The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Seems the pinky finger on my left hand has a bad hair day - he`s so weak the strings are buzzing when I try to hit a note.
Do you know some good exercises to strengthen my left hand on the guitar?

Greetings,
Shuffle

Yes play more guitar, getting more strength is a natural process the same as going to a gym, there is no quick way to get a six pack you have to work at it, play until it hurts then stop and rest until it doesn't, don't keep playing if your in pain that's just pointless. There are some exercise machines to help though if you want to keep building those muscles when your not playing, try searching for Gripmaster.

Best excercise for my pinky has been lots of playing - deliberately going for notes on the scale or mode that need to be played by the little finger - it's so much stronger now, and as a result I find myself using it a lot instead of the ring finger. Very noticeable when I got my most recent guitar - I got the usual blackening of the fingers from the fretboard and the little finger was probably the most coated in black of all of them.

Gripmaster is indeed handy , especialy when your driving and stuck in traffic etc

But as has been stated .......there is no easy way other than getting stuck into some regular ....( like every time you pick up your guitar !!) routines
Like Chromatic scales right up and down your neck using all 4 fingers
and
hammer ons and pull offs using both ring and little finger ..use the standard Pentatonic shape .and do hammer ons from low E to High E
and Pulls offs going back up from the high E

5-8
5-8
5-7
5-7
5-7
5-8

all the notes on the 8th fret must be cleanly executed using your Pinkie

Do that every day for 3 months .....................and report back please !!!

Thank you for your tips. I was in town but a Gripmaster was nowhere to be found. Instead I bought a funny little jelly ball that you have to squeeze with your fingers to gain hand strength. I was told that this was mostly used by freeclimbers or to recover the hand after an injury. I hope it works.
And I have widened out my guitar practice time from half an hour to a daily amount of two hours. One hour in the morning and the other in the evening.
@Strummer07: okay, I have included the exercise you suggested into my daily warm-up routine. I`ll report back in three months how much it has helped me improve my playing.

Greetings,
Shuffle

Having got the new guitar back with the new pups installed I've been trying it out and I'm still getting the black gunk coming off on my fingers from the fretboard as you do with a new guitar.

The black on my fingers shows how much I use the pinky.

I have a "gripmaster" medium strong.
I have it in my pocket of my coat and every time i go out i put my hand in my pocket and push the eehh things down (i don't now the name of it).
It's like playing the guitar with out the guitar, and for my it helps to get the pinky stronger

i do not now to put a foto in here, but google gripmaster and there it is....

I just find a song that requires me to use my pinky and add it to my practice routine. I used to play Last Resort by Papa Roach for just that reason. I didn't really love the song but it was a great workout for my pinky

EC rarely uses his. I don't see why I need to use mine!

Did Django use his pinky?

oneeyedslide wrote:Did Django use his pinky?

ring and little fingers had been paralysed to immovable hooks
see picture around 1/3 down the page linked here (section headed "Burning in the Caravan" http://www.jazzpartout.com/jazzmanouche ... Django.htm

Ouch! Thanks VB. Always encouraging to see how much can be done in spite of huge challenges. No worries there about building up his pinky.