I know. Finger exercises are boring, the opposite of rock and roll. But it can’t be denied that they can be useful. By spending a little time with this exercise – maybe using it as a quick warm-up – you will improve your technique, and speed up your progress.
This is a fairly standard 3 fingers in a row exercise. The important point here is to hold your fingers down on each string, as we’re trying to encourage a bit of a stretch which will allow you to play more tricky chord shapes.
I’ve not included the little finger in this exercise as I wanted to keep it very basic, but if you fancy a bit of a challenge you can always try adding it in. Similarly, I’m not introducing alternate (down-up) picking just yet, as I want to concentrate on left-hand technique here.
Find the exercise written out in full below. If you’re not sure how to read guitar TAB, I cover this in lesson 24. Download here.