Guitar Advice Needed on Technique

[Jak Angelescu]

Hey there! I’ve been watching Papa Gates and Syn on these videos and them among other guitarists, I have learned, have one thing in common. They all can do bends and vibratos with their friggin’ pinky fingers! And when they bend, they bend ever so effortlessly. My pinky is like half the length of Syn’s. I have such small hands and fingers, so doing anything like a bend or a vibrato with the pinky on the string seriously seems like an impossibility.Is this something that I’ll just have to work around and develop my own approach or will leaving out my pinky with bends and vibratos make future licks trickier and harder? Also, I started out my lead stuff with blues and blues-rock based licks with a lot of bends. And I feel like no matter how hard I practice, my finger strength just can’t fully “grab” the string and bend fluidly, quickly and smoothly. I fumble so badly coming out of the bends. It just seems like I don’t have the strength or the control. I’m starting from the very beginning with these videos and really trying to polish up any little bad habits I may have formed, but the struggle with bending strength and using the pinky for bends and vibratos just doesn’t seem to be coming. I use my pinky all the time but just never with those two things. Any advice, suggestions, similar struggles? Thank you all so much!

 

[Ben Thorpe]

Yeah, I usually avoid the pinky whenever I’m doing string bends. The furthest I go is bending with my third finger. It’s just become a habit for me now! Also be sure to place your thumb above the neck of the guitar whenever you’re bending the B or the E string, and put a lot of pressure behind the neck. It makes it a lot easier so you don’t fret out!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Thanks for the advice! But about the thumb, If I wrap my thumb around the top I almost literally physically can’t reach hardly anything. I learned classical style first so my thumb is always behind the neck. Now doing any other way is just… I can only wrap my thumb around the neck on a super good day

 

[Ben Thorpe]

You only want your thumb placed on the top of the neck when you’re playing mainly on the B or the E string. If I’m string bending on the other strings then I don’t bother

 

[Jak Angelescu]

But that DOES make me feel good that even a man (who I’m sure your hands are bigger than mine) doesn’t use the pinky either. I just look at Papa Gates’ and Syn’s hands and I’m like “Dear Lord dude you could play guitar and pick your nose at the same time with fingers that long.” I’ve always been so nervous that my hand size was going to be a big issue with my playing in the future.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Oh okay! I’m pretty sure I can do that. When I get home to my guitar I’m going to try that out!

 

[Noah Berends]

I always bend with my ring finer out of habit and preference. I don’t think it’s ever been detractive. As with anything I’m sure it’s all in the practice you put in.

 

[Robert Freeborn]

When I did a college guitar program, all of the instructors insisted we should be able to bend with every finger (even the first which is not something I commonly do in playing). It takes a lot of practice to be able to bend equally well with all fingers (not to mention building up those calluses when they weren’t as necessary) but can elevate your playing. That said, I think you could work around it, but it never hurts to practice it! Even if you don’t utilize it, it’s a nice skill to have in your tool box.

 

[D K]

I can do bends with my pinky but I generally try to avoid it because I like my ring or middle fingers much more for bending. Avoiding to use my pinky for bends has never really interfered with my playing.
Something you can do to make bending easier (that you might have already heard) is to use the other fingers behind the one that you are bending with for extra strength.

 

[Jake Young]

I just watched this the other day..just listening to Steve talk about the guitar is inspiring to me..he’s very insightful but he’s a master and you might find this helpful

 

[Angela Grant]

I have freakishy big hands for a girl, but small compared to most men, so I totally understand where you are coming from. One thing that helped me and also something I taught my students was to run scales as an exercise where you work on vibrato with every note/finger. Hope this helps!

 

[Syn Gates]

When I bend with my pinky I also use the rest of my fingers to bend the string as well. Once you get used to it it’s actually easier than other fingers because you have the strength of four fingers as opposed to three. Sometimes you will end a phrase on your pinky and want to bend that note seemlessly with out shifting so I would definitely recommend working on it. Hope this helps.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Yes!! That helps a lot! Thank you so much! Btw, I just read over my comment on another forum about Burn It Down having “typical chord progression and typical rhythm in the beginning”. I should have said “classic” because “typical” sounded kind of rude and condescending. Hopefully it didn’t come off like that. Thanks again, I really do appreciate your help, brother!

 

[idssdi]

Like syn said said. When using your pinky to bend pretty m7ch everyone uses all the other fingers too. Itakes it easier to do like david gilmour style bends(which are very nice btw). Also as for your pinky. I would really advice using it for pretty much everything(never leave it out) it makes it easier for especially weird stretch thing where you need to end with vibrato on the highest note and stuff.

 

[Tory Capman]

Yeah, listen to Ids Develop that pinky strength as early as you can. Because if you don’t, you’ll wish you had later. Not saying you can’t do amazing things without your pinky, but 4 fingers is always better than three