Hey, how you doing?
Justin here, back with you for a finger stretching exercise for beginners.
Now, some of you are gonna find this exercise really hard.
Some of you are gonna find it relatively easy.
It just depends a bit on your anatomy,
if you've got really long fingers, really short fingers, flexible fingers.
So, it will be a little different for everyone.
I'm gonna show you the process,
and where I think you wanna get it to, at least.
Particularly those of you who have short fingers,
or not very flexible fingers.
Now, the exercise itself, is really simple.
It's important to realize, it's not a speed exercise.
Okay? So, don't go trying to do it faster. That's not the point.
The point is, slow and feeling a stretch in your fingers.
So, it's much more like a yoga thing.
You don't do those kind of things really quickly.
If you're stretching before any sort of exercise.
You don't do it real fast, cos you'll injure yourself.
The idea is, you do it really slowly,
and you kind of feel it stretch a bit.
You should feel this exercise...
not hurt, but you should feel it stretching.
Okay? If it's not stretching, you're not doing it hard enough,
like you haven't got enough stretch, not pressing harder.
You need to make it a bit more stretchy,
if you find it too easy. So...
I found when I was doing this left-handed,
that even this basic one at the 5th fret,
I could kind of get my fingers in the right spot,
but it mostly hurt in here,
in this muscle between my thumb and my 1st finger.
Now, that's also one of the things that develops with this exercise.
So, it's partly to do with finger flexibility,
partly to do with finger strength,
partly to do with getting your little finger involved,
and partly for developing this muscle between your thumb and 1st finger,
as well as, independence, and picking different strings.
There's a load of stuff going on in this exercise.
Speaking of picking,
for this exercise, we're gonna use all down picks.
Okay? You might find it helpful just to anchor your little finger there,
on the guitar. Anywhere on the guitar will do.
If you're playing acoustic guitar,
you don't wanna pop it in the sound hole, right?
Just leave it resting. It can move around, but just leave it resting.
And then you're just gonna use all down picks, all the way through.
Now...
let's start off together, with our 1st finger,
at the 5th fret of the thickest string.
You wanna try and keep that finger nice and parallel.
So, not too much of an angle like that.
There are chords in times where we use fingers in an angle,
but this exercise isn't one of them. So, we're gonna play that one note.
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Then we're gonna put our 2nd finger down, one fret higher,
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trying to get it up next to the fret, if you can.
Then you're 3rd finger,
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is gonna go, again, one fret higher,
try to get it next to the fret, if you can,
i.e., like not here at the back of the fret,
cos we know...that's likely to give you that buzzy sound.
So try to get right up next to the fret, if you can.
Then little finger.
Now, I've got a really little, little finger.
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So for me, that already makes for a bit of a stretch.
Not with this hand. I can easily stretch a bit further than this.
But for my left hand, when I'm playing left-handed,
so my right hand is doing the stretch.
Just doing that, was already difficult. So, don't be upset,
or feel like you're not gonna be good at guitar,
if you're finding that difficult. That's pretty normal.
Then we're gonna move it onto the next string.
We're now gonna play the 1st finger, on the 5th fret, of the 5th string.
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Gonna play that. Then 2nd finger,
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3rd finger,
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and then little finger.
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Now, it's not designed to go in a hurry.
If you can see, I'm kinda keeping my fingers roughly where they should be.
Now...
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this exercise is relatively easy for me now.
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If you wanna go and watch me doing it left-handed,
it doesn't look anywhere near so easy. I can promise you.
And...
even just doing this much... is really hard.
Now, there's a few things to notice.
First of all, the 2nd and 3rd fingers tend to join together,
and the 1st and 4th fingers, tend to spread apart,
and that's normal. That's just to do with the anatomy of our hands.
Don't feel like they should all be square on, cos it's just not possible.
Our fingers all kind of join into the palm,
so they meet in the middle. That's how they work.
So, doing this kind of exercise,
you'll always find that 2nd and 3rd fingers sit together,
and 1st and little finger kind of splay out a little bit sideways.
Don't worry about that in the slightest.
What you're aiming for, particularly on the thinner string,
most people will find just that difficult.
Curling the fingers right around, so that the fingers are going,
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, right up next to the frets.
Trying to keep the palm there, parallel with the fretboard.
If you can.
Then again, that's gonna be pretty difficult.
