Fretting Hand Dexterity

The last guitar exercise that I showed you, was used to develop a stronger fretting hand, with more control and a more refined kind of precision.

This time we will focus on something that plagues all guitarists. The evil conflict between the pinkie and the ring fingers. This next exercise should help with loosening up the webbing between those two fingers. You can use this exercise as a model to construct other exercises, that serve this same purpose.

The key thing to remember is that the pinkie finger is the stationary finger. So, what that means, is that before you can play the next note, you must first check in with the pinkie.

This exercise is not easy at first. Go as slow as possible and focus on the coordination. You'll find right away that there is no rushing this one. In a future article (not that far off) I'll show you how this fits in with other patterns, and you'll have a little song to make your friends drool. We'll see if we can't make it along the lines of Jason Becker's tastes.

Watch the video below, and you will see exactly what I am talking about.





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Note: Remember! the pinkie is to be lifted each time you use another finger. Its all about the rocking motion. You'll still be using alternate picking for this exercise, but do not rush this. This type of alternate picking involves both the High E and the B strings, which means that you will have to go back and forth, between them.