Finger Separation Exercise

[Noah Berends]

Hey all, so I was bored in class (what’s new?) and I started comparing my left hand to my right hand and seeing how far I can separate my fingers. During this fidgeting, I figured out that on my left hand (fretting hand, as I’m right handed), my middle finger and ring finger can only get about half as far away from each other in comparison to my right hand. For example, I can make the Vulcan salute with my right hand just fine, but on my left fretting hand, I can barely make the same gesture. Is there an exercise I can do to increase this stretching distance? Mainly to increase fret-to-fret reach between the two fingers.

 

[idssdi]

I can actually go further with my left hand(my fretting hand). I think I developed it by learning songs with big stretches like tornado of sould solo. Another thig i did was tapping a table and reaching a little bit further in between fingers everytime

 

[Ed Seith]

I had to check .
Right now, my left and right are roughly identical, stretch wise. I have short fingers, and the stretch needed is a bit more important for me than I give it time for. The simple exercise is using your other hand to gently spread the fingers until you feel some stretch. Don’t hurt yourself but you can develop more spacing over time by stretching and conditioning the muscle and ligature regularly before you play or any time. I used this video for guidance a few years ago, maybe you’ll find something here helpful.

 

[Noah Berends]

Thanks for the reference Ed, I’ll check it out for sure. I have pretty large fingers, so stretches aren’t too terrible usually, but I figure I should work to have as much dexterity as I can.