3 Ways To Fix "Flailing Fingers" On Guitar (Finger Independence Drills)

[@frannyd1217]

I just wanted to tell you that I am playing many years. Mostly self-taught but I have tried lessons a few times. I am so frustrated because no matter how much I practice and play, I can not progress to be good enough to play in front of others. My playing is very sloppy and inaccurate. That is UNTIL I found your video last night. I literally practice what you said for about a half hour only yet I've improved tremendously on my accuracy, speed of chord changes & proper finger and wrist positions. I literally thought I was dreaming. I will continue and am now confident that I can progress tremendously thanks to you!!! Thank you so much and I will continue to follow your guide.

[@arunkarthikma3121]

After implementing the "tests" this guy recommended, I am now able to do crazy techniques like sweeping and tremolo picking without tension. This guy is a literal Guitar Doctor.

[@Punkypoetico]

What about doing spider walks while moving one finger at a time as the other fingers lay dormant on their respective strings until it’s it’s turn to move to the next string. I feel like this may train your fingers to be able to be more stable until their used

[@vikguitarbackingtracks]

I am very lucky to have found your channel and this video. I started to play the guitar 2 years ago. I had periods with different teachers but mostly self-taught. I practice a lot, around 10-15 hours a week. From level 0 I got to the point where I can play some iconic solos (November Rain, Sanitarium by Metallica, the intro solo of One etc.) but when I watch the recording I realize that my play is sloppy and my fingers flail - that clearly shows how inexperienced I am with the guitar. To me there is a very easy way of deciding who can or who cannot play the guitar well when I see a video. People whose fingers are very close to the frets during play and don't move away are the ones who can. Those, who have flailing fingers, cannot. A dream improvement for me would be to learn how to control my fretting hand and keep my fingers close to the frets all the time. I will immediately start the practice routine that you suggest. This is one of the most beneficial guitar videos I have ever seen, and believe me, I have seen literally hundreds in the subject. You should deserve many-many more subscribers. Subbed. Thank you.

[@seabass3373]

I enjoy your teaching because you attack the haunting questions and techniques directly. Thank you for being direct and frank

[@floydsmithjr7999]

This is essential stuff. And for those people, stop focusing on the sound, this is about technique. I’ll bet if you saw him playing live somewhere it would blow your socks off from inside your shoes. On that note, there’s something to putting yourself in a position where you have to perform up to speed, either by playing with other musicians or a recording, yeah you may fall on your ass, but you’ll learn a great deal about yourself.

[@nickkapatais]

1st Strategy - 3:52 2nd Strategy - 5:26 3rd Strategy - 6:21

[@j.m6334]

thx bud

[@amadeus7907]

Me: practicing guitar My body for some reason: would you like some neck pain ?

[@joshmuz9018]

That's from putting your head over your shoulders to look at the fretboard. Careful man it can get severe if you keep going with it

[@smallcheddar3012]

Like the guy above me said you’re craning your neck to look at the fretboard most likely, i just got a pinched nerve from doing that this past week, make sure to take breaks 😅

[@akitatrips]

Woooaaahhhh I am a beginner, I started on 5th June and I just realised what I was doing was wrong. Thank youuuuuu!

[@MundMoriginal]

Yeah, but more important is, that the fingers aren't tense. There are a lot of moves you can do where trying to keep all fingers tight over the fretboard just tenses you up and makes you play worse. But yeah, uncontrolled flying fingers should be addressed, so you are concious about it. The sooner you take care of it, the better. I currently having to adjust my thumb placement, based on one of your videos. It eeally helped, I ofte had the thumb turn into another direction when moving acroas the fretboard, making timing and stmina hard to keep up.

[@Perry_Talion]

I noticed that too. I had flying fingers but my accuracy and cleanness were on a whole other level. I noticed that flying fingers are the reason I find myself unable to do scales faster. Correcting the flying fingers made me tense up even more and my right hand would also start tensing up making me play worse eventually. Now I cannot choose between better technique and better sound.😅

[@MiketheNerdRanger]

@@Perry_Talion well that sucks. Does that mean this video is useless?

[@mysteriesoftherealm]

Awesome, Thank you! mine isn't bad but, I'm not even good enough to have bad habits. Now I know what to concentrate on so it doesn't happen.

