Hey everyone, sadly I have developed some bad habits and Im looking for a way to fix it.
The problem is my fretting hand’s middle finger. As you can see (and sorry for the quality of this thing, it was a quick upload didnt realise its potato) my middle finger bends, archs and curls in a weird way.
I can mask this by placing it near to my ring finger but I dont want to mask it I want to fix it. Besides that type of masking hinders my ability to stretch. So what type of exercises should I focus? I tried to play slowly but it didnt help.
On the other hand, Im quite happy with my plucking hand but please correct me if something seems wrong or absurd.
It’s ok. It’s quite common really. This may sound confusing at first but hear me out.
You are fretting too hard and you don’t have enough finger strength. Yet.
Throw in 5 minutes warming up of chromatic walk up and down the strings and fingerboard. Aim for just enough fretting pressure to sustain a note on each finger and pass. Spoiler alert, it’s so little. Add another 5 minutes set at the end of your session and don’t cheat, set the timer. When I started I did that for months.
Thanks! The thing is Ive been playing for a little more than a year, thats why I am a bit paranoid about bad habits. Is there any other exercise than chromatic scales that can help my finger strength like traditional hand grip strengtheners?
It’s about the intensity or better yet the lack of it. You just need to perfect the art of “I don’t give a Sh!t”
A few ways to do it besides practice till you are bored of the song, one of my favorite is to play along with no volume. Pretty much “Air bass” I don’t know if you play golf but it’s the same phenomenon as being “ball bound”.
Look at it another way, if your playing intensity doesn’t affect the speed or tone then it’s ok it’s just your style. It’s not a bad thing to play that genres with that kind of intensity but in general playing with less would extend your playing stamina. I won’t last a set with that.
For me my mantra is “try hard not to try hard” may not be good for all genres but works for most. Here’s what I’m talking about
Thats quite encouraging. And I will also make a habit of warmups before playing and daily chromatic scales to maintain good hand form. Thank you so much for your time and guidance, it meant a lot!
Yep. Al’s 100% right. This is a tough one too, don’t feel bad because learning to relax and play without too much pressure or intensity can take a long time. One thing you will also find is it will tend to come back when you are working on something at the edge of your skill.
This happens to literally all of us so you’re not alone.
Yeah it happens to me every new song I do get extra excited but once it’s under the fingers then it’s all good. . In general, I suffer the opposite problem as I’m way too relaxed especially on extended digging in, that’s why I can’t really get in to Rush, Geddy is way too intense for my playing style.
I don’t see an issue with what your middle finger is doing. Most of the time, it’s pretty neutral. It just bends when you are trying to do fifth and octave shapes. You have to curl your ring finger to those, and basic body mechanics mean that your middle finger curls too. Don’t worry about that.
I’ll second @Al1885 that it looks like you might be pressing too hard. Your hand isn’t relaxed, and that is exaggerating those basic body mechanics things.
Connected to the pressing to hard issue, it looks like you might be making fingers and thumb a bit too “sticky”. You’re relying on stretching your hand more than adjusting position to hit notes. It looks like you’re leaving your index finger on the fret when not necessary.
Like, you sort of place your thumb in a spot on the middle of the neck and hold it there moving the hand around until you shift your hand to a new position. You could try relaxing your hand and sliding your thumb all along the neck.
I’ll caveat what was said above that it’s not really about STRENGTH, it’s about CONTROL. If you’re pressing too hard, you don’t need to press any harder.
It’s not so much what you practice as how you practice. Do something simple and chromatic, but focus on the challenge of keeping your hand as relaxed as possible and using the minimum finger movement and pressure.
Learning to play a fretless bass helps with this. Hand position matters to cleanly finger notes. So it trains you to rely more on shifting than finger stretching.
I got a lot of mileage out of practicing the bass line from “Chameleon”; working on keeping my fingers touching each other and relying exclusively on hand position to play cleanly. It’s basically just a more fun version of practicing chromatic scales:
I actually could do better than what I show in this video. I should use even less pressure on my thumb and allow it to slide along with neck with my hand, instead of dragging behind when I move up the neck.
My god! Thanks for this deep dived reply. Really appreciated.
So if Im not mistaken, what is hapening to my middle finger is normal at least a common thing. And to fix it I need to relocate the strength Im putting and as @Al1885 said, become familiar with the art of not give a sh!t (instead of flipping off people.. phew) by applying minimum pressure and try to play a bit more relaxed.
. In general, I suffer the opposite problem as I’m way too relaxed especially on extended digging in, that’s why I can’t really get in to Rush, Geddy is way too intense for my playing style. 
