Very long story short, I began getting pain in the fingers in my left hand in the mid 1980s. I couldn’t play more than 30 minutes a day without getting bad pain. I took some lessons from a female guitarist “The Commander in Chief” about 2005 and she recommended using a Vpower Powerball. These are about $120 and generate 50lbs of pressure. They make plastic versions but they only generate 25 lbs and wear out quickly. The powerball exercises all of the muscles below the elbow and most above. It will make the muscles in your arm burn with just a few minutes of use. A couple of weeks later my hand was a lot stronger and the pain went away completely. Its been almost 20 years and my hand is better today than its ever been. I can play as much as I want and I am almost 70 ! I use it for about 5 minutes every week. I dont know if this will work for you but I tried meds and even a hand surgeon but this thing worked for me
@mcarter5100 Thank you for the recommendation! Will try to get a hold of one and see if it works. Not sure how to attack the pinky-stretch problem but increasing capacity is always a helpful thing.
@Tom_Gilroy Interesting, good point. I don’t think I’ve really felt bothersome tension or pain in those situations, but your comment has made me a lot more aware of what others do and I’m trying to let my pinky relax when doing things with my ring finger. Not sure why I hadn’t noticed that concurrent movement before. The only time players don’t seem to do it is if they have to prep their pinky for engagement.
Tension is just muscular contraction. There can be unnecessary tension without any feelings of pain, discomfort or “tightness”.
I think most people think of it as a technical flaw that is to be avoided. Some people think it’s a symptom of excessive tension.
I’ve had people ask for advice about “flying pinky” before, which somebody had pointed out to them and told them was a problem.
However, there’s a huge difference between a “flying” pinky which move contrary to the movement of the other fingers (usually extension through), and a “following” pinky.
A lot of players think they have a problematic flying pinky when their pinky is actually relaxed and naturally following the actions of the ring finger. They try to prevent this natural following, which can only be accomplished through muscular tension, which impedes mobility. It gets harder to move if you hold yourself in place.
I fell into this trap when I was a teenager, I had somehow been convinced that what I was doing was “wrong” based on concerns for “finger independence” or “economy of motion.”
The truth is that “finger independence” is nonsense and the usual presentation of “economy of movement” is naive and based in flawed understanding.
You’re on the right track here. Watch what great players actually do.
Great points! Funny how much nonsense can be avoided simply by paying close attention to what the preponderance of players do, relative to what they play. I think looking at players “generally” is fairly important, otherwise people end up idolizing what i.e. Marty Friedman’s picking hand does, even though he’s the only person I’ve seen utilizing that kind of pick hold.
The pinky thing is interesting, because it’s easy to believe that the pinky “following” is creating unnecessary motion. I like to think of “economy of motion” not as what’s happening visually, specifically, but what’s happening from a tension/effort standpoint.
I’m an extremist in the school of “sit/stand comfortably and bring the guitar to you.” I can’t remember where I first heard this and have no idea who first popularized it, but it’s taken me a long way. If you can really do this, it hugely reduces tension throughout the whole body. The only real downside I’ve experienced is that it probably slightly harms my precision since the exact location of the instrument relative to my body varies day to day.
It doesn’t come naturally at first, but basically every time you’re feeling tension or discomfort in any respect, don’t solve it by trying to adjust yourself and the guitar to some ideal, relaxed pose. Just return yourself to a pose that feels comfortable and natural, and bring the guitar to you—just like if you were doing any other activity involving holding or interacting with an object and found yourself in an awkward or tense pose.
My posture in general isn’t especially good (probably pretty poor, honestly), but it’s not bad enough to be hurting myself in daily life, and playing guitar is no exception, even after 19 years.
Important caveat: I almost always play sitting down (with the guitar on my right knee or left knee depending on if I’m on steel string or classical) and I’ve found it harder to pull this off when standing with the guitar on a strap because of the weight. When standing, I’m still far from perfect at it, but sitting I’m basically perfect and don’t have any real RSI or pain worries specific to my guitar playing (just the usual from aging, etc.).