I got a guitar on tuesday. It's a Schecter Omen-6, and it's pretty nice, pretty pretty, pretty cool, and I like it. While I like it, my fingers on the other hand (well, my left hand, but you know what I mean) do not like guitar at all. My pinky refuses to cooperate. It gets stuck on my ring finger, and when it's not stuck, it's a pain to get it to reach more than 2 or 3 frets, which is useless.

A guitar book I have has this exercise in it:



At the end you slide up a fret and then do the same in reverse going back down the strings, and then slide up again and go back up. I cannot do this. My fingers do not want to stretch all the way, and it's nearly impossible for me to play this well.

Are my fingers just stupid, or is it like this for everyone when they're starting out? Is there any particular exercise that will help?

It's not easy at first. Give yourself some time, your fingers will be able to stretch eventually.

Yeah, just keep at it. Also, I'm not sure if your book says this or you if know it, but make sure when you're going down on that pattern (not reverse) you hold down your fingers on the fret they hit until you have to switch strings. It'll build strength that way.

Don't stop no matter what. That exercise is crucial for good finger positioning.

^Amen.

Yeah, generally, the pinky muscles and ring finger muscles seem to be linked somewhere or something, and it takes much time and exercise to get them to work independently from each other. And if your pinky is double jointed, that's just something more annoying to deal with later on. It used to be that certain chords would make my pinky bend backwards, but that isn't the case anymore. In fact, it's been a long time since I've even had that problem with leads, so it can be overcome as well.

Yeap, what everyone said. Everybody starts out that way.

That's a relief, thanks.

Also, if anyone has any more newbie guitar tips, that'd be groovy.

For a newbie song just learn Dammit by Blink 182. Dammit was the first full song I learned. It's got a little riff that it good practice, then the chorus and verses are just power chords. If you don't know what that is, they're easy-as-pie chords that only use 3 notes like....

D-----7777-3333---------------------------------------------- A-----7777-3333----------------------------------------------- E-----5555-1111-----------------------------------------------

It also has a little solo thing that's 4 notes. It sounds purdy. Plus almost everybody likes that song. It's also a good song to learn to sing and play at the same time. The only time you sing is during the easy chords and the music changes along with the words.

Your fingers will get used to it. I remember my pinky would bend the wrong way so I'd try to use my thumb instead for all the chords that needed 4 fingers.
Another thing is if you practice enough, your fingers will hurt like mad. No way to avoid this. Just rest for the day and play again tomorrow. You'll be able to play longer before they start to hurt. Your fingers may callouse, which looks odd and helps prevent the hurt. Finally, if you keep playing the callouses should go away, your fingertips with be hard, and you can jam all day.

Hope that vaguely helps.
Edit: I can't figure out how to post the tab lol. Er... a power F would be the bottom string 1st fret, 5th string 3rd fret, and the 4th string 3rd fret.

That should work. Anyway, Vin, just keep working the exercises. Your fingers will eventually gain strength and independence... If you work them properly, that is. If you take shortcuts, it won't help.

Don't forget to alternate pick that 1234 exercise, too. It helped so much.

Alternate pick? Is that just picking up and then picking down? I've been doing that.

Keep practicing. My tip in general is to try to have your thumb on the back of the neck. There are exceptions but this is generally a good habit to fall into.

Yea, Vincent your doing it right then. I had the bad luck of teaching myself and didn't realize that I could alternate pick and by that time I was playing Eruption without doing it. (Although not as well as it is now)

an exception would be when you fall into blues/pentatonic scales.

here are two basic scales you can mess around with. first one is an A minor pentatonic. and the second is an A blues.


|-----------------------5-8-|
|-------------------5-8-----|
|---------------5-7---------|
|-----------5-7-------------|
|-------5-7-----------------|
|-(5)-8---------------------|

|-------------------------5-8-|
|---------------------5-8-----|
|---------------5-7-8---------|
|-----------5-7---------------|
|-------567-------------------|
|-(5)-8-----------------------|

I put the Root (in this case, A) in parenthesis. if you want to do an a# scale, move this whole scale pattern up one fret. same thing for every key.

I know the feeling.... actually I dont because I'm no good at leads and have no desire to really get better at playing lead.

But it took me a while to get used to alternate picking, same with fingerpicking, although now I am a fingerpicking maestro master monarch.

There's no reason to wrap your thumb around to play them.

the idea is to keep your thumb -not- fixed. so it's not always wrapped around. it shifts.