Feel like I've asked this before, but what's the best way to get comfortable with 5th tuning when you have a long history of playing in 4ths?
Start transposing material you already know to the new tuning. This way you will learn how the common phrases that you've learned in fourths work now in fifths. Furthermore, you'll have additional motivation to stay in the new tuning, rather than change between them every now and then.
If you need help with finding the best fingerings for your material, I would be delighted assist you (and everyone else interested, of course)!
Also, I have another question about fingering. For a natural major scale, I've been doing Index on the root, Middle on the M2, Ring on the M3, Pinky on the P4, Index on the P5 (string above the root, same fret), Middle on the M6, Ring on the M7, and Pinky on the Octave. When I've played some simple melodies that fall within the major scale, I'm following these fingerings even if I'm skipping notes and strings.
I'm curious if you guys think this will help build a good foundation, or bad habits?
Well, I'll answer from my own experience of playing in this tuning exclusively for the last 7 years. Do take everything with a grain of salt, since what works for me shouldn't work for everyone, but I believe it's a good start.
My primary goal when working fingerings in Fifths Tuning (or any tuning in general) is to play the material in the easiest and the nicest-sounding way possible. That means a few things:
- I try to avoid awkward stretches on my fretting hand. This leads me to usually use the 1st, 2nd and 4th finger on the upper (more bass) region of the fretboard and to introduce the 3rd finger around the 7th fret.
- I try to avoid shifting vertically frequently. The way I see it, my fretting hand has easy access on five (half-step) notes per string, without the need to shift. Only when I need to reach a note out of that region do I shift. E.g. I'm fretting a note with my 1st finger and want to reach its octave on the next string.
- If I have to shift, I make sure that I shift to a position that avoids further shifting later. Sometimes, you may need to look even more ahead into the material, since a shift that looked convenient at the time may create a very inconvenient leap to the next series of notes, so make sure you have a linearity in your shifts, if that makes sense.
- Last but not least, make sure that everything you play sounds the best it could on your instrument. This means that, sometimes, a passage that you currently play on the A (1st) string may sound better in the D (2nd) string. That may often enough go against to what you had found to be the easiest position to play that passage, but we shouldn't forget what our primary goal is: To create music that sounds great to our ears.
Now, to answer specifically to your question; the whole 1 finger per scale note thing looks rather cumbersome to me, since it forces me to not only stretch my fingers when playing, but it also hinders me from trying other positions that may be easier to for passages that I want to play. So it does look like a bad habit to me, and ultimately one that will drive you away from the tuning as you find it too inconvenient.
Practicing scales, other than helping you "see" the scale notes on the fretboard, does not seem to serve a greater purpose, since they're phrases that you'll rarely use in a song (when walking them up to the octave and then down, that is). However, since you're just starting, I do have some scale examples in a video I reposted just a few days ago. Watch it if you'd like to see my fingering approaches on certain material.
I really hope you've found my answer useful. As a reminder, if you need some more hands-on work on finding fingerings for material you want to play, do ask. In the end, it's that material that'll make you switch and stay to the new tuning.
Cheers!
