Little finger guitar exercise

[Guitar Joe]

Hey All

Thought I'd try a guitar exercise vid as I've never tried one before but mainly because there's a slim chance this may be helpful lol.

It's for people who want to build up some strength with there little finger.

It's not a hard exercise at all (he says having played it terribly throughout the video, I'm sure you can all do better - PLEASE NOTE any vid responses putting me to shame will be rejected haha) but can really help build up your strength and speed when using your little finger.

Hope it's helpful to someone out there.

Cheers
Joe

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrC4riwrmkw]Guitar Excercise - Little Finger Strength - YouTube[/ame]

PS. Please forgive the sound of my Mac having an asthma attack. It's a surprisingly hot day here in the UK and the poor thing was sitting on some pillows to get it at a suitable recording height haha

 

[bsruther]

Sometimes, I feel like I should slam my pinky with a ball peen hammer, just to spite it and teach it a lesson. Tremendous pain would ensue, therefore the pinky always goes unpunished and continues to be an underachiever, while the other fingers take up the slack. The other fingers rebel by developing deep grooves in their callouses, preventing them from sliding over the frets. Perhaps I should just cut my hand off and be done with it all. That would teach'm a lesson.

My biggest problem with the pinky is placing it quickly on the B string and doing a bend. It's worse when the bend is followed by a pulloff. Even with help from the ring finger, it doesn't want to cooperate. I hate my pinky.

 

[970harris]

Sometimes, I feel like I should slam my pinky with a ball peen hammer, just to spite it and teach it a lesson. Tremendous pain would ensue, therefore the pinky always goes unpunished and continues to be an underachiever, while the other fingers take up the slack. The other fingers rebel by developing deep grooves in their callouses, preventing them from sliding over the frets. Perhaps I should just cut my hand off and be done with it all. That would teach'm a lesson.

My biggest problem with the pinky is placing it quickly on the B string and doing a bend. It's worse when the bend is followed by a pulloff. Even with help from the ring finger, it doesn't want to cooperate. I hate my pinky.

A few years ago I came across a fellow forum member's post suggesting using ALL of your other fingers on the string you are trying to bend with your pinkie, in order to support it while it develops the strength to do more on its own. That helped me a ton. While my main issue wasn't being able to bend, or even to pull-off from a bend with my pinkie, it really helped me develop the strength to vibrato off a bend with my pinkie. That's come a long way over the last couple of years, although I still use my first finger as an anchor and my third finger to support doing vibrato off a "pinkie bend", which I don't figure is a problem --- hell, those two digits are right near by anyway so why not use them?

 

[Sloppy Joe]

The best pinkie excercise I know of is playing classical guitar music.

The stretches and strength gained carries over to all other music genres.