Guitar Fingerings

Guitar Fingerings - Right Hand Technique

First things first. If you want to learn to play guitar, start by learning the basic guitar fingerings and positions for your playing hand. Here are the suggested positions for right hand technique for fingerstyle playing. It may feel odd at first but these are the most efficient playing techniques. Once you develop some proficiency you can adapt your playing technique to whatever you like later on.

Three Fingers on High Strings

This technique uses the index, middle and ring finger on the G, B and E strings.




Two Fingers on High Strings

Sometimes called the "Claw" technique, this fingering position relies on only two fingers to play the treble strings.




Palm Muting Technique

This is an important guitar fingering technique to learn as it gives your playing a different percussive sound. Rest the fleshy part of your right hand palm over the strings just enough to mute the strings.

Try experimenting with all three of these different fingerings. The two finger style is great for upstrokes with the treble notes and the three fingering style allows for great access to melody notes.

Use an Anchor Finger

A useful technique is to use your pinky finger as an anchor and reference point.

It gives you a little more accuracy when you are attacking the strings either with your fingers or a pick.

The Composite Blues Scale

The Composite Blues Scale

Here is the Composite Blues scale in the Key of E broken down for you to see each of the seven unique patterns within the scale.

We chose E but could have easily used F or A as our scale. But the E blues scale uses the open fret notes to get it going and a good visual image to learn.

E Composite Blues Step Pattern

The numbers of the degrees in the scale referenced back to the major scale would be:
1, b3 (flatted 3rd), 3, 4, #4 (augmented 4th), 5, b7

Its good to start learning the numbers of the degrees in scales because you will find a lot of referencing back to the major scale of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

When you start seeing scales, like the composite blues scale with the modifications, you begin to get a quick picture in your mind of which intervals have been stretched or contracted.

How To Read The Scale Diagrams

A simple way to learn guitar notes is to break the scale down into manageable pieces. The dots represent the note locations in the scale. Red signifies the octaves or root note. Grey represents the fifth note and black represents the remaining notes in the scale.

The octave and fifth notes are important because of their stability and their use for resolution and turn around points.

Each scale diagram focusses on the starting note of the scale pattern and moves down the low E string one note at a time showing you each of the sequential positional patterns.

Position 1

This is the first position of the E composite blues scale. The dots above the string letters indicate to play the open strings - unfretted.

The note that make this blues scale differnt from the other one is the addition of the 3rd note - at the 4th fret.

Position 2

The second position gets interesting because now you see where the 3rd note fits in - and makes things a bit more complicated. It creates a run of half step notes. Also note the position of the fifth notes (grey).

Position 3

The third position shows the next interesting aspect to the composite blues scale. Here is a run of four half steps. A bit unusual but the reason for the signature blues sound.
Notice the notes are the same on the low E and high E strings and also how the fifth (grey) is always on the lower string (same fret) above the octave. Remember this.

Position 4

The fourth position starts at the fifth fret with one intersting four half step note combinations on the 4th (D) string.

Position 5

The fifth position starts at the sixth fret and covers a lot of frets. You aren't likely to actually play this stretch all at once until you really have your finger speed up.
It's easier to play the next postion. But the important part to learn here is the two fret jump (two whole steps) between the fifth (grey) and sixth notes. Remember this.

Position 6

As you can see, the sixth position is also a stretch but you will find it's a fairly comfortable position to move around in. Note the fifth and octave positions in relation to each other.

And just a hint for the future as you teach yourself these notes, this pattern is very similar to fourth position in the minor pentatonic scale. More on that later...

Position 7

At the seventh position everything gets tied back together and the composite aspect of the composite blues scale starts to make sense. This is a more advanced scale to learn.

And the minor pentatonic is really the first scale to learn because the blues scales just build on it. And if you are strong on the pentatonic scale you have a great foundation to build the rest of the "house of scales" on with the composite blues scale.

So there you have it. The Composite Blues Scale. Practice this scale any way you can and it will be extremely useful for you. Or try out the Easylead Guitar Note Map with Jam Tracks and Videos for instant fun!