Hey, how you doing? Justin here. In this lesson, we're going to have a look at a
little pinky exercise; getting your 4th finger, a little bit more dexterous than
it might be at this point. Reason being, next week, we've got a chord that requires
a little bit more dexterity with the little finger; it needs to be a little
bit stretchier, a little bit more controlled. In the coming weeks, we got some more
chords, where it's gonna get used, and some scale things. You're not gonna find
that you use the little finger a whole lot but when you do use it, you wanna be
using it confidently and for it to be, yeah, dexterous is the only word, it looks
to be able to be controlled, and lot of people struggle with little finger, so
this is a relatively simple little exercise, again it's not a big part of your practice
routine, but little bit of practice on this stuff really goes a long way, so let's go
to a close-up, and I'll run you through the routine.
So, we're gonna start actually, with our 3rd finger on the seventh fret of the
thickest string, and we're gonna play that note, just with a down-pick, and then
little finger goes down on the eighth fret; nice and controlled, you wanna be doing
this exercise very very slowly; it's not about speed at this point anyway. Then 3rd
finger's gonna step over the seventh fret of the fifth string; then little finger on
the eight fret, same thing on the next string, on the fourth string, and the
third string, and the second string, and on the thinnest string. Notice that the
fingers are curling up; I'm not extending my fingers out like that; you don't wanna
keep your fingers straight; you wanna keep your little finger and your 3rd finger
nicely curled up. Once you get to the top, you're gonna go the reverse of that, so
little finger 3rd finger, then little finger's gonna crossover on to the second
string, and then to the 3rd finger little finger, on to the third string, back to
the 3rd finger little finger, 3rd finger little finger, 3rd finger little finger,
3rd finger, and then down to 2nd finger,
then little finger, and now we're gonna continue that pattern all of
the way up toward the thinnest string again; so it's going 2nd finger, 4th
finger, all the way up; playing the top note twice; little finger, 2nd finger.
Now, I'm on the second string; little finger, 2nd finger. Third string; little
finger, 2nd finger. This isn't a scale, it's just an exercise. Then to the 1st
finger to little finger; 1st finger, little finger on the fifth string, then on the
fourth string; third string; second string; first string; playing the top note twice,
4th finger, 1st finger; 4th..1st; and then you begin again; 3rd finger, 4th finger
and etc. Now, at the very beginning, you're gonna find this pretty difficult to move
your little finger around accurately; at least NITSUJ did. It was slow and awkward;
frustrating even at times, where it just wouldn't seem to go where I wanted. On top
of that, you have the added problem of picking the right string as well, which
might factor into it. This is more about the little finger, so don't worry, if you
accidently hit an extra string; that's not going to be; it's not the exercise, the
exercise is about the little finger, so while it's better that you hit the right
string, most of the time, if you can; if you accidently hit the wrong string, it's
not the end of the world. At the beginning, this should just be really slow and
careful, learning just to place the little finger. If you can, you could start to
speed it up a little bit, but it's not again, a speed exercise; it's a dexterity
and accuracy, and being able to move your little finger to where it wants to go.
Using it in conjunction with the other fingers will help develop the finger, the
little finger, to be able to work independently, no matter what other
fingers are being used in the chords, so it's a kind of idea of the that. There is
no real set rule, it's just, like I said, I want your little fingers to become more
active, the pads to get a bit more used, so you're used to actually holding down
the strings so it shouldn't hurt so much, but mostly it's about the control; mostly
it's about learning to control your little finger, try and avoid letting it fly
right off the fretboard each time; that's a real common problem, some people it's
the little finger after it has played the note, it wants to kind of go right away,
and then every time it's gonna try and fly right back off the fingerboard; you really
wanna try keep it, so it's not moving too far away from the fretboard at any point.
Now, I've done this sort of exercise before, so for me, doing this, you know,
the right way around, right-handed, is relatively simple, but left-handed, this
was a tough exercise; I'm really glad I included it at this point; it's definitely
gonna help with the next lesson, and most of the rest of this Grade actually, getting
that little bit of dexterity there in the little finger, so have bit of fun with
that, try and do that every practice session, if you can.