My left pinkie "pops"

[Green Craig]

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[waveform]

I know this may sound obvious but do you have health insurance? I have a nightmarish thing going on with pinkie right now. With out it your really in the dark about what may be going on. Muscles you can stretch, ligaments and tendons you can't, well you can but then it gets bad.

[edman]

I remember having the same problem when I started playing guitar. I assumed it was due to using my pinky in a new way. It went away over time as my playing skills improved.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Green Craig

It seems to be a tight tendon or something in my hand. But, when I extend my pinkie, then roll it down when I'm fretting a string, it makes a sorta violent snapping motion and "locks" itself down. Are there any stretches that can help the flexibility of my pinkie? I've actually found that I can help it for a few days at a time if I work on 4-finger exercises, or just manually stretch my finger out for a half hour or so.

Hi Green Craig…

The 'issue' you described is fairly common among my beginner students, and the cure is usually a matter of training the pinky to relax, not in stretching it. If you try to force the pinky, it seems to develop a mind of it's own.

Here's an exercise to help. This is a fretting hand only exercise (nothing is played with the strumming/picking hand)

• Form a C chord adding your pinky on the 3rd fret of the first string (0-3-2-0-1-3).
• Gently lift and move the pinky to the 3rd fret of the 2nd string
• Then lift and move it to the 3rd fret of the 3rd string
• Now reverse to the 2nd string then the 1st.
• If you feel your finger getting tense, keep it in place and relax it then move it.

This exercise is not about speed or timing. It's about learning to relax the pinky before you move it, and while using it to play…so it will move freely and independently. Only increase speed as you can keep it relaxed and move it.

Hope this helps...

[Norml]

The same thing happens to me . I've only been playing for about a month and it's starting to bug. Good to know it's not just me.

[815C]

Practice in SLOW MOTION with your hands TOTALLY RELAXED and see if that helps.