = 3rd position, and so on. This is possibly because I come from a classical guitar background, and that's how it's done there.