C6 bar position advice needed

[Jon Baumgartner]

Greetings friends. I have been attempting to learn the C6 neck the last few years. It's going okay, but something I struggle with is playing in tune up in the higher registers where the fret markers are so close together. When changing chord positions I simply can't see the next position I'm going to because my hands are large enough to cover it up before I attempt the move. I found that if I glance up to the E9th neck it will show me the position I want to get to but somehow it just feels really disjointed to do that. Any advice anyone can give about how to navigate accurately up there would be most appreciated. If it's totally navigate by ear I'm okay with that because my hearing and sense of pitch are quite well developed , but I just want to start out with the correct technique rather than trying to invent my own. Many thanks!

[Lane Gray]

I'd much rather trust my ear than my eye. The trick I've used for both necks is that the eye gets you close, and the ear keeps you in tune.
Eventually your fingers and wrist will get the hang of the "12th root of 2" that is the same as the frets, and you'll be in the right place.

[Richard Sinkler]

Unless my bar is being used on the first string, I can see a little of the fret line past my bar and that gets me into position. I do that on both necks.

[J D Sauser]

Greetings friends. I have been attempting to learn the C6 neck the last few years. It's going okay, but something I struggle with is playing in tune up in the higher registers where the fret markers are so close together. When changing chord positions I simply can't see the next position I'm going to because my hands are large enough to cover it up before I attempt the move. I found that if I glance up to the E9th neck it will show me the position I want to get to but somehow it just feels really disjointed to do that. Any advice anyone can give about how to navigate accurately up there would be most appreciated. If it's totally navigate by ear I'm okay with that because my hearing and sense of pitch are quite well developed , but I just want to start out with the correct technique rather than trying to invent my own. Many thanks!

You're looking to hard, Jon.
Listen instead... the frets are only APPROXIMATE guides. Based on his biography, Buddy Emmons learned playing in a dark basement.
You cold be EXACTLY over the fret with the tangent of your bar... and still be annoyingly out of tune.

You would also want to move your bar back and forth based on it's tip covering the highest string in play, often that will reveal fret markers in FRONT under you bar... but again... don't look to hard.

A thing about going "back" down wards in pitch (moving to the left with the bar)... watch videos of the Greats and you will see that many to fan open their left hand's fingers behind the bar before "pulling" back as the fingers close again. It's not so much to "get a glimpse" at the frets below but to accelerate faster and with more precision as, with time one gets a feel for the distances one will move.

... J-D.