I am trying to practice Major scale pattern 1, but I have a problem with my pinky finger. It is a joint which is somewhat “digital”, it kind of makes the finger tip to jump from one angle to another when trying to push on a string and then relieve the pressure. Hard to describe, but there is something in the joint that causes this, I can sense a “pop” in the joint. Can this be trained in someway or should I maybe go and see a doctor? If I don’t have any pressure it can act normally.
Mine used to do that! I found I could avoid the ‘jump’ by keeping unnecessary tension out of the movement. I’ve been playing about 2 years now and it isn’t very noticeable now.
Try finger independence exercises for a couple months and see if that gets it to correct a good amount. I think that is part of what helped me.
The other thing to do is be mindful of what tension is necessary to make the movement and relax whatever is not necessary.
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I had this issue as well. It was like my little finger wouldn’t go where I want it and the suddenly click in a jerky move that had no accuracy or coordination.
Very, very frustrating and enough to make me question if I would even be able to play guitar.
I did a bunch of very focused, slow movement exercises with intent. I also just kept moving forward. It just sort of faded away after a while doing that. 2.5 years now (almost) and I had forgotten all about it until this post.
The lesion to me is that what ever such impediments we run into, small hand, catchy fingers, rhythmically challenged and so on, everyone has their issues and we will still be able to learn to play guitar with attention to our needs, adaptation if needed and most importantly, persistence.
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Great, thanks for your comments! It seems promising to get some control of this after more practice!