my pinky is getting worse and worse!

[bball_1523]

Ok so since about sept/oct. I've been practicing pinky exercises to strengthen my pinky and now that it is almost the end of november I feel as if my pinky has gotten worse!!!

What happens is when I play between my middle and pinky fingers, with a passage such as 10-12 on the high e string, I just cannot play that smoothly, even at 60 bpm quarter notes! My pinky tenses way too much and eventually falls apart my muting the note or doing something stupid.

My pinky tends to get tense when I play between the middle/pinky more so than between ring/pinky and index/pinky. I have no clue what to do and this has been happening since the summer. Before the summer I was doing fine, but I decided to retrain my alternate picking and now my pinky has fallen apart. My pinky also likes to pull-off the frets so that affects everything as well.

This is terrible because I can't do jack on the guitar other than rhythm riffs and small solos that don't use the pinky. I can't sweep well because of this and I really like sweeping.

Here is a video of me playing at 40 bpm! I know my left arm looks awkward, but I get all tense if I try different positions.

http://media.putfile.com/Pinky-Problems

any suggestions?

[rottweilerv88]

I really do think a lot of your problems would go away if you learn to stretch your fingers more; play stretch exercises SLooowwwly and pay close attention to your fingers. The #1 thing to remember about playing with your pinkie is that none of your fingers should come off the neck more than maybe a centimeter or so - which makes sense.

That video of you playing: your middle/ring fingers come off the neck obnoxiously, which obviously implies that you aren't comfortable playing the things you're playing. Practice! and take it slow.

Another thing: I noticed that your fingers bend back when you play. BIG no-no. Your fingers should always be 90 degress perpendicular to the fretboard, so you dont hurt yourself.

[bball_1523]

I really do think a lot of your problems would go away if you learn to stretch your fingers more; play stretch exercises SLooowwwly and pay close attention to your fingers. The #1 thing to remember about playing with your pinkie is that none of your fingers should come off the neck more than maybe a centimeter or so - which makes sense.

That video of you playing: your middle/ring fingers come off the neck obnoxiously, which obviously implies that you aren't comfortable playing the things you're playing. Practice! and take it slow.

Another thing: I noticed that your fingers bend back when you play. BIG no-no. Your fingers should always be 90 degress perpendicular to the fretboard, so you dont hurt yourself.

the thing is I get super tense if I try to keep the fingers too close. I've been purposely focusing on my pinky more than my other fingers so I haven't made them stay really close to the strings.

[rottweilerv88]

When I have a hard time with my fretwork, I slow things down and practice my *** off, and work myself up to faster speeds while maintaining PERFECT technique. I realize you're already playing on 40bpm and not even doing 8th notes, but **** the metronome for now.

Play whatever you are playing incredebly slowly and don't even worry about time constraint. Just practice what you were doing at a pace you're comfortable at, while maintaining FLAWLESS technique. Then slowly work your way to to faster and faster paces.

If you feel you are getting "stiff", play till it hurts, then play a couple hours more. I'm serious. This is how you get anywhere in life. No pain - no gain.

[bball_1523]

When I have a hard time with my fretwork, I slow things down and practice my *** off, and work myself up to faster speeds while maintaining PERFECT technique. I realize you're already playing on 40bpm and not even doing 8th notes, but **** the metronome for now.

Play whatever you are playing incredebly slowly and don't even worry about time constraint. Just practice what you were doing at a pace you're comfortable at, while maintaining FLAWLESS technique. Then slowly work your way to to faster and faster paces.

If you feel you are getting "stiff", play till it hurts, then play a couple hours more. I'm serious. This is how you get anywhere in life. No pain - no gain.

did you get really tense at first then after a lot of practice got comfortable?

How long would you say you practiced your left hand until you got really smooth and comfortable and could increase the metronome speed?

[rottweilerv88]

I never really had a problem with my pinky actually. When I 1st started playing, I only used 3 fingers (like many blues players), then I just started applying my pinky to things as I got to more harder stuff. But these days all I do IS practice. I practice about 12hrs/day on a lot of alternate picking/economy/sweeps/stretches/improvising/tapping/dynamics/accenting and so forth.

But you don't actually need THAT much practice at all to have a nice fretwork. Maybe 30min worth on concentrated practice will help you a ton. Take it slow and work on chromatic exercises. That would be my best advice.

Then again, a lot of players just can't use their pinky. Period. Or it takes then significantly more that player X. Different people have different aptitutes and learning curves. Just work at it, bro.

