Left-hand finger height — not always “lower is better”

Playing Technique
#1

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share an observation about left-hand finger height and see if others have had similar experiences.

For a long time, I followed the idea that keeping fretting fingers as close to the strings as possible is always more efficient. When playing ascending scale lines, my fingers usually lifted only about 0.375 inches.

However, I often struggled with blurriness and lack of clarity, especially as the tempo increased.

Recently, I experimented with lifting my fingers higher — around 0.75 inches or slightly more. Surprisingly, this made the fretting action feel smoother and more decisive, with clearer articulation. The tradeoff is faster fatigue, which makes sense due to the increased movement.

This challenged my previous assumption that lower finger height is always better. It now feels more like there’s an optimal range, rather than a single rule (and certainly not “the higher the better”).

I know some well-known players (e.g. Guthrie Govan and Michael Angelo Batio) have expressed similar thoughts, which makes me curious:
• Have you experienced something like this?
• Do you feel that extremely low finger height can sometimes limit clarity or ease of motion?

Please excuse any awkward phrasing — I’m communicating here with the help of translation software, as my English is quite limited.

Thanks!

#2

Sorry about the miscalculation earlier — I just measured it again. My previous finger height was actually below 0.375 inches, roughly in the 0.125–0.25 inch range.

This was a height I deliberately trained toward for some time after following the guideline that “the lower the fingers, the better.” However, I’ve now found that lifting my fingers to around 0.375 inches (about 1 cm) gives me a stronger and more comfortable fretting action.

I’m curious whether others have experienced something similar.

Or is it possible that I’m missing some specific training that allows effective force generation even at very low finger heights — and that’s why this feels better to me right now?

#3

You’re not missing anything. The usual notion of economy of motion doesn’t reflect the physical and motor learning realities of situation. See below.

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#4

Yes I think guitar players often mistake “efficient” for “small”.

It actually takes a lot of effort to keep the motions small. I postulate that for each speed/tempo /dynamical level there is an optimal motion size. Spoiler: it is not zero or infinity.