How to make stable left hand - In-position & Stretch As professional guitarist, Sometimes we have to play music at sight. Pro guitarist can't keep looking left hand. So we need skill of sight reading, if you want to be session musician and studio recording musician. For sight reading, we need stable left hand action. Concept "In-position" gives us how to make stable left hand sense. I studied that Berklee collage of music when I was freshman. It's basic concept in Berklee collage. It's very useful technic. So please try it. I will explain In-position concept. Basic In-position idea is putting one finger on each one fret. Please look at picture. This is the right spacing. This picture shows us bad example of basic left hand position. Player doesn't know where he touch, where he plays. If your left hand is in unstable position, you can play still. But you need to look your left hand. In-position gives us stable positioning which does not depend on sight. Press edge of fret like this picture. I saw rock guitarist did this picture type of left hand fingering. This is not wrong. This is OK for me sometimes. This "rock position" gives us rude rock sound which is cool ! But does not fit to stable left hand concept. So please use both technic, but consider well before use. This pictures shows us how to play with In-position technic. Please start from index finger. Then next middle .... Once you press some fret, please keep pressing it. Add next finger like picture. That practice gives you stable left hand position. Also downing the melody phrase is like this picture. Just pressing fret one by one. If you want to develop good In-position technic, Just do upward melody phrase only is OK. You don't need to practice downing one. When we play scale like "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti DO", need to stretch technic. Because scale is not inside of In-position. There are two stretch way. This picture is basic In-Positioned left hand. One is stretching index finger. This is very useful than next idea. Another idea is stretching pinkie (little finger). Pinkie and ring finger moves from same muscle. So this stretch is very hard. I suggest index finger stretch more than this. Also thumb position is another thing you should know. Putting center of neck is reasonable popular technic. It works melody play and chord working both. Putting thumb on 6th string side of neck is popular too. But this positioning gives us friction or rub feeling. For smooth action, I recommend previous idea. But when we want bending sound, this position is useful. Easy to do string bending. So both position is important for all guitar player.