Finger Strength & Pinky Issues >.

I started trying to work hard on finger strength, figuring I could spend 30 minutes a day to improve this area and then do work with chords during other practice time, whether it is trying to learn songs I like or just learning chords in general. I saw this pretty cool lesson and started working on it:

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/lesson.php?id=21

Basically I was just curious how long it took some of you to feel comfortable with playing scales and things like this lesson comfortably at a decent speed. Like maybe 8th notes at 120 bpm or so. Also I am working to make sure I start ingraining good habits right away with not letting the fatter part of my finger push down on the fret, but using my finger tips, but my pinky doesn't seem to want to cooperate. Is this an issue that goes away with time or is something I should do to try and fix this now?

Personally, I don't use my pinky for anything special. Usually just scale type stuff. Although, I'll try to help out.

I found this kind of shape a big help.

---------------457
------------457---
---------457------
------457---------
---457------------
457---------------

Just doing that and building speed with it. Not getting fast. But getting a speed down pact, stoppping, and working on a faster one. That or this shape

---578--------------

Actually, theres a Slash lick that REALLY helps with this that I found.

----98986-----------
----------6---------
--------------------
--------------------
--------------------
--------------------
--------------------

For that, all but the first, and last notes are hammer-on and pull-off. He does it VERYYYYY fast in the Tokyo solo. Theres actually a vid on this lick, where a dude shows exactly how to play it, but it's 2 AM. lol. And I'm lazy. I'll try to find it tomorow.

Hopes this helps,

Ozz

ive found that if youre using extra light strings its hard to build finger strength, almost all my finger strength is from playing an acoustic guitar

Yeah. After playing acoustic for a little bit, electric stuff seems like a breeze.

Check out my lesson:

CLICK HERE FOR COOL FINGER WORKOUTS!

That is the lesson I talked about in my initial post. lol It's a really good lesson!

Haha, my bad, I didn't realize!

i never played acoustic, but i "accidentally" put .011 gage strings on my strat one time. that really helped me build up finger strength, now playing .009s on the artcore feels very effortless. the strat currently has .010s on it.

i say "accidentally" because i didn't know what gage strings originally came on the stratocaster and i couldn't find it anywhere, so i bought fender bullets in "regular" size, which is .011, figuring that regular was the regular size. apparently it's not. apparently "mediuM" is the regular size. numbskulls!

i found playing some dallas green songs helped with my pinky, along with some acoustic and barre chords

Similar I think to what I used to do back when I was learning classical guitar...

But my teacher would make me start on the low E in first position and run a pattern 1234, 1324, 1423...etc all the way to the fourth position and then move to the A and move from 4th position to first and then to the D...so on and so forth to the high E...and then back down GRRRR!

I'll try to post a better visual later...

G/