I've noticed that different players hold the stick in very different ways - Bob has his quite high, so that the nut is about the level of his forehead. Greg seems to play so the nut is about at the level of his mouth..

The level held makes quite a difference to the way you hold the left hand, and the chord shapes that you can naturally then form-

My first instinct when sat down is to have it at the height Bob does, but I'd appreciate some advice about this while I'm still fresh to the stick!

Cheers-

John

Hi John, I try to keep the first inlay marker at about shoulder height. This makes for easy access to all the common left hand chords at any fret position up to about the10th fret without any wrist-bending issues.

For more on the ergonomics of this, I'd encourage you to check out this video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TZi0qKzKCM[/youtube]

Bob like to play higher up on the board (closer to the bridge) with his left hand so he wears the instrument up higher. I tend to spend a lot of time near the nut (love the sound of those long scale bass strings) so I don't like to have my instrument up that high.

An equally important element for chords is the angle of the board. If you want to be able to sustain notes in a wide variety of chord shapes comfortably, having the instrument in a more vertical position is desirable.

I like to wear a 2nd belt and have the belthook set to the 2nd highest position, but everyone's body is different so place it how it feel most comfortable to you.

That's exactly the video I was looking at to try to work this out - I'm going to have to spend some time working this out - I need to make sure the ergonomics of this are working out - I could do with a lesson - I'll email you to try and sort this -

Cheers

John