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Old 01-04-2022, 02:48 PM
Deliberate1 Deliberate1 is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: Maine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AndreF View Post

A couple of things for your consideration, based on that pic:
Your hand does appear overly tense in that position. Ideally you should try to place the fingers as close to the upper fret as you can, i.e. like where your middle finger is currently. Your ring finger looks like it's pinching on the middle finger.
A solution would be to work on finger separation and independence. That will loosen a lot of that tension. There are many drills for that. It will take time, but the payoff is big. A little bit every day.
Your knuckle position is otherwise good though.
The nail on your ring finger looks very long. Or is that a weird camera effect? Keeping those nails as short as you can will help you fret a lot more cleanly. Looking at the pic it would seem that the 5th string (B) note is being muffled by the ring finger. Having the nail too long makes proper fretting difficult. Apologies if it's just a camera effect.
You might want to try this drill as a starter:
Leave the pinky planted on the G note, but fret a C chord with the other fingers. Then move to the G as you show it, but leaving the pinky planted.
The idea is to leave one planted as you move the other. That is the basis of many finger independence drills. I think those would be very useful for you.
Andre, thank your very much for those insights.
First of all, I just grabbed the guitar to take the shot to show finger configuration. But you are absolutely correct that, in an "action" shot, I would want to have the fingers closer to the fret.
What looks like a long ring finger nail is actually a halo from being back lit by the sun. The nail is actually quite short.
You "nailed" it (so to say) when you observed the close proximity of the middle and ring fingers. In fact, I do find that the string assigned to the middle finger is sometimes muted by the ring finger, It is something I am aware of and work to avoid. Part of the problem is my tendency to let my left hand "wing out" or twist away from the fret board, rather than stay parallel with it.
I am much obliged for the suggestion for the independence drills and will incorporate them into my daily routine.
Thanks again.
David
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