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Originally Posted by Falstaff66
Three fret chords are murder for me. I can get a good strecth between my 1st and 2nd fingers, but I simply can't put much distance bewteen the
2nd and 3rd. Are there exercises to work on that?
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Hi,
Your fingers will naturally gain the ability to stretch further as you practice. When I started playing (in my late 50s) my left hand was so stiff I had to literally use my right hand to put some of the left hand fingers in place for some chords. No problems now though.
A good general exercise for warming up, finger strength, stretch and general accuracy is to assign each finger to a different fret in line along the same string (say the low E) and then walk them across, one by one, onto the next string until you get to the other side of the neck. then walk them back. Play as you go, so you can hear how accurate you are. Start down near the body where the frets are closer together if you have trouble with reach.
So - for instance - put the index finger on the 7th fret of the low E string, play the note. Next, put the middle finger on the 8th fret and play, put the ring finger on the 9th and play, then use the pinky on the 10th. Then move the index across to the 7th fret on the A string and work your way up again, and so on across the neck.
Try to put one finger down at a time but keep the other three hovering just above their own fret. Try not to wave them about too much, or rock the whole hand about. Try to maintain a nice even height and position. It won't work at first of course, so don't worry if the fingers won't cooperate immediately. But take it slow and do it every day and they soon will. Then work up to the wider frets. Later you can do the same thing but play scales instead. But to start with just use every finger on every fret. After a while you'll have 4 stronger fingers that will do what they're told.
With your C chord, you could try pushing the ring finger across until it touches the low E string (usually referred to as the 6th string. String 1 is the thinnest). Usually you want to begin a chord on the root note, so skip the open low E and start playing at the C (which is that ring finger at the third fret on the A string). If you're going to mute a string it's better to mute the E than the D string on the other side of the finger. Later on you'll be able to miss both.
Hope all that makes sense. Good luck.
Cheers,
Chris