When sliding up to a note, is there a rule about which finger to use?
Tom from Oliver, BC in Canada asked, “When sliding up to a note, is there a firm rule about which finger to use? For example, if you are ending up on G (D3) and want to slide up from an F# (D2), would you always use your 3rd finger or would you sometimes use your 2nd finger?”
- There is no hard and fast rule with sliding.
- It’s situational. How you slide depends on what happens next.
- Slide with the finger you want to land on.
- So if you want to use the third finger when you land, then yes, slide with that.
- On the other hand, there may be situations in which it will feel and work better to D2 up to D3.
- Say you wanted to slide up and back, D2-3-2.
- What I love about fiddling is that it is an experimental art.
- This is baked into the idea of “fiddling around.”
- Try things in different ways.
- If you’re new to sliding, I recommend sliding into standard finger positions.
- So first finger slides into D1, second finger into D2, third into D3.
- Also, practice sliding with two-note intervals before doing it on tunes.
Further learning
This micro-lesson is an excerpt from an office hours webinar I gave on December 16, 2020. View the entire live-stream with indexed questions here.
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