Question for small handed players: Key of A Gold Rush

[stringalong]

If you have small hands, which finger do you use in the fiddle tune Gold Rush for the 6th fret on the G and D strings?

I think that to play the A scale in the lower octave,the 3rd finger is used on the 6th fret, but I find it really difficult to navigate to 3rd finger on Phrases 3 and 4 (Part A) in Gold Rush, and wonder if I should be using my 4th finger on the 6th fret?????

Anyone got any experience with this tune in A, if you have small hands?

[Bill McCall]

I don't use the G string at all for the melody, nor do I use the G# on the D string, so I don't understand what notes you are playing.

[Mandobar]

Are you playing the Flinner version from his Bluegrass Fakebook?

[stringalong]

Thank you both for your responses. I have not seen the Flinner version. I will look at the library to see if they have it. Attached is the notation I came up with, listening to several versions on YouTube. I found the 3rd and 4th phrases in each version different, and all vague and slidey on the fiddle, so this is my version, which I believe fits with the harmony chords. If you two or anyone has a better way to play Part A, phrases 3 and 4, please DO let me know!

[stringalong]

Dear Mandobar, which of these Flinner books are you referring to that has Gold Rush in it? : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...%2Ck%3Aflinner

I can't find a Bluegrass Fakebook by Flinner.

[Bill McCall]

At www.taborgrass.com there is music section which has the version I referred to earlier, plus several other fiddle tunes.

[sblock]

I have really, really small hands for a man. I buy size "small" ski gloves, for example, and they are usually too large -- I often have to settle for children's sizes. Yup, that small. If I turn my left hand palm-side up and stretch out the thumb to the left and the pinkie to the right, the distance between my two fully extended fingertips is scarcely 6.5" (in fact, just a bit under). That's WAY shorter than most of the adult players here on the MC. It's even shorter than some of the school-age children.

I play Gold Rush in A, like most of us. My version is played in two different octaves, and the one in the lower octave uses the G and D strings, including frets 2, 4, and 6 of the G-string. To answer your question: I use my THIRD FINGER to get the 6th fret (C# note). And that is what you are supposed to use. The 7th fret (D note) on the G string might use the pinkie, but not the 6th fret.

It took me a couple of years of practice to get the stretches to work at full speed, but they do! In fact, after a few years of playing (right-handed), I find that I can stretch out my left hand fingers out at least 1-2 cm farther than my right.

Other hard stretches that I can now easily do -- but had to work hard to manage! -- include playing the 4-finger bluegrass G-chord (7523) and reaching the 7th fret (B note) on the high E string with my pinkie, while still keeping my hand in root position (or while fingering the 2nd fret, F#, on the same string). Hard, but not impossible.

Impossible for me is getting to the 8th fret out of the root (first) position. Tunes like "EMD" (Grisman) need you to do this. I simply can't, and I realize by now that I never will, so I use a workaround.

[stringalong]

Thank you Bill McCall and sblock. I printed out the version Bill sent from Taborgrass. I'll see what I can do with it. That's encouraging that you have managed so well with your small hands, sblock! Thanks for the complete story about your practicing and finger positions.

[stringalong]

Bill, honestly I don't care much for the taborgrass mandolin version of Gold Rush. I like my rendition/notation much better, as it conforms much more closely to the fiddle tune versions I found on YouTube. I will look for the Flinner version and see if I like that.

[dadsaster]

I don't have small hands but I have a small pinkie finger. I've found that positioning my fretting hand so that the neck is at the same angle as the slope of my 3rd and 4th finger maximizes my reach.

[stringalong]

Dear dadaster, thanks for the diagram and instructions -- that should be very useful for me indeed! Gratitude to you!

[Tobin]

I have small hands too, and I usually use my pinky for all 6th fret work.

[stringalong]

Thanks, Tobin. The Mandolin Cafe is such a great forum! Really appreciate it that you have let me know you use your pinky for 6th fret. A couple of hours ago I tried dadaster's neck angle and that seems like a good idea. I'll see which way I like best, his or yours.

[Mandobar]

It's the Bluegrass Real Book. The version in there is in A. It starts on an open E string (on the E string) There are some runs in his version that require some stretches, on the B part as you move into the lower registers.

If your arrangement is like this then I would use your third (ring) finger on middle G#, and on the lower C#. Use your 2nd finger for F# on the D string.

YMMV

Dear Mandobar, which of these Flinner books are you referring to that has Gold Rush in it? : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...%2Ck%3Aflinner

I can't find a Bluegrass Fakebook by Flinner.

[stringalong]

Thank you, Mandoba. Thanks for the title. The Library was able to find the title for me, and I have requested an Interlibrary loan of Bluegrass Real Book. Your description of the version of Gold Rush in there sounds intriguing. To everyone else who's written so far on this thread/subject, it's wonderful to see the varieties of solutions that people have in using their left hand. As a decades-long pianist (formerly), I know that there is no single fingering for all the notes in the piano scale! There are some basic fingerings for scales and chords, but they can certainly vary on the piano depending on the way they are used in a piece. The same can surely be true for the mandolin, that we can have fingering variation.

[mandomurph]

Let me see if I can describe a little exercise I learned from a professional mandolinist to stretch the span of your left hand:

Hold up your left hand with the palm facing you. Now spread the fingers of your left hand, fingers pointed up. Close the middle 3 fingers of your right hand, touch them together and place them horizontally between the gaps of your left hand and gently press down towards the palm of the left hand until you feel a stretch. Do this several times between the gaps of the index through pinkie fingers before you play. I've been doing this regularly and my left hand span is a full inch wider than the right hand.

[stringalong]

If I understand and am doing this exercise correctly, I feel a stretch across the tops of the knuckles and metacarpals or tendons of my three middle fingers. I'll probably skip this one unless someone can personally show it to me.

Let me see if I can describe a little exercise I learned from a professional mandolinist to stretch the span of your left hand:

Hold up your left hand with the palm facing you. Now spread the fingers of your left hand, fingers pointed up. Close the middle 3 fingers of your right hand, touch them together and place them horizontally between the gaps of your left hand and gently press down towards the palm of the left hand until you feel a stretch. Do this several times between the gaps of the index through pinkie fingers before you play. I've been doing this regularly and my left hand span is a full inch wider than the right hand.

[JeffD]

I thought I had small hands, but I guess not. I played your transcription with third finger without having much of a stretch.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with using the pinky for those notes, but I wonder if that accommodation is working around some more problematic issue. I might suggest watching the different videos by Mike Marshall and Peter Martin on the left hand and see if there might not be an "aha" moment for you.

I printed your transcription out and have been playing it. I like it.

[mandomurph]

If I understand and am doing this exercise correctly, I feel a stretch across the tops of the knuckles and metacarpals or tendons of my three middle fingers. I'll probably skip this one unless someone can personally show it to me.

Maybe try this with just the width of two fingers on the right hand at first. This should allow the stretching to occur below the knuckles of the left hand.

[ralph johansson]

I think of this tune as played in the area from the 2nd to the 7th fret, playing some of the a notes, especially the last one and the first one in bar 5, on the d course, not open. That will put my left hand (it's small) in a position where the g# (fretted with the 3rd finger) presents no problem. At least, that's what I believe I'm doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede%27s_Dilemma