Most of you will find it's a bit more like that,
that little finger will have trouble curling up.
Again, like with everything else I've talked about with this course,
you've got to be a bit forgiving with yourself, at these early stages.
If you find this really tough, that's okay.
Just stick with it.
All of us can touch our toes,
if we put some effort into doing a bit of stretching everyday.
I struggle to actually touch my toes, I've got terribly tight hamstrings.
But the idea is, if you find something, particularly physical things
that are difficult, you just have to work on it.
Whether it's getting strong, weightlifting, running, flexibility, or whatever
and this part of guitar, this aspect of the guitar,
is quite physical, and you just have to keep doing it.
This exercise I'm gonna prescribe 2 minutes a day,
for the next week or two.
And just really taking it nice and slowly, just working your way up.
Let's just do the whole exercise now.
So do 1st finger, 2nd finger... 3rd finger and then 4th finger.
But we're not in a hurry.
Then we're gonna move it down a string.
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Trying to keep each one. Now I'm gonna do...
probably for some of you, will look a bit more like this.
You won't be able to hold it, so you're fingers will be like this.
Then you have to try and put that finger,
and when you go to do this, 1st finger wants to sneak up with it,
but you gotta try and hold it back.
So trying to get that 3rd finger in, and then little finger, oh come on!
If that's what happens, that's okay.
You trying to get this stretch out like that,
to try and make it feel like it's getting wider,
like your grip is getting wider.
Like I said, if you're finger's like this, and you find...
What you don't want is to let 1st finger slide up...like that,
so the 1st finger is now out of position. That's what you don't want.
You wanna make sure, all of the way through,
if 2nd finger's there, 1st finger's trying to sneak up.
Try and keep 1st finger back,
even if 3rd finger won't go any further than that, that's okay.
Little finger, oh come on!
You want it to go there, but if it's only gonna get to there,
that's okay. Don't let 1st finger off, okay?
Try and get your way, all of the way up to the thinner string.
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And when you get to the thinner string, you go back down,
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but you're still going up each string. This isn't like playing a musical scale.
This is just an exercise, so we're going up each string.
Now, almost certainly a lot of you are gonna struggle with the picking.
I did, as well, when I was trying to learn this.
You might yourself going like...
and then...
trying to get...there's the right string.
There we go, and now the next one.
Oh, where is it?
It's, you know, don't worry about it.
These exercises have got a whole heap of things that you can learn,
particularly the first few days of doing an exercise.
You're gonna find it pretty difficult.
Really, just don't worry about it. Do the best as you can,
and try and develop it through the weeks.
You will find, even a couple of minutes a day,
for a couple of weeks, will make a big difference,
and you'll find that you're able to...
you might not be able to stretch it a whole lot,
but you'll find the actual picking of it
and placement of the fingers at least easier.
Now if you're finding this exercise way too easy,
you just start moving the fingers further toward the nut.
So you're going, "Yeah I'm cool with that, man."
As you start moving down this way, the frets get a little further apart.
And probably by the time you reach the first fret,
I mean that's a pretty decent stretch.
Most beginners would find it difficult to get the fingers to spread out like that
all of the way, and keeping them right next to the frets.
That's...I have to work at that, if I'm gonna get them the whole way.
So, if you're comfortable with that,
you probably don't need to keep doing this exercise.
If you're totally comfortable at the first fret with this one,
maybe try and find other things that you're struggling with,
maybe your chord changes,
or if there's a chord you're struggling with, or your strumming.
Find the thing that's not working for you real well,
and spend your time practicing that. But I think for most people,
doing a bit of this finger exercise is gonna be a really good thing.
Like I said, for a whole heap of reasons, the picking, the finger stretch itself,
the independence, using your little finger possibly for the first time, all of that.
There's a whole heap of goodness in this exercise.
If you're really wanna push your limits, there's my limit.
So I can do 1st fret, 3rd fret, 4th fret and the beginning of the 6th fret,
but not right near the end, so that would be your goal.
I have got a stumpy little finger, though. Everyone's like,
"Oh my fingers are too short, my fingers are too fat."
We've all got things that we moan about with our hands.
I've always had a little, little finger,
so there are some things that I really struggle with.
You have to find your own way around stuff,
when you encounter a problem like that.
There's nothing that can stop you learning to play guitar.