Finger Independence Exercises Starting on Your First Finger

February 16, 2021 Dave Dougherty

Finger independence exercises are often overlooked when guitarists put together their practicing routines. Although they aren't the most exciting things to play, for the beginning guitarists these exercises can offer the quickest way to make coordination problems and more advanced techniques easier to play.

Like any other technique on a guitar, it's important to break down the larger topic into smaller, more easily digestible bits. In this lesson we will focus on finger independence examples for the first finger of your fretting hand. In later lessons we will cover exercises starting on the other three fingers, as well as adding additional techniques to making these a little more interesting and challenging.

First Finger Independence Exercises for Guitar

By limiting ourselves to starting each example on the first finger we’re leaving ourselves the challenge of changing with the other three fingers do. All of the exercises in this lesson start on the third fret and utilize the four fret spread technique I discussed in the previous lesson: What to do With Your Fretting Hand When You're Beginning Guitar.

Each of the examples in this lesson start on the sixth string and climb to the first string before coming back down to where you started. You don't have to play them like this-I have laid them out this way for ease-of-use-you can start on any string and any frets that you’d like as long as you cycle through all six strings. Also, be sure to use alternate, or up-down, picking for all the exercises.

Example 1 is the most obvious way to play through each finger. Because of this it should feel the most natural, and be the easiest, to play. As you can see in the example you start with your first finger on fret three then go to your second finger on fret four, your third finger on fret five, your fourth finger on fret six, and so on up-and-down the strings.

You can see in Example 2 that all I have done is change the order in which fingers three and four are placed. This goes back to breaking down the larger problem or technique into smaller bites. I’ve done this throughout to make sure I didn't miss all the possibilities and to keep things simple to build upon. For this exercise the fret order is 3-4-6-5, or if you choose to play them this on another set of frets, the finger pattern is 1-2-4-3.

Example 3 is the first of two exercises that focus on using fingers one and three as the first two in the pattern. The finger order for the third example is 1-3-2-4 or the fret pattern 3-5-4-6. Like Example 2, Example 4 changes the order of the last two fingers from the example before it. Example 4’s fret order is 3-5-6-4, or finger pattern 1-3-4-2.

Finally, Examples 5 and 6 continue the trend of switching finger patterns to starting with your first and fourth fingers and changing the order in which your second third fingers land. Example 5 has the finger order of 1-4-2-3 and is played on the frets 3-6-4-5. The finger pattern for Example 6 is 1-4-3-2 and is played starting on the fret three, going to fret six, then playing fret four, and finishing off the grouping on fret five.

These last two examples depict what I like to call an “Outside-Inside” pattern. This is where you focus on starting an exercise with your first and fourth fingers and wrap up the pattern with your second and third fingers. Click the “Outside-Inside” text above to learn more about this pattern idea in a previous blog.

While they are not the most exciting things to play, finger independence exercises offer great ways to focus on small variations of a larger technique and make a great warm-up for your practice regimens.

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For the other finger independence posts in the series click the links below:

Header Image Attribution: Flickr Creative Commons: Kristina Servant