[@floydsmithjr7999]

I’ll bet you’re not as bad as you tell yourself you are, Im with you on what to focus on. Id love to be able to shred an Eddie Vanhalen solo but thats not gonna happen till I can cleanly run through a scale the proper way. I think its important that before you even pick up you guitar get your mind right. I remember one time I was aimlessly jamming with whatever came on the radio, Steve Miller Jungle Love came on, I made it through the whole progression and the fills right to the end, I don’t know where it came from it just fell out of my fingers. The next day and every day since when I try to play that song its equivalent to the sound of a flushing toilet 🚽. What keeps me going is I know I can do this, I know its in there, I just have to figure out how to get it out. As a drummer a similar thing happened in a garage full of people, Zeppelin Bring it on home came on, I blazed through the whole song while jaws dropped open, I have no idea where it came from, to do that again I would have to sit down with the song and work it out for days. The mind is a complicated and fascinating thing.

[@diy-doityourselfconcacique4353]

really good explanation

[@outsiderview3335]

i like this guy

[@Iris-vo5gd]

Do you give lessons online? Like could you check how I play as a beginner and tell me what I'm doing wrong if I am?

[@bradsims5116]

Elbow positon is important to solve this problem too.

[@ooooooooopooooop7865]

How should I have it

[@dougaker5433]

My flying finger problem that I'm really struggling with involves the transition from an open chord, say a simple open C chord to a barre'ed B minor chord (think Travis-picking "Danny's Song" by Loggins and Messina). The flying finger that I'm experiencing is my barre'ing index finger. In the transition from the open C chord to the B minor barre chord, I'm able to get my three non-barre'ing fingers, my middle, ring and pinky fingers down quickly, but if I froze time, and took a photo at this point in time, you'd see that my barre'ing index finger has flown away from the finger board, and even worse, curled away. So, at this point, the only hope I have to complete the formation of the barre'ed B minor chord is to uncurl the index finger and slap it down in panic fashion. Wouldn't it be a lot better, as far as economy of movement and finger independence if I simply didn't fly my barre'ing index finger away from the finger board and curl it? And yet what seems so easy to write down in this comment, is impossible for me to actually perform.

[@chakhla5614]

Hey, I usually have similar experiences. Playing like this makes my chord progression sound noisy or glitchy. Until recently, I have come up with a trick to get rid of this problem. So, if you are going to trasition from C to Bm, glide your index finger from 1st fret 2nd string to 3rd fret 5th string to reach the barre position and then, press down. You have to glide it with almost no weight on the string. Try this..

[@fpsLyle]

this is amazing thank you

[@AnthonySL11]

thank you so much sir

[@robdonell9915]

Does this apply to classical guitar too ?

[@kvltbastvrd6726]

Yes 🙄

[@scottkellogg8145]

Will this work for beginners

[@bobbyincidemetal]

Thank you!!!

[@spah_tf2]

im in the deepest rabbit hole rn, i wanted to play fight fire with fire. but i need to work on alternate picking, so im working on thunderstuck, but my hands are flailing so damn much it makes the song hard to play

[@mazzorcca5491]

Another great video!

[@GiltleyRage]

Thanks for the tips! What about spider walk? I heard it can help greatly reducing this issue. Would you recommend it?

[@HowToPracticeGuitar]

For most people it doesn't work because of "how" they practice. No exercise is a magic bullet. At the same time, if you practice it (or anything) the right way, then anything can be a good exercise. See my video about it here: practiceguitarnow.com/Guitar-Exercises

[@thehumanrampage]

If this works so well why do you keep flailing your fingers when you play in other videos?

[@osbaldohernandez9174]

Never got into guitar because of the finger placement and knowing how much pressure to apply that’s why I stopped trying and played drums

[@MiketheNerdRanger]

I discovered that another reason my fingers tense up so much is because they have to in order to press the strings. I have to press them harder than I think do, and I can't seem to do that while doing these practices. It's way too easy to relax too much and then the strings don't ring. Is there a technique for this, or do I switch to a lighter gauge?

[@mattgilbert7347]

You're not wrong. Most punk/alternative players were self-taught and by the time adulthood roles around, it's prohibitively difficult to change technique. The younger you are when learning this stuff, the better.

[@KUDGHAT1]

What do u have to say about nunoz left hand distancing ??????????

[@Elektrifekt]

25 years later I find this video 🤦‍♂️

[@jlewand]

I am a horrible player (to set context). I offer my comments not as a replacement for the genius (not sarcastic, this guy is WAY ahead of the curve) in this video but to offer it for discussion. After 40 years of occasional playing, now retired, I'm attempting to play an hour every day. I stumbled across many flailing pinky videos. Here is what I've attempted to "ramp up" fixing this problem. At first, it's virtually impossible to unlink the pinky from the ring finger when fretting. So, I started out cheating by curling the pinky down and against the palm and lowering it below the fretboard and then bringing my hand towards me to "pin" the curled down pinky up against the side of the fretboard. This makes it impossible for the pinky to escape that and "join" the ring finger movement. I also practice when I fret with the ring finger, at the same time send the pinky towards the palm (in effect making the pinky and ring finger go opposite directions). Also, keep that thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and keep curling (hovering when you get better) that pinky at all times. There is also a drill (youtube) whereby you do pairs of "opposite" string walking. Pinky on high E string while ring finger goes to low E string (1 fret closer to the nut), Then flip flop with pinky on Low E, ring on high E. Then pinky on B string, ring finger on A string, etc. Like a spider walk but NO picking. Just the opposite string walking fretting.

