I have been trying to get my alt picking speed and accuracy up lately and I have been playing a lot of chromatic exercises, 1-2-3-4 and its different variations.
My problem only only happens when I'm doing decending patterns with all four fingers. I fret the 4th note with my pinky, and my middle finger moves like an inch or more away from fretboard! Its really hard to prevent this from happening, even with the metronome on a snail pace I can barley control the middle finger from moving. The funny thing is, when I do all the other kinds of finger exercises my fingers seem completely independent.
Has anyone had a problem like this? Is the pinky stretch maybe causing some tension or something that is forcing my middle finger to move? Are the muscles on these fingers connected somehow? When Im playing accending 1-2-3-4 exercises, my fingers always hover exactly above the strings no problem.
Thanks,
Dustin
I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.
- Jimi Hendrix
Yes I have a similar problem, I think. I do these 1-2-3-4 finger excercises too up and down the neck and from string to string and my ring and pinky seem to be operating independantly, then I do something that involves rapid alteration between only pinky and ring finger and the nice cooperation I had before has vanished. I just do a little variation on those 1-2-3-4 excercises by just singling out two fingers at a time. I try to do rapid pinky-ring runs up and down and I am quite serious when I tell you I can feel it all the way up to my shoulder. So I don't overdo it. I work on it 5-10 minutes every morning. There seems to be a growing independance of motion but I think it takes time.
I have the same thing with my ring finger. After some research, my solution is to practice the move as slowly as possible without the extraneous finger movements.
Once my fingers get their "muscle memory", I speed it up. I guess my philosophy is twofold: I can't play it fast until I learn to play it slow.
Also, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanentm Perfect practice makes perfect. According to Tiger Woods' father, anyway. And I agree.
Matt
Going slowly with the metronome and really focusing on 1-2-3-4 exercises with perfect finger movement is working, it seems for me I just have to take i t really slow to retrain my fingers.
-Dustin
I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.
- Jimi Hendrix
When you think about it, moving these fingers independantly in this way is something those particular hand muscles have NEVER had to do before. It is no wonder we have to go at it slow and build up the ability.
