In the previous post, you have learnt the Na system applied for all fourths tuning instruments. In, this post, I’m gonna show you show some tricks to further utilize the Na system. I you haven’t read part 1, please find it here.
Trick 1 – Going backward
The number sequence 7 3 6 2 5 1 4 is good for going forward. By going forward, I mean that you are going from lower notes to higher notes, from thicker strings to thinner strings. For going backward, we use this number sequence 4 1 5 2 6 3 7
The patterns in step 2 are similar, except, we’re going from higher right to left, or from higher note to lower note
Mapping numbers to patterns is similar in step 3. Note that the right column is kept the same, the left column is reversed. We will need to shift to the left 1 fret when the cycle repeats.
| 4 | half-whole |
| 1 | half-whole |
| 5 | whole-half |
| 2 | whole-half |
| 6 | whole-whole |
| 3 | whole-whole |
| 7 | whole-whole |
step 4 and step 5 are the same as going forward
Trick 2 – No whole-whole pattern
3 notes per string sometimes are difficult because you need to stretch your fingers. We can avoid playing the whole-whole pattern by doing the following. Notice how the patterns go with 2 half-whole, 2 whole-half, 3 whole-whole, the repeat. Instead of playing whole-whole, we can play just 2 notes, then go to the next string, go back 1 fret if you are going forward, or go up 1 fret if you are going backward and start from half-whole pattern again.
Example 1 – going forward
Example 2 – going backward
