1st finger stretch vs. pinky for lower neighbor

[Steven Moore]

I’ve been playing with the David Baker “How To Play Bebop” patterns. I noticed you said when you have a chord tone with the first finger, and you want to play the lower neighbor (chromatic) and back again that you prefer to do it as “1st finger – 4th finger stretch – 1st finger” as opposed to “1st finger – slide down with 1st finger – slide back up with 1st finger.”

I’ve tried both methods and I always feel the 2nd version (sliding with 1st finger) always sounds smoother and more natural sounding to me.

How do you feel about that?

[Richie]

It’s all relative as to what sound you want to achieve. There is a difference between sliding in on the same string (legato) and playing without the slide (staccato). What happens if you are playing at a fast tempo in that position? Here the stretch would come in handy, especially if you need to continue up the fretboard. Please check out my reply and example in the following post:

Alternative Fingering for Chromatic approach

This topic comes up very frequently and what I always advice is not to be afraid to develop the habit of stretching occasionally. I understand that is much more comfortable and natural to do it the way you always have, but to acquire an added level of technique we have to be willing to move out of our comfort zone temporarily. Eventually the pinky stretch becomes very natural. 🙂

[Author]

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