Working the 4th finger up isn't hard. Just takes a little time and requires running through some rather mundane rudiments. As far as injuries go, the reason most people injure themselves is they push themselves too hard when practicing. Tension is the bane of any practice regimen. Instant gratifaction plus wanting to play consistently at their threshold leads to injury. When practicing you should never play faster than the point to which your arm and hand cease to be COMPLETELY relaxed. YOU HAVE TO TRUST THAT YOU ARE IMPROVING EVEN WHEN YOU CAN'T READILY SEE OR FEEL IT AT THAT MOMENT. Because you are. Everything you do should be with complete relaxation and control. To quote my man Li Mu Bai: "Real skill comes without effort."

Curtis, I got some rudiments and exercises I use specifically designed to strengthen the pinky I can give you if you want. Just shoot me an email or pm. Take care.

Josh

Perhaps I am personally misapplying some otherwise good instruction myself. I am using the "Basic Practice Approach" by http://www.guitarprinciples.com but you make me question if I am not pushing the upper side (tempo) too hard.

Hmm...I had better re-review my material. (break) Yep, even a quick review indicates some misapplication on my part. Though I try to play very relaxed and start off painfully slow, I have probably been allowing too much tension as I try to "bring up the ease". I have probably begun to rather "bring up the disease" instead.

I would love to hear more about your "rudiments". I am very open to correction and advice.

Thanks again,

Curtis

P.S. My email is casa@mchsi.com

As a guitarist, I have been firmly in the pro pinky camp thus far, however, I do think that it is restricting my playing at the moment. My left hand is the dominant one, and I can move around fine (pretty much using 3 fingers actually!) but my right hand seems to stick to a 4 fret pattern and play within that scale position without travelling much. What I really want is to develop Greg's hand motion and energy. I tried 3 fingers but it feels really unnatural. Maybe time to try again?

If I were you I would practice playing with arm motion being the principal energy source for the notes. After I got back from the Stick Seminar with Greg I focused allot on simply playing the first line of the 2 finger Melody warmup (top line page 2-1 of the StickBook) and actually shifting my thumb on the back of neck with each note. Then with each finger (all four actually) playing the some note on the same fret but shifting position to do so. Then adding more ever increasing intervals and the rest of page 2-1 all with a focus on shifting.

That is how I begun to break out of the habit I had begun to form. Fortunately my habit was only about 4-5 months ingrained at that point. I focused on the above for literally a month or so as boring as that may sound.

I hope this helps.

-Curtis

A good exercise is to take a line that you usually play with fingers 1-2 and rotate through all of them ex: 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-3, 2-4, 3-4 and then go back down. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, can be something simple like a 2 string box pattern. Or if your looking to develop hand and arm movement pick your favorite scale and run up and down it with each one.

Josh

Great advise, Josh.

I'd love to see your rudiments you mentions several posts ago.

-Curtis

Funny, coming from the keyboard world, I never considered not using all of my fingers on both hands. I've already had my thumbs taken away from me (though I'm working on that). Don't take my pinkies!

OOoofff wit' bot' hes tums and pinkees! Sumboty set ot' da plank!

Aaarrrrrhhh, Aaarrrhhh!

If I interpret it correctly, what Twizzle is saying about 4 fingers potentially, and I mean potentially, locking one into a pattern, is essentially what Emmett was saying in Free Hands. He was talking about the ease of going between scalar melody and intervals with three fingers, and just the variety that happens when improvising. Of course when it comes down to it, either method should be able to achieve the same results, it just depends on how skilled you get with that method, and then being able to get what's in your head to your fingers when you're playing.

Kris

You can move just as well with 4 fingers as you can with 3. Either one work fine just a matter of personal style.

Josh