[UKRuss]

I didn;t think there was anything wrong with your video apart from the scale which didn;t seem to be one that would spring to mind when practing a 3nps pattern.

Perhaps try a more recognisable scale that will vary the intervals and therefore the stretches required.

Then right at the end after having practiced up and down so diligently at 40bpm you shoot off to 120bpm and immedaitely make a mistake. Why?

Why not creep up by 5bpm intervals?

[Yux]

My 2 cents,

it seems to me that you wear your guitar too low and that the neck should be more angled (almost 45° to the floor). I tell you so because it seems like you bend hard your left hand wrist too much and this could be the reason why you feel too much tension in the left hand pinky.
But this is just my opinion, you can check yourself.

I know anybody with an high-strapped guitar looks like an ... well, he's not good lookin', but if you have to choose between "look" VS comfortable and better playing, te choice is easy.
Then again lots of people manage to play with a low-strapped guitar (Hetfield, Wylde, Page and others come to mind), but everybody's body is different and we have to live with our own.

Good luck

Be careful: "no pain no gain" does not apply to the guitar. If your pinky hurts there is something wrong with the way you play - guitar is not a torture thing - and your body is telling you that you'd better change your bad habit.
The "push your limits" thing works in another way, and some english/american forum member may explain it batter than me. Every pro-trained musician will tell you this: if it hurts you'd better change.

[joeyd929]

Play some exercises that allow you to slide your pinky. For example, any exercises or scales where you would use fingers 3 and 4.....instead of using finger 3, put the pinky where 3 would normally go and slide up to where the 4 would be..

instead of fingers 3 and 4 on two adjacent frets, play fingers 4 and then slide the same finger up a half step to the next fret. Slide badkwards also

pick both notes and from an audible standpoint it sounds the same...

Sliding fingers strengthens a different group of muscles. I discovered this playing violin. As light as those strings are, man, let me tell you, you use muscles sliding that you never use just playing one fret per finger.

Email me back if you are not sure what I mean and I will try and explain better.

[Kuckelimuck]

It could help if you strenghen(spelling?) your pinky, after all it is the weakest finger. These kinds of exercises are great for that:


repeat each 4x
e-10-13-12-13---8-12-10-12--7-10-8-10--5-8-7-8----

Chech out for exemple the interlude in yngwies I`ll see the light tonight.

You can make your own patterns similiar to these but with wider stretches.
Cromatics are also great.

[Los Boleros]

check out the first excersise i posted in the thread, cromatic chronosphere. That excersise will not only strengthen your pinky, it will improve your all around accuracy.

[bball_1523]

My 2 cents,

it seems to me that you wear your guitar too low and that the neck should be more angled (almost 45° to the floor).

LOL I thought my guitar was high enough. Any higher and my left arm starts to tense a lot. I have a hard time playing at a 45 degree angle because my left arm has to bear the weight of the guitar more and it starts to tense.

I definitely need pinky strength. I just don't understand why I lost my pinky this past year. I was doing fine up until july/august, then it all fell apart. I've been playing for almost 5 years too!

[Len H]

I agree with Yux that it looks like you are putting a lot of tension in your left hand by flexing your wrist so sharply. Is your wrist as tense as it appears on the video clip? If it is your fingers will not be relaxed either. Experiment with different guitar and hand positions and see if there is a position that gives better pinky dexterity. You did mention that your pinky problems started in the past year; I am wondering if you are over-concentrating on your pinky and fatiguing it. Back off the pinky work a little bit (don't totally abandon it), stop worrying about it every time you pick up a guitar, and find a comfortable playing position. Good luck.

[Kuckelimuck]

You could do some Petrucci stretching exercises, thoose he does in his Rock dicipline video to make your fingers independant from each other.:)

[bball_1523]

You could do some Petrucci stretching exercises, thoose he does in his Rock dicipline video to make your fingers independant from each other.:)

I don't know if that has helped. I do some stretches when I warmup. Not sure if I'm doing them right or whatever.

[eastwood]

I agree with Yux that it looks like you are putting a lot of tension in your left hand by flexing your wrist so sharply. Is your wrist as tense as it appears on the video clip? If it is your fingers will not be relaxed either. Experiment with different guitar and hand positions and see if there is a position that gives better pinky dexterity. You did mention that your pinky problems started in the past year; I am wondering if you are over-concentrating on your pinky and fatiguing it. Back off the pinky work a little bit (don't totally abandon it), stop worrying about it every time you pick up a guitar, and find a comfortable playing position. Good luck.

