gregjones

I wrote this in the Two Pointer Social Group but decided it's probably better off here--in the blog section. Just another of my two cents.....


For the most part, Ive been a first position player. Every now and then, when the fingering order fits, I might "escape" all the way up to the tenth fret.

Bluegrass Up The Neck by Niles Hokkanen has been highly recommended on the Cafe and his YouTube video is exactly what I strive to play-----so I ordered his book.

With the body joining the neck at the tenth fret I am sorta limited, the E string is 1/2 inch away from the body at the 12th and the fretboard gets further and further away. No problem. The small book is very hard to read with my old eyes so I copy the exercises and move them down a bit as I do.

It's working great!!!!! I'm moving up a notch or two towards the limits of the 10 fret/body joint.

It's nothing new. I've read Niles mention in response to "new techniques" that he covered that 25 years ago. It was old then. Same old notes---same old patterns.

There aren't that many notes to play around with. It's just a matter of how you arrange them that makes you great or me.

Teaching methods only vary in the way they "logically" present the arrangement of the few notes. I have quite a pile of books on the subject. I just had to find an author that has an approach on the subject that I could follow.

I finally found Niles.