I've seen comments on some of Pebber's YouTube videos regarding the "classical left hand" vs the normal "rock" style of holding the left hand at an angle. Some have commented that it's not possible to play the standard "rock/blues licks" with the classical form.

So, I made this short video today to show that it can be done.

That's a very cool video. Watching your fingers when you're using classical form, at times I could barely see them move. So even if someone isn't interested in playing fast there is the obvious benefit of less movement equals less stress on your hands overall. Logically it seems like you're less likely to poorly fret a note or hit a wrong note altogether as well. Very eye opening.

Well I was lucky enough to find out about Pebber Brown pretty early on and start using classical form from the very beginning, so to me it's actually the easier and more natural one to use, even for the bluesy & jazz stuff. Which is pretty cool. Although I was always impressed by guys like Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, and of course my personal favorite - Buckethead - and the way they switch between the two when appropriate instead of specializing in just one.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll do some more short videos when I can showing more of these Pebber techniques in action and applied.

I don't remember ever seeing Buckethead switch back and forth? Pebber may be able to better answer that. I have seen video of Randy Rhoads switching.

But my point is that anything that can be played with the "rock" style fretboard hand can also easily be played with the classical style. I don't really see a need to switch back and forth.

There are situations to change fingering. I will explain later hopefully. Such as doubling up fingers on a fret to play groups of 5 or other such things. But the position of the hand does not change. Fingers still parallel to the strings instead of tilted at an angle. For instance, look at the 2nd position minor shape which has an odd fingering for the B string notes. But, this has to do with the arpeggio. Pebber may have to correct me on that.

For now, I just don't see any "good" reason to tilt the hand.

Cool video Ursin. This is great addition to Pebber's videos on left hand for guys who still don't get it. Some people need to get in a "monkey see, monkey do" state to understand some things. And yet, some of my guitar buddies still have big dilemmas about proper thumb position, wrist movement and finger placement in general. I remember Pebber had great videos on proper thumb position and on correcting the "straight pinky syndrome"(which actually helped me to correct the bad habit for some licks back in a day), but people seem to have problem to understand classical fretting form as it should be used properly.

I have a classical guitar player as a friend and he always had his thumb at the same spot behind the neck, with no vertical sliding with thumb up and down, just horizontal left or right in positional shift, and he curled all of his fingers while fretting all right, and his wrist almost did zero job, all finger climbing up and down action. I copied that style as much as my hand shape allowed me for situations not so characteristic for classical style of playing.

I think this classical fretting technique is not for everyone. Not for lazy guys, not for wimps, not for true followers of some genre that is advocating something different. I really can't picture in my head a guy who play punk and use this technique, it would be very weird to watch... it wouldn't be punk anymore. But also, I can't imagine classical, or modern fusion guy who don't use this technique... but also, what is cool for somebody, it's not cool for somebody else. And for me, and I believe for most guys on this forum, the classical fretting form should be the coolest to use.

Rock fretting form has some charm to it for some people since it probably communicates some raw approach to it, or something like that, that people tend to interpret as being sincere in guitar playing. Even great Steve Vai admits he use thumb behind the neck only when he needs a bigger stretch. Even the greatest John Mclaughlin use "visual thumb" and finger pivoting/wrist curling technique even where not needed in other people's choice in similar situations, but that's his charm.

I think the answer or whatever ratinalisation for the "good" reason for titling fretting hand could be in what most people could find as cool while starting with guitar, who learn mostly by imitation, by watching other "cool" players. And now I try to think, what rock player didn't use rock form in general and switch just for bigger stretch?

Thank god we all have Pebber and his students(including you Ursin, of course) to learn, to imitate the right approach.

Again, very cool video.

p.s.

Do you ever use finger rolling technique for groups of 5 scale sequences?

Thanks Debilius. Yes, part of my job as mod is to help break things down into more simple terms if need be. Pebber just doesn't have time to do that. Pebber doesn't have time to answer the "I still don't get this" questions so I try and pick them up and Frakh helps out too when he can. I also don't have time to answer every single question so we all kind of help out where we can. Pebber does check the forums daily and jumps in when he feels he needs to.

The purpose of this forum is to help people who wish to follow Pebber's concepts. So, it's a further aid to the videos on YouTube and the DVDs.

As you said, the classical form isn't for everyone and I agree. I think it is the better, more economical way...for me anyway, but definitely not the only way. And I would advise anyone to investigate whatever techniques they felt the need to investigate and practice.

My video was to present, in 10minutes (not very long...not nearly even close to long enough) that the standard rock vocabulary of licks can be played with the classical form. Some think that they cannot. Pebber gets these sorts of comments all the time on his YouTube videos and, it's just not the case. So, that's why I posted that very short clip. I hope to expound further...there is so much...but, I believe I, at the very least, started to help build the case.

And, of course there are many more examples floating around on the internet.

Now, to your very good question...

Quote: Debilius wrote in post #6

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Do you ever use finger rolling technique for groups of 5 scale sequences?

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