This is excellent advice ! Dont worry about it.......Play what you enjoy and play what you DO play well and have fun. Maybe spend 10 mins at the end of your practise session on your pinky problems but dont make it an 'issue'.

Or......Don't use your pinky so much.....theres dozens of named players that dont use it as much as you imagine - check out some of the greats on youtube and see what I mean. If you play an incredible blazing sexy solo noones gonna say....'He didnt use his pinky !' and if they do they are not worth listening to.

Daz

[joeyd929]

Sometimes my pinky just quits working properly from fatigue. When it acts up I spend time working on fingers 1 2 and 3. I just stop using it and focus on a different area.

My hands get tired easy so I have to go with the flow....

[bball_1523]

This is excellent advice ! Dont worry about it.......Play what you enjoy and play what you DO play well and have fun. Maybe spend 10 mins at the end of your practise session on your pinky problems but dont make it an 'issue'.

Or......Don't use your pinky so much.....theres dozens of named players that dont use it as much as you imagine - check out some of the greats on youtube and see what I mean. If you play an incredible blazing sexy solo noones gonna say....'He didnt use his pinky !' and if they do they are not worth listening to.

Daz

but the problem is my fingers are small so when I have to make stretches to play certain passages, I can't do it unless I use my pinky.

Also I can't really sweep those stretching passages either and I really like sweep picking!

[joeyd929]

but the problem is my fingers are small so when I have to make stretches to play certain passages, I can't do it unless I use my pinky.

Also I can't really sweep those stretching passages either and I really like sweep picking!

I know what you mean. Although my hands are not small, I have trouble with stretching so I basically had to re-think much of what I do so that I could play more runs without my pinky. I use it regularly but I can't always depend on it.

I watch videos of jazz players and noticed that some just are able to jump to the notes by shifting position very quickly, rather than stretching. I have had to adapt this method due to the fact that stretching bothers my hand even if I practice stretching.

I also discovered that my index finger was actually weaker than it should be because I got hung up focusing on my pinky too much. Since I re-assessed my technique, I have actually spent more time on the first three fingers and my pinky responds better because I was over using it.

The fact that I type all the time at about 60-70 words per minute wear out my hands as well..

It just got to the point where any effort was futile. It was pointless to keep trying to do it that way for me because it just was not working. I noticed that George Benson does some good sweeps but he slides his hand out of position really quick and gets the notes.

Horizontal motion is critical so I practice that more now than ever...

[bball_1523]

hmmm that's interesting that you spent more time on your first three fingers rather than pinky.

I'm just afraid my pinky won't improve. I'm at a stage where so many people that have played around my experience are so much more better than me and I feel like I've gone somewhat backwards since my pinky fell apart.

[joeyd929]

hmmm that's interesting that you spent more time on your first three fingers rather than pinky.

I'm just afraid my pinky won't improve. I'm at a stage where so many people that have played around my experience are so much more better than me and I feel like I've gone somewhat backwards since my pinky fell apart.

That is my point exactly!! It got to the point where I had nothing to loose because no matter how hard I tried or how much I practiced using my pinky it just got WORSE!. So at that point I figured, what have I got to loose? using it did not help..

Focusing on the first three fingers releived the undue stress I was putting on my pinky and this actually gave it time to recover. Now it works better but because I have tendonitis of some sort, I just have to be careful.

Have you been playing for a long time? If you have, don't worry, I think it will actually improve if you focus on other fingers for a while.. Continue to use it but just try and use it for slower runs...It can't hurt, since using it is making it worse...

Every few weeks I just lay off the guitar for like two days and it always helps as well.

[Kuckelimuck]

Man don`t give up! Practice hard and correctly and you will get there. If your serious with your playing and that you seem to be as your asking all these questions, work with a teacher if you don`t already do. Pretty much everbody in metal/shred guitar playing have this problem in the beginning.

[bball_1523]

I've been playing for almost 5 years and sadly haven't mastered alternate picking yet!

I have been thinking about getting a teacher, but only for alt-picking. Not sure if there are any that do that. Anyone know?

[EricV]

I kinda doubt that there are teachers who focus entirely on AP, and I wonder whether it´d be a good thing if there was someone like that.
However, if you need help on your AP, maybe you can get in touch with a player / teacher who is good at AP, and ask him for just a few lessons, focussing on that technique. I had a few people who live rather far away contact me, coming in for some "crash courses" like that, and we´d discuss in advance what we´d work on. Usually, it worked. I had one or two situations where it was absolutely vital to work on other things. It doesnt make sense if someone comes in and goes "I wanna work on tough sweep-licks" and he comes in and his technical level isn´t where it should be at for stuff like that at all.
With picking, it might be enough to take a few lessons just to have someone look at your technique, and to have someone who can show you some aspects first-hand. Most of it is just a lot of constant work.

