Finger Independence Exercises Starting on Your Second Finger
Many beginning guitarists run into physical limitations that prevent them from continuing to play. One of these is the fact that your second and third, or your middle and ring, fingers share a tendon. This makes moving them independently from one another a challenge in the beginning.
Luckily, targeted finger independence exercises can minimize this natural limitation. In this third installment of the five-part finger independent study, we will focus on exercises that start on your second finger and will start to reduce the effects and of moving in unfamiliar ways.
Second Finger Independence Exercises for Beginning Guitarists
For this post the examples featured all take place by the nut of the fingerboard and utilize the Four Fret Spread technique for frets one through four. Like the other post mentioned these examples give the finger pattern as well, because they can be played on any group of four sequential frets.
Example 1 starts with your second finger on the second fret of the low E-string, then moves to the first fret with your first finger, next your third finger on the third fret, and finally your fourth finger on the fourth fret. The pattern continues this way up to the high E-string before descending back to the low E.
This is one of the rare times where the fret numbers in the pattern simultaneously represent the finger order. Because of this, I'll spare you the description of the finger pattern of the examples.
The second exercise changes the order in which your third and fourth fingers are placed from the first example. Instead of the pattern being 2–1–3–4, the order for Example 2 is 2–1–4–3. Despite the order change it moves up and down the strings in the same way as the previous example.
Example 3 is the first of two patterns I like to call the “Inside-Outside” patterns. I discuss them previously in the post titled: What to do With Your Fretting Hand When You're Beginning Guitar. The inside part of the name refers to the pattern beginning with your second and third fingers before finishing the pattern with the two outside fingers: your pointer and pinkie. The pattern for example three moves across the guitar like the other exercises with the front order of 2–3–1–4.
Example 4 is the other version of an “Inside-Outside” pattern and changes the order that you your first and fourth fingers are placed. Instead of the 2–3–1–4 order of Example 3, this exercise has the finger pattern of 2–3–4–1.
You wouldn't imagine such a simple change could matter much for your playing, but this isn't true. Muscle memory plays a big role in being able to play anything on the guitar, so if you're not used to playing a specific way you'll get tripped up as you try to play the new pattern.
The last two examples continue the trend of making small changes, but focus on the relationship between your second and fourth fingers. These could be thought of as the even on examples since both start with your second and fourth fingers and finish with your first and third fingers.
Example 5 starts with your second finger on the second fret, goes to your fourth finger on the fourth fret, then to your first finger on the first fret, and finishes with your third finger on the third fret. Like all the previous examples, this begins on the low E-string and cycles through all six strings.
Example 6, again, changes the order of the last two fingers. For this final exercise the fret order and finger pattern is 2-4-3-1. This type of pattern is one of my favorites to practice because it has both an ascending and descending aspect to it. This type of pattern is great because it works toward breaking our natural inclination to play in linear ways, or only going up or down the pattern. Later on we’ll come back to this way of thinking and how you can apply it to scales to make them sound more musical.
If you’ve found this or other posts helpful, please leave a comment below or click the share button to spread the word on your social media channels. As always, keep shredding!
For the other finger independence posts in the series click the links below:
What to do with Your Fretting Hand When You're Beginning Guitar
Finger Independence Exercises Starting on Your Fourth Finger
Header Image Attribution: Flickr Creative Commons: Alan Levine