Positions and Reading Sheet Music

[tessiert]

Hi everyone, my name’s Trace – I’m new to the site and really enjoying it! I’ve been playing for less than a year, but am obsessed. I’ve always wanted to learn to read music, have been working on the “Introduction to Standard Notation” course, and was hoping for some advice. Things have been going better than I expected, but when I got to the “Sharps on the E-string” lesson, there was a comment in the instructions that the exercises given are most easily played in 2nd position. Since all of my practice up to now has been in first position, I’d pretty comfortably memorized those note/finger combos, but shifting by a fret felt a bit like starting over. Does anyone have any advice on how to think about/practice in different positions (especially in the context of reading sheet music) in ways that will best capitalize on what I’ve already learned? Thanks very much for any help you can offer!

[Andrew]

Hi Trace! Thanks for the kind words and glad to hear you are enjoying the lessons 🙂

You can play those exercises out of position 1. It would actually be a good workout for the pinky finger. But it def is easier to use index and ring than middle and pinky, hence position 2.

Here’s my thoughts on playing in different positions:

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Wow, thanks Andrew! When I saw you had posted a video in your response my first thought was how lucky it was for me that you had already addressed this question – didn’t suspect you’d made a new video. This is just what I was hoping for – you rock!

[Andrew]

My pleasure! Glad it was helpful 🙂

[Author]

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