Now, regarding "I'm at a stage where so many people that have played around my experience are so much more better than me and I feel like I've gone somewhat backwards since my pinky fell apart."

I can imagine how frustrating that can feel. However, thinking thoughts like that means putting yourself under more pressure. And that kind of mental pressure will usually express itself physically, for example by way too much tension.
I am no doctor, neither am I a psychiatrist, but I know what happened to me back in the old days when I was expecting too miuch, trying to get to a certain point too quickly, asking for too much.
If you get into the "comparison"-thing, or even into some kind of subconscious contest with others, it´s more pressure. And that won´t help with playing relaxed at all.
Imagine you´re working on a really tough lick which is supposed to be played at a fast tempo (say, 200 bpm in 16ths). Now, you´d start out at, like, 60 bpm and gradually increase the tempo, bit by bit. It might take weeks, or months, but you´d keep working on it.
However, if you are setting yourself some deadline,m especially one thats not too far away, and you get closer to that while not "keeping up" (as in, not getting closer to the goal), you are getting tense, which won´t help at all. It´s like a downward spiral. And if you eventually do not reach that goal, it will be a disappointment, and frustrating too. Which in turn won´t help much with your motivation and self-confidence.
Even IF people around you seem to progress faster, don´t let that put you under pressure (or better: don´t put yourself under pressure because of that), cuz it won´t help AT ALL.
It also takes away the fun big time. I know that it´s almost impossible NOT to compare your progress to others every once in a while, I´ve been there myself. But I eventually stopped worrying about it too much. It´s not a contest, and there are so many things involved that one can work on, and I am convinced that if you keep working on something while
- you work steadily and gradually, setting yourself small, realistic goals
- you´re having FUN and enjoying the whole process
- and you´re not worrying too much about other peoples progress, as music and being a musician shouldn´t be like a "have to pull my weight and keep up with my colleagues" type thing you see in some companies and businesses ("Oh well, Sam ain´t keeping up, making quite a bit less profit while working the same hours as the others, we might have to let him go...").
- enjoying the journey and process of becoming a bit better, without trying to force yourself to accomplish anything by any means

As I said, I understand your thoughts and worries, been there, and I am sure others here do too. But I think some of the problems you describe might be related by sub-conscious (or even very conscious) thoughts that aren´t helpful and make it tougher for the body, too
Sorry for rambling
Eric

[bball_1523]

I think you do have a good point Eric. I do expect a lot out of my guitar playing. I listen to a lot of fast technical music and that influences me to want to become as good as them if not better.

I do get frustrated when I realize I haven't made as much as progress as I wanted to.

Right now it's just so hard for me to focus and not expect too much because the music I want to write requires me to play at a fast tempo and use certain techniques that I haven't mastered yet (sweeping, alt-picking), and my pinky being weak has destroyed me lately.

I really want to add solos to some of my songs, but it's so frustrating when my pinky just won't lift off the fret and go to the next string.

I'm not sure what to really do here.

[Los Boleros]

ok, here is that excersize i mentioned earlier:


I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I-12--11--10--9------9--10--12--11--10--9---------------9--11--10--9-----------------------10--9--------------------------9--------------------------------
I-----------------12-------------------------12--11--12-----------------12--11--10--11--12---------12--11--10--9--10--11-----12--11--10--9----------------
I------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13------------
I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


its a cromatic pattern. it should also spark new ideas for new cromatic patterns. cromatic patterns are a fun way to inprove your finger strength, that works to make all your fingers strong. in time you will be able to do things with your pinky that before you would only attempt with your other fingers.

[bball_1523]

ok, here is that excersize i mentioned earlier:


I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I-12--11--10--9------9--10--12--11--10--9---------------9--11--10--9-----------------------10--9--------------------------9--------------------------------
I-----------------12-------------------------12--11--12-----------------12--11--10--11--12---------12--11--10--9--10--11-----12--11--10--9----------------
I------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13------------
I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


its a cromatic pattern. it should also spark new ideas for new cromatic patterns. cromatic patterns are a fun way to inprove your finger strength, that works to make all your fingers strong. in time you will be able to do things with your pinky that before you would only attempt with your other fingers.

how often would you recommend I do it?