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Finger placement for guitar solos


Rumrunner24

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I having trouble figuring out an easy way to play them.(duh right ?) I mean I dont know where my fingers are suppose to go.How do you decide the correct way to place your fingers and which one to use for certain notes ? You know when you play those solos that are close to the body of the guitar.I dont know when to use my middle,index or whatever and my pinky finger is terrible for that.I think Im picking up a bad habit of using my index and middle finger the most because I keep missing with my ring and pinky.

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Rumrunner,

  One of the first things to do is crank up the dynamic difficulty to 100%.  On of the major drawbacks of DD is it causes you to learn the song one way and then it adds notes that can't be played without you completely changing how you play.  I have found many solos are in a 4 to 6 fret wide space.  I usually center my hand in that space.  For scale type solos, I try to keep it one finger per fret.  With arpegios, you can often find a chord.  I go ahead and finger the entire cord and add/remove fingers as necessary.

 

  I usually kick the speed of the Riff Repeater down to 80% to give me more time to get my fingers to the note.  If I find a solo difficult I pull out my post it notes and write down the notes to practice off line.

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You're not the only one.  I'd say do what's comfortable, but your 3rd and 4th fingers will get better with use.  You've got to build up your strength and accuracy in those fingers that get little use during your regular day.  If you think about it, the only time you use those digits is to support what the other two fingers are doing (or scratching body parts), so it's common to want to use your first two fingers to do everything.  Keep sucking it up with the pinky and ring finger and they'll get better, little by little.

 

I also agree with Andrake above.  Seeing all the notes in the solo gives you the understanding of why your hand placement is where it is and let's you see how the notes all go together rather than seeming disjointed and all over the place.

 

Good luck.

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An easy way to practice is to use Session Mode.

 

Set up a session and have a little jam.  The notes you can play are on screen and it's set up so that it's basically how you should be playing it.  Use your index finger for all the lowest fretted notes and a combination of your other fingers for the rest, going with whatever you feel comfortable with.

 

There is a "correct" way to play, and if you learn from 8 years old at school with a proper teacher then this is what you will learn, but let's face it most people playing Rocksmith are not classically trained...  Go with what feels comfortable to you.

 

I tend to use index and ring the most, as most scales (solos) are centered around 2 fret differences, and when you do bends try to use the ring finger but backed up (share the string tension) with you middle finger.  Your ring finger frets the note, but your middle finger is helping it out by taking some of the strain.

 

And, yes, it's all practice practice practice :D

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If you use DD and start with only your index finger, or any one finger in particular, of course you'll have to start changing the way you play as more notes appear.  You aren't using the right root finger, or rooting your hand on the right note.

 

But for official songs, and well done customs, the game will tell you where to put your fingers.  Look at which "lane" the notes are on, and use the corresponding finger.  So if there's a note on the 17th fret of the B string and it's in the third lane, use your ring finger.  If the next note is in the 4th lane, use your pinkie, etc, etc.

 

So...

 

Lane 1 = Index finger

Lane 2 = Middle finger

Lane 3 = Ring finger

Lane 4 = Pinkie finger

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Typically I turn DD all the way up if it's on the song, and then slow the track down REALLY low. I use the accelerator with no error tolerance and play the solo until I have it back up to 100% speed. This gives me a lot of time during the slower repetitions to focus on finger placement and technique, which smooths out a lot of the bumps I'd encounter trying to play right off the bat at a higher speed.

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An easy way to practice is to use Session Mode.

 

Set up a session and have a little jam.  The notes you can play are on screen and it's set up so that it's basically how you should be playing it.  Use your index finger for all the lowest fretted notes and a combination of your other fingers for the rest, going with whatever you feel comfortable with.

 

There is a "correct" way to play, and if you learn from 8 years old at school with a proper teacher then this is what you will learn, but let's face it most people playing Rocksmith are not classically trained...  Go with what feels comfortable to you.

 

I tend to use index and ring the most, as most scales (solos) are centered around 2 fret differences, and when you do bends try to use the ring finger but backed up (share the string tension) with you middle finger.  Your ring finger frets the note, but your middle finger is helping it out by taking some of the strain.

 

And, yes, it's all practice practice practice :D

 

Pretty much.Every thing I've learn about guitar,I've taught myself from Rs,youtube and guitar pro tabs.It's funny that you guys say turn up the dd to 100% because thats the first thing I do and I thought that was bad.I just dont have the patience to play so slow.It's like trying to play Rockband on easy.I think it's harder with less notes because it screws up my rythm and kinda confuses me because I like to play by ear.Thank guys.If anyone else has input I would love to learn some things from you guys.Is there a section of the forums that has "bad habits" that noobs commonly pick up ?

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I raised this subject in the EOF thread, and there is no way to make RS show what single finger to use.

We came to the conclusion that the only finger that can be determined is the index finger on the first fret of the Fret Hand Position.

 

However charters often use the automate procedure to set Fret Hand Position.

That may be right quite often, but it can't always anticipate of what notes are coming next.

I saw that it often makes you change your hand position when it's not necessary.

 

I'm unable to play many solo's (try the Hard to See solo!), when I chart I test in little blocks to check for right notes.

But I don't care much about finger position, because I don't play them entirely. 

 

If you feel that a Fret hand Position is not adequate, say so in the song thread. 

It's not a big deal to change them, if you localize the bad position (ex. sector 12, middle, note 22)

 

We don't deliver perfect finished products, but they get better by the help of players.

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I just use a finger for each fret across 4 frets and if the box stretches across 6 frets I use an Index Shift (stretching your index finger to reach the lower notes) and a Pinky Shift (stretching your pinky finger to reach the higher notes) to hit the notes outside the 4 frets.

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