How much time do you spend above the 12th fret?

[WrapRough]

Lately I've been trying to give some love to the dusty end of the neck. It's giving me nosebleeds it's so damn high...

I've never given it any love but now I'm trying to solo a bit more to work on improvisation, it's becoming apparent I need to really work on playing up there. It's all just so damn fiddly.

So what say you good people? How dusty is your dusty bit? Do you enjoy it up there or strictly low end?

 

[bholder]

Playing cover tunes with others, hardly ever. Playing my own inventions solo, I'm up there all the time. YMMV.

 

[Lenny JG]

I use the 2nd half of the board way more often than any of my bandmates would care for me to.

 

[5StringPocket]

I spend most of my time below the 12th fret and typically just go up there during transitions and accents. Soloing is not my forte or passion but it's still important to be able to navigate the upper frets. How you play the strings there requires a different touch and like everything else improves with practice.

 

[WrapRough]

I spend most of my time below the 12th fret and typically just go up there during transitions and accents. Soloing is not my forte or passion but it's still important to be able to navigate the upper frets. How you play the strings there requires a different touch and like everything else improves with practice.

Yeah man, I'm finding I need to be much lighter or it rattles like hell

 

[MynameisMe]

Every couple of years I venture up there.

 

[JRA]

Do you enjoy it up there or strictly low end?

i've got an intermittently bum L shoulder so i enjoy being 'within reach' --- the higher stuff is often more comfortable! but TBH: it depends on the gig, the tune, the set/setting. sometimes i like playing in the nose-bleed section for the sheer thrill of it. i tend to favor my two-octave axes for those forays, too. most of my fun gigs are with an instrumental jazz/rock/funk band so i can take a lot of liberties on those.

 

[BrotherMister]

It's not particularly dusty. In terms of playing music the majority of it is down the business end of the neck unless it's called for on a part or there is a very good musical reason to step into other peoples ranges. But practising I'm always working on covering the full range of the neck in all keys.

 

[thabassmon]

Probably as much time as I spend below the 12th fret. I don't look at any particular part of the fretboard as a barrier, I look at the instrument as a whole with continual pitch and timbre options, what I choose to play is dependent on what other players I'm playing with are playing or whatever I need to do to realize a musical idea.

There is one area of the board I don't visit that often, and that's the 19th-24th of the E string, and the very top of the A. I do play there on occasion (for the timbre) but I tend to play those pitches on the other strings.

I should note that my main instrument is a 6 tuned E to F, so the range is naturally shifted higher anyway, E1 - F5, as opposed to a standard 4 E1 - E4.

 

[Epitaph04]

No more than 4 minutes a day.

 

[Nev375]

Apparently I spend too much time just below the 12th fret on my D&G strings. Got a bit of buzz happening right around there. Time for a fret levelling.

But yeah, I've been known to go up there past 12 now and again.

 

[Wasnex]

Lately I've been trying to give some love to the dusty end of the neck. It's giving me nosebleeds it's so damn high...

I've never given it any love but now I'm trying to solo a bit more to work on improvisation, it's becoming apparent I need to really work on playing up there. It's all just so damn fiddly.

So what say you good people? How dusty is your dusty bit? Do you enjoy it up there or strictly low end?

I play a 6-string and play up around the 12th fret fairly often. Generally I don't play much past about the 15th fret.

Somewhere around the 12th fret I find it's necessary to modify my technique. The thumb starts rotating under the neck and access to the lower strings with the 4th finger becomes progressively more difficult. This means different patterns for fingering and shifting become necessary to play effectively in this range of the neck.

For context, I practice soloing over changes in the Real Book quite a bit.

 

[Wasnex]

Time for a fret levelling.

Or, time for a spring truss rod adjustment.

 

[Ostie]

Basses have more than 12 frets? Huh.....

 

[Jazz Ad]

Way more than most. I love playing in the highest range, mostly for fills and arpeggios.

 

[CElton]

There’s no money up there...

 

[micguy]

My right hand is always past the 12th fret.

The left hand goes there a few times a year at gigs. But not much further. Many of my gigs have 4 guitars (2 acoustic, 2 electric) and keys - it gets pretty crowded up there, I like having my own spectrum to play with; I stay down there most of the time.

Realistically, frets 16 through 22 are there for the strings to bounce off of when I want clink and clank. Plus, if you made the neck shorter, the body would be bigger and heavier. A long neck thus saves weight, which I like.

 

[SLPimp]

Mostly play in country bands (I'm a punk trapped in the Southwest), so not at all, really. I barely.play past the 10th, where I prefer to play high G on the A string.

 

[Nev375]

Or, time for a spring truss rod adjustment.

Nope. The neck is graphite. Not affected by seasons and haven't had to even retune it in months.

 

[brianrost]

Very seldom. Most of my gig repertoire doesn't require going up there.

I go up there for the A chord in "Knock On Wood".

Sometimes on blues songs I'll just pound roots on the E string so in keys like F, G or even A I might slide up above the 12th fret.