Crazy Hand Stretches

Following on from a post I wrote a while ago called Wide Interval Stretches, I thought I would explain a bit more about how to develop the right hand position (or should that be the right left hand position?!) for huge stretches and chords. After saying, in the afore mentioned article, that you need to keep your fingers close to the fretboard so that they are “on the scene” faster, and getting many emails and questions, I think I really need to explain how to get to this stage rather than explaining the final result.

Developing Your Hand Muscles

I was going to title this section “Giving Your Hands a Workout”, but I believe I’ve already covered that! If you read that article, you can read about some of the ways that you can build up your hand muscles, but not how to apply that to your guitar technique or hand position. Also, in this article I explain that the “Mr. Spock” sign from Star Trek is a great way to make sure you’re using the right muscles, but what does that mean?

Yes, I’m afraid it seems I may have been a bit confusing there. I’ve also received tonnes of questions about the “Spock sign” idea from fellow guitarists, so if you’re confused, you’re not alone! The idea behind it is that you want to use the muscles in between your fingers to reach the frets, the very same muscles that stretch your fingers apart from each other (hence the “Mr. Spock” idea).

Live Long and Shred

If you don’t quite have the finger independence (yet) to perform the “Spock” sign -and I appreciate that not everyone has- then you might want to try stretching your whole hand at once (with all fingers moving apart from one another). This is why performing those “crazy hand stretches” comes in useful- when you are away from the guitar you can give your hand muscles a workout by stretching your hand out and then back. Even better, when you have a guitar in front of you, try playing some wide interval stretches or three-note-per-string scales.

These are both excellent ways to improve your dexterity, however, I’ve found a new exercise that can be done away from the guitar (I would abbreviate “Away From Guitar” to “AFG”, like “AFK” is “Away From Keyboard”, but a small typo would render it “FAG”- so I wont!). What is this exercise? Finger tapping. No, we’re not talking Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhoads, I’m talking about the thing you do when your bored or waiting.

Table-top Jamming

Place your fingers on a table-top or other flat surface and tap each of your fingertips against the table individually. You might start with fingers in the order 1 2 3 4, then you might move on to other patterns (such as 1 3 2 4 etc,). If you can do it to a metronome, even better! The trick to doing this is that the motion doesn’t come from bending your fingers (try doing it with flat fingers, it should still be possible). You can even do this exercise on the side of your leg while standing up (waiting in a queue, for instance)and the motion is almost exactly the same as the one you will use fretting notes on your guitar.

So now try combining the hand stretch with the table-tap, and this is how you should be doing those crazy huge hand stretches. Next, when you are pretty confident at that, pick up your guitar and the real fun begins…

Stay tuned for part two.

January 11, 2010 at 5:00 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | 5 comments

5 Responses to “Crazy Hand Stretches”

1. Chainsaw Guitar Tuition » Crazy Hand Stretches (part 2) says:

   12/01/2010 at 4:04 pm

   [...] hopefully you’ve read the last post, and there’s been an (almost annoying) amount of finger tapping going on. Remember, the [...]
2. Chainsaw Guitar Tuition » What is Anchoring, and Why is it Bad? says:

   21/01/2010 at 3:23 pm

   [...] especially when it involves your wrist! I talk specifically about tension in my recent post “Crazy Hand Stretches“, and although that post was about the fretting hand, similar rules apply for the picking [...]
3. Chainsaw Guitar Tuition » Legato says:

   26/01/2010 at 1:09 pm

   [...] you’re fingers can get sore if they’re not used to it!). This is, as I mentioned in a previous post, almost the same action as you might do when you’re bored. You know, when you’re [...]
4. Daron The Guitar Dude says:

   26/07/2010 at 8:52 pm

   Thanks so much for the post, I can always become better to play the el guitar, and each new lesson and idea helps.
5. Rob says:

   26/07/2010 at 9:47 pm

   Glad you liked the post, Daron!

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