@Ellis2010 To begin with, it is totally fine to only perform the exercise on strings 4, 3, 2 & 1. The reaching over and stretching out does become more difficult for beginner hands on the 6th and 5th strings.
In time, you should find you have greater flexibility and reach and can step across to string 5, then string 6 eventually.
You want clean and clear notes in your playing, of course. In the beginning stages of this exercise, the main aim is to improve finger dexterity and if you lose a little of the musical clarity in your notes as you first get your fingers working then do not worry about it all that much. It should improve as your ability and skills from practicing the exercise improve also.
ps
Have you figured out recording and uploading a video yet?
That is fine. You are not playing chords where multiple strings need to ring out cleanly all together. You are playing a single string exercise. Muting unwanted noise from adjacent strings is totally okay.
@Bor_MS Michael. Kudos for sharing a photograph. I wish I was there in the room with you to help with your posture and guitar position. Please try to adjust as you have already found it is leading to pain.
Angle the guitar neck up, not down. That will automatically lift your elbow off your left leg and give it freedom of movement and be an essential part of the fretting process unhindered. Sit up straight and try to refrain from leaning over forwards to stare at your fretting fingers with a curved back. You will see those fretting fingers more easily with the neck angled upwards.
Here is Justinās position in this exercise.
I have recently realized how important it is to also try keeping my wrist reasonably straight, which means I can get my palm closer to but not touching the bottom of the neck. A touch more of a stretch to the low E, but more than makes up for that with being able to land more consistently on finger tips than pads, so less accidental muting of strings.
Hello everyone, I hope youāre having a great day.
I have been pushing through this exercise although it feels like my wrist is about to explode, which may be the intended purpose and I should just keep it, and I will.
But the thing is, I have a classical guitar and the neck is wider, and the strings further apart. Itās a bit of a different experience.
I am wondering if I should keep at it or if there is a modification for the classical guitar.
Hi @MG_Rain, if it feels like your wrist is about to explode, youāre putting too much strain on it and you will hurt yourself. Go higher up the neck, where the frets are closer together, to where you can just, with stretching but without overtaxing your wrist, make it work. Start from there, and when, after some days/weeks you feel itās getting easier in that position, move down 1 fret, and so on. And never do this exercise for more than a couple of minutes at a time. It is very taxing on your hand, wrist and arm and it is very easy to overdo it, which could result in tendinitis.
Stretching is somethng that I think we need to maintain for the duration of our playing guitar. Make sure you are doing it in a safe position to avoid injury!
However my wrist isnāt too bent because I worked on that a bit in order to learn some riffs and things I like, but I will pay extra attention.
Perhaps the fact it is classical introduces more strain on the wrist than on an acoustic.
Iāll take it easy even if the progress is slower, the advice is much appreciated.
I looked it up before and apparently it is not necessary and is just more comfortable for complex classical pieces that involve complex finger picking.
And I donāt think I wanna get into that anytime soon, most complex I got is learning the simple Ode to Joy hehe
This exercice feels very difficult to me and I donāt know if having small hands is also an issue. I try to keep my hand parallel to the neck, I can manage de put my fingers 1 2 et 4, but the 3rd finger is really hard ? it feels like itās stuck to the 2nd and goes in a weird angle, even worst when I use my pinky. I donāt know if itās normal, I canāt manage to put it in the right angle (hereās the pic).
Hey Lisa, youāve just identified yourself as being a human being! Thereās an anatomical explanation behind it, but itās completely normal for fingers 2 and 3 to want to stick together. You could start at a higher fret, where the frets are closer together, and move up when things get easier. You could also do some finger independency exercises, like placing your fingers each one in a separate fret, somewhere closer to the body where the stretch is nog too hard, and āsteppingā up and down the strings one finger at the time.
Hi Nick, I also have short fingers. In addition to teaching our hands to stretch, youāve identified what I think is a secondary benefit of this exercise: gaining control over our individual fingers. Stick with this exercise, just a few minutes each day. I think youāll be surprised how effective it is. There will be more exercises in the future working on finger independence, but I found this a great start!
hi everyone, need helpā¦ when practicing I get pain at the back of the hand, is this normal? I also donāt feel any stretching in the areas Justin mentions just the back of the hand, this has been the case for 2 weeks of daily practice
More experienced players can tell you about the type of pain that is healthy or not, but personally I can say I had more luck with my finger flexibility and stretch by doing the major scale pattern rather than this particular finger stretching exercise.
Also, if you spend too long on it, youāll more pain and not so much effect. Itās like when you start exercising or lifting weights, you donāt begin with the heavier weights and really long sessions, or stuff seizes up.
There are finger and forearm stretches you can do that will help relieve pain from stiffness, too, so worth looking into that online to help alleviate the issue.
is the first finger slanting a little bit (while still remaining in the spot) normal? my fingers tend to do it a lot and i canāt tell if weāre meant to do the fingers completely straight. i have a violin background so my fingers just naturally go into that position more often than not when playing notes haha. thanks!
It sounds like you are talking about adjacent strings.
Iāll say it is conditionally āyesā. Conditionally because you will later work to intentionally touch adjacent strings. This when you want to make sure they are not making noise.
For the early lesson here, trying to just touch the intended string is good to get you used to placing your fingers cleanly.
Itās about five years ago that I first struggled with the Beginner Finger Stretch exercise, and it might have been several weeks or a month or two before I was able to do it from the first fret all the way up. I still do this exercise regularly, even though Iāve advanced considerably since that Grade 1 lesson. Itās an excellent warm up that gets my fingers used to whichever guitar I decide to play. Itās an exercise I havenāt outgrown.
An even greater challenge for finger stretching was learning the Wish You Were Here riff, which I initially found impossible. As a 12-string specialist (when I started, 12-string was the only guitar I had), the WYWH riff was essential, and so I persisted until I could play it perfectly. What felt like an impossible stretch now seems natural.
