Finger Stretching Exercise

Technique Technique: Fretting Hand
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View the full lesson at Finger Stretching Exercise | JustinGuitar

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I’m not entirely sure if I’m doing this exercise right.
Are you allowed to touch the strings underneath the one you are playing? Or should they be able to ring out perfectly too?
I also have a hard time keeping my fingers aligned with the frets, especially when I’m trying to evenly seperate all of my fingers. I’m aiming to put my fingers as close to the frets as possible. It looks like my hand is in a very unnatural position.

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Like any new exercise it will take time to stretch out you fingers
and hands. Touching the other string at first isn’t a problem but
as your skills grow and tge flexibility of you fingers increases you’ll
want to be able to let the string ring or mute it. Both are a skill needed to play lead.

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Well I am more or less able to stretch the fingers as far as needed, but my fingers are on the fretboard in some sort of an angle. When I look at the video it just seems the point of the exercise to get your fingers straight on. Or am I looking at this the wrong way?

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Are you rotating your wrist so your palm it’s parellel to
the fret board?

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Yes I am, I can put the index and middle finger straight on but when I add the ring finger, I simply can’t put it on straight, same for the pinky. When I look at Justin’s video it seems like his fingers are also quite flat, whilst mine are more curled. Don’t know if I’m doing it right.

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If you are wanting all 4 fingers to be parallel with the fret wires, it’s not anatomically possible (unless you have freakishly wide hands). Spread your hand out on a table top and take a look.

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This is normal. Justin can approximate parallel better because he has been playing for a long time. Don’t try to force your hand to be like his and don’t set your expectations to be like him, at least not for a few more decades of dedicated career level playing.
Be kind to yourself and enjoy the processes!

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Yes, that is fine for this sort of technique exercise.

You can never have equal stretch and spacing between the fingers, it is anatomically impossible. Your 2nd and 3rd fingers will always have a little less stretch than the 1st and 4th.
Hope that helps.
Cheers :smiley:
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide

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Finger Stretching Exercise

I am struggling with the EM7 chord because I can’t seem to get my ring finger to separate from my middle finger sufficiently to reach the correct placing on the 3rd fret. The pinky on the 1st string is no problem, but my ring finger seems determined not to stretch to where it needs to. Any advice?

Thanks.
Tim Holtom

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Welcome to the forum Tim
I’m going to assume you mean Em7(Eminor7) EM7(EMajor7) doesn’t need any note to be
played on the 3rd fret.

The best thing to do is the finger stretching exercise found in grade 1. it is designed to give your finger independents from each other. https://youtu.be/qYx8r0EtGsE

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Hello Everybody,

Do you think it is OK to place fretting hand fingers across 4 frets on one string and use your other hand to stretch the fingers, without causing pain, that are not properly placed?

Thanks.

Joel

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It is probably fine. What may be better physiologically, would be to stretch your fingers off of the guitar, without pain, of course. Then on the guitar trying to reach the goal separation by using muscle strength in your hand.

If you manually separate finger on the guitar as you suggest, you won’t get as good a stretch and you won’t strengthen the muscle you need to achieve the reach.

I stretch my finger separation by placing on finger of the left hand near the outside base of my right thumb and the finger next to it (medial to it in anatomic terms) at the outside base of my right little finger and spelt was with the right hand.

I need to start doing this regularly again.

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I’m trying to do this exercise but I can barely do the first part (4 frets) when I try to move my index up a fret or my pinky down a fret, I can’t get my other fingers even close to being in the correct spot on there frets. Help! I’m not a beginner… I’ve been noodling around for 5 years or more. Probably an advanced beginner :joy:

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Hi David,

This noodling arround will probably make you in a lot of things a beginner at least in this area…so back to start and build a good foundation…you will succeed probably pretty soon if you’ve had a guitar in your hands for so long :sunglasses:…although you’ll probably have to break some bad habits too :grimacing:
Have fun .
Greetings,Rogier

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Thanks Roger,

You are correct, Tyne bad habits are the problem. Also years of avoiding things that seem too hard and would take too much practice. Big one… finger stretching.
The exercises that Justin shows I went ahead and just move them down. One fret strings still are not ringing clear and I can’t make the pool stretch but it’s close. Definitely feel the stretch, and will keep working on it. Should have started playing when I was young.
Thanks,
Dave

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Hello

I can do this exercise pretty easily, but my wrist bends a lot, almost a 120° angle. If I try to keep it straight it’s a lot harder to stretch my fingers. Should I be careful to keep my wrist straight or does the wrist position not matter?

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Lift your guitar neck up so you don’t bend your wrist more than a 45 deg angle. The straighter the better. You can do serious damage to your wrist bending it like that for long periods. Look at how straight Justin’s wrist is.

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