Jratwen wrote: I have a tough time getting the pinky to move independent of the ring finger. I feel I have been able to work past this with the other three right hand fingers, but after working the pinky both on and away from the guitar the past week or so - seems I have had only limited effect - the ring finger still wants to move a good deal in sympathy with the pinky finger. Just curious if any of you have had good success overcoming this.
Thanks - Jim
THAT's the
trick:
DON'T try to gain pinky independence from the ring finger. Anatomically, it's not going to happen because the ring finger and pinky finger muscles are too interrelated. But, when you experiment at bit with pinky, you'll notice that:
- pinky falls, naturally, to about the same string as the index finger. Check that out. Thus, pinky can be an index-finger 'helper'. For example, if your index finger is used/'busy' on G (string 3), pinky falls, naturally, onto #3 ! Thus, pinky can be used for 'pick-up' notes, for example on string 3, when your middle and ring fingers are busy, elsewhere, like on strings #2 and #1.
- While no two fingers alternate as well as index and middle fingers and, as you pointed out, trying to alternate the ring finger with the pinky is fighting a losing battle, the index and ring fingers alternate acceptably well AND the index and pinky alternate acceptably well ! Try it.
So what? Why not just alternate between index and middle fingers, as usual? Well, when the index and middle fingers, which are side-by-side, alternate, they produce a similar sound due to their proximity. However, because pinky is perhaps 3 inches (or so) closer to the bridge than the index finger, when pinky and index fingers alternate, they produce more contrasting sounds. Pinky produces the crisper (higher harmonics) sound due to being closer to the bridge. Thus, a pinky-index alternation adds an additional tone color to your 'toolchest'.