which fingers when?

[cementslippers]

I'm not sure which fingers are used when. As on what string they should be when making chords, when you should switch fingers moving down the frets etc.

[Bluice]

Most of the time,finger position will fall naturally because your hand will only bend so far.When playing chords,the previous chord and the one that follows will dictate which fingers to use where. Thats why when I learn a new progression,I work slowly and try alternate fingerings to find the combination that feels correct to me then increase speed. On licks and runs, I look for the notes that will require a hand movement on the fret board and generally that note will be played by my index finger. Technique is fluid, not etched in stone, and will vary from player to player. You just have to practice slowly. Your hand will tell you where it needs to be based on whats before and what follows.

[StoneDragon]

within the lessons, I include a suggested fingering with the chords (see lesson 1 - music (http://www.zentao.com/guitar/lesson1/music.html)). The numbers underneath each diagram are telling you which fingers to use on each note. You can also buy just about any chord book and you will find the most commonly accepted fingerings for each chord. That is a good place to start... those fingerings have stood both the test of time and the test of playing for decades.

When it comes to the songs in each lesson, it's like Bluice says. You have to work it out for yourself... slowly!

For the single note stuff... when you're working up and down the strings, experiment with different fingering combinations. Find out how much you can play with one finger... two fingers... just your pinky... all four fingers etc... then check out the info in lesson 4 - left hand technique (http://www.zentao.com/guitar/lesson4/left-hand.html) for how position playing works.

Position playing comes into play when you need more speed and fluidity than you can get while moving your hand. The hand stays in place and the fingers do the work. If you need to do a fast scale run up or down a string, you will need to be able to see the run as a series of hand positions and which fingers are most practical in each position to play the notes.... then you work on smoothly shifting from each position to the next until you get the run to sound like one string of notes rather than a bunch of chopped-up positions.

When you start moving across the strings instead of up and down a single string, you pretty much have to have your positioning down or you'll end up spending way too much time moving your hand around instead of playing notes.