[@mattgilbert7347]

I tried this but now my ring finger won't move

[@Shirgur]

Great tips! Can you anytime in the future explain picking hand position and muting, I find it hard to mute the sting right next to one I play using my right hand, for example I can't mute the G string if I pick a note on the B string because the upward or downward motion of the pick prevents muting it

[@richardjones2811]

Use your thumb!

[@SombraPiloto]

@@richardjones2811 Using the thumb to mute the G string puts the left hand in an extremely awkward position.

[@knowledgejosh654]

This doesn't give me a solution to just one problem in my guitar playing but also a solution to a lot of the problems in my life lol

[@jackhargreaves1911]

More true than many people might realise. As a chartered psychologist, I would often teach people to (initially) exaggerate their problematic thoughts and/or behaviours. The effects were profound. The people who did it most also made the most progress. Those who blanched at the idea made less progress.

[@vikguitarbackingtracks]

@@jackhargreaves1911Wow, this was interesting to hear (read). So the first step of getting off of bad habits is to exaggerate them for a while?

[@UjjwalChand-sc4tu]

No offense meant, but this video is more about an invite to join the master class 😢 than demonstrating intensively on how to fix 🔧the problem !

[@mattgilbert7347]

My fourth (pinky) finger lags behind all of the others.

[@trashdrumming]

i missed the solution ? or is it in the next video

[@yourmad6923]

Bro the amount of times he blinked….

[@dirtbikejess434]

its only my pinkie that flys up high lmao

[@Skellyhandstringz]

It's my pinky finger it keeps naturally coming down it don't stay uppp ughh

[@Iris-vo5gd]

I am a beginner and I am holding the guitar's neck as if I am holding on for my life and choking it🤦🏻‍♀️

[@rjjrdq]

according to the journal of hand surgery (yes, there is such a publication) 18% of the population do not have independent control of their pinky. They studied violinists, but it can be applied to guitar as well. All the exercises in the world won't change anything for the 18%.

[@guilhermerosa955]

You don't need to think much to realize that the percentage of perfectly healthy people that are anatomically incapable of fixing such a bad technique is way, way less than 18%. Everything you're not used to is gonna feel like it's not right for you, even if you go in with all the motivation in the world you're gonna hit a wall eventually. In the guitar world, 1 in every 10 comments here on KZbin is about how their hands can't do that, they're too small, their pinky doesn't have strenght, their ring or pinky finger doesn't move independently. Eventually after you practice (and find what works for you, because we're all anatomically different, but most of the people that are healthy are not anatomically INCAPABLE) all that goes away and suddenly you're able to do stuff that felt anatomically impossible, making you realize it was all just part of a learning process. Note that when the study say that people do not have independent control of their pinky finger could be a anatomical definition but could very easily be interpreted and dealt with as a skill STATE, not definition. And that state can be applied to many motor skills: your brain is powerful and can work your way around your anatomical limitness and you can feel the effects of pinky independence on guitar but you could suddenly feel like you're locked again when it comes to other motor skills.

[@AJGomez613]

3:45 inglis no good, but you say something odd her

[@williammolina9792]

Amazing technique, but horrible guitar sound.

[@kostas4758]

Good tips but please fix your guitar sound

[@LelleKidd]

Is ”flailing” really a word?

[@vikguitarbackingtracks]

Yes.

[@jesscassidy2928]

If you communicated for directly and succinctly, with more demonstrations, I would follow. I hope you take your own approach and re-teach yourself towards better communication.

[@fnder_bender101]

First

[@gunjaghosh1742]

Q

[@eldarjanelopezon180]

The problem is i cant wear my guitar like that

[@aiden1883]

That's cos he shreds

[@rolandcervera8049]

To much talking

[@edardnaivad]

amongos

[@cushpnk]

😢

[@koparshing4463]

Theory without practical is useless..like wise u talk too much n u dnt show practical to overcome that flying hands..it's like sitting in da class n listening to a topic but no idea at all n dint understand😅😅😅

[@atibakojo3478]

Talks way to much.

[@choochoochooseyou]

Way too much talking

[@jesscassidy2928]

It is difficult to watch your videos and I won’t be subscribing. The video should have been 5 minutes, but you are repetitive and add to much overbearing and unnecessary exposition.

[@dubravkaliveric3814]

To much talking