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I cant move my ring finger and middle finger away from each other, