Best Finger Exercise For Guitar

In this lesson, I'm going to show you another picking exercise. But this one we're going to use both of our hands. So hopefully you've done your first picking exercise with just using the right hand. And in this exercise, it's a little bit what we call like a spider exercise. We're going to be doing three down strums and we're going to be using our first three fingers on our fretting hand. Now we're going to start at the fifth fret of the guitar. So you'll want to find count up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It should be your second dot. If you have a dot on the third fret, your next dot will be at your fifth. And we're going to start at the top string. All right. And we're just going to use the three fingers. Don't worry about this pinky yet. We will get there when we get to the next one. Let's focus on getting these three fingers working really well because these are the three fingers you're going to use the most for your chords. So it's best. Let's focus on what we need first and then we can add the pinky back in. So we've got. Our first finger is going to be on the fifth fret on the top string. Our second finger is going to be on the sixth fret and our third finger is going to be on the seventh fret. So these fingers, each finger owns its own fret. Okay. So first fret owns the fifth string. Second finger owns the sixth, third finger owns the seventh. Alright. And we're going to do three down strums and we're going to strum, we're going to pick, not strums, we do down picks.

So we got 5, 6, 7.

So it's going to be fingers 1, 2, 3, fret number 5, 6, 7.

Alright. And that's why that first picking exercise is important because hopefully you don't have to watch this hand as much anymore because now the focus has to be on the left hand or you're. If you're a righty, you're right. Sorry, has to be on your fretting hand. I can't do left and right this morning. So for me it's my left hand. If you're a lefty, it'll be your right hand. So the fretting hand on the guitar, so we want 1, 2, 3 is the fingers, but the frets are 5, 6, 7, 7. And we're going to go all the way down to the bottom string. So it's going to sound like this.

Five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven.

Okay, so we're going to do that. Let's do that again, top to bottom.

Five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven.

All right, now, when you get to the bottom, we're going to go backwards.

We're going to go seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven million six, five, seven, six's five, seven, six, five thousand seven, six, five.

And our picking hand is just doing all down picks right now. So let me do that again. I'll go very slow. So we're going to do five, six, seven, all the way to the bottom. And then when we get to the bottom string, we're going to play that seventh fret twice and come backwards all the way up to the top. So let's take it from the very beginning. I'll count us in. I'll give us a four count. One, two, three, four. Ready?

Five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven.

Now backwards.

Seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven, six, five.

Now, you'll notice I went slow and I kept the tempo consistent. You'll want to work with this with a metronome. Okay. And the goal again for all my exercises is try to get to 100 beats per minute. So if there's a click.

We want to make sure that each note that we play lines up with a click on the metronome. So start very slow. You might not be able to do this in the beginning with a metronome. Things to pay attention for. So a lot of students will do this. They'll go.

So they can play the three notes pretty quick, but they can't switch between the strings. So I would rather you go nice and slow and have it sound like this.

1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3.

So I'd rather you keep a consistent tempo and go a little bit slower than play really fast and have these spaces.

So that's not the goal of the exercise. The goal of the exercise is 1, 2, to start building some dexterity in this fretting hand, because that's going to become important for when we do chords. All right? So really, in the beginning, we're working on building up dexterity in our hands so that they're more able to handle the chords that we're going to learn on our guitar. So I'm going to go in for a close up just to show you this up close. And I'll go at a slow but consistent speed. So if you can't play along with me right now, that's not a big deal. Practice, Take your time, practice and eventually you'll be able to play along with me and probably go faster than I'm going in this video. So let's go in for that close up.

Alright, here I am for a close up. So my first finger is on the fifth fret of my guitar and I'm.

Gonna go five, six, seven.

Ready?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven, five, six, seven.

And then we're going to repeat seven.

Six, five, seven, six, five backwards.

All right, so let me do that one more time. I'll do it a little bit quicker this time. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3.

And there you have it. That is the picking exercise. So, so practice that. Practice it along with a metronome. Practice it without a metronome. But your focus is just working on these three fingers for now. In our next picking exercise, we're going to add the fourth finger in. But for now just focus on those three fingers. Get this up to 100 beats per minute, all the way down, all the way back up. You can do it multiple times. You can rotate through this as many times as you like. I'd recommend doing this for at least one to two minutes if you have a short practice routine. So if you're only practicing 10, 10 minutes, make this one to two minutes of your practice routine. It's a warm up exercise that you can start with and then you can practice. If you're learning chords, you can practice your chord changes as well. So there you go. That is the picking exercise and I'll see you in the next video.