When Do You 'Position Shift'?

[TSJMajesty]

Like, take a basic scale shape, I'll use that run up lick to the solo in Don't Stop Believin:

G: 13-14-16
B: 14-16-17
E: 14-16

As I worked that up to speed, I found getting off the G-16 with my pinky, and landing the B-14 sloppy at times. So I tried a shift instead, and now I use it regularly, with most any fast riff/run.

What I did was to shift my 1st finger from G-13 to 14, because it got my fingers exactly in place for the remaining notes. It ended up being cleaner.

So now, when I'm learning any riff that I know is going to be a challenge at tempo, I'll look for any position shifts that set my fingers right where they need to be for whatever follows, on the next string.

That way, I don't have to do all that work, only to find that as I creep up to the fast tempo, I end up with a trouble-spot, and I have to go back and re-learn it, using a shift.

Anybody else do this sort of thing?

 

[DrewJD82]

Absolutely, while I have a decent stretch past the 12th fret and can generally avoid changing positions if I’m just going between the E and B strings, once it spans 3 strings I’m most likely putting some thought into the change. One thing that definitely pulls me out of my comfort zone with stuff like this was learning some Mastodon tunes because some of those riffs you can’t change positions until you’re basically playing the notes you need to be in position for.

The intro to “Under The Bridge” is like that for me as well; for the hammer-on/pull-off part (end of bar 3) you’d normally reposition your hand to play it, but you have to keep all those notes previous to it ringing out, so you’re taking your fingers off the A and D strings at the last possible microsecond before moving them to the G and B strings while the pinky gets anchored to the D note on the A string, you’re fingers are juuuust making it onto the G and B as you’re picking the strings.

There’s a ton of Mastodon riffs that are like this, sometimes it feels like the pick and fingers are playing Twister.