Confusion in terms

[gbertram2]

Hi Ben and greetings from Australia.

I’m an intermediate player and have been a member for 18 months now so feel like I can complain (!) You use the terms “position” and “shape” rather confusingly. “Position” seems to me like it ought to refer to the location up or down the neck, while “Shape” should refer to the pattern of your fingers when pressed into a chord. You use the term “X” and “Y” for these shapes but I cannot see an x or a y in them. Other teachers (Ross Nickerson and Janet Davis) call them the “F shape” and “D shape” since that’s pretty much the first chords on the neck that these shapes make (then they get different names as they travel up the neck - hmmm very confusing)

Also, many books use X and Y to refer to the right hand positions that make the strings sound brighter or more mellow.

Anyway, this is all ancient history for me since I have gotten past the 5th fret a long time ago.

On a positive note - you are by far the best banjo teacher I have experienced and I have used a lot of books and paid for a lot of web-based instruction over the years. Keep up the great work.

Grahame

[rspillers]

At the Cabin Camps, Katy uses another name for the chord shapes that I like very much. She refers to them as chord shapes 1, 2, and 3. “F Shape” would be chord shape 1, “D Shape” would be chord shape 2, and “Barre Shape” would be chord shape 3. The logic in this naming system is that the root note of the chord for the “D Shape” is on the 1st string, the root note of the “F Shape” is on the 2nd string, and the root note of the “Barre Shape” is found on the 3rd string.

[xmark]

Hello there @gbertram2!

Just wanted to let you know I can sympathize with you on this chord shape stuff…it’s amazing how the same thing can be described in several different ways! Ben mentions the X and Y patterns in a couple of lessons videos (at about 3:30 on this one: https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/d-f-a-banjo-chords-banjo/video/lesson ).

The 1, 2 & 3 shape mentioned by @rspillers makes a little more sense to me, but to each his own! The first time I heard of this terminology was from Alan Munde, and I think there is a discussion of this at the beginning of the 2nd Fretboard Geography lessons in the intermediate section: (https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/fretboard-geography-part-2-banjo?from_track=intermediate-banjo-learning-track ).

I agree, Ben has a great website and is an outstanding teacher!

[Dragonslayer]

The X and Y names have nothing to do with appearance, and more the fact that those are the letters used to name nameless things.
I prefer to call them F and D shape, but if that confuses you once they aren’t that chord anymore, then I’d recommend using Katy’s naming method outlined by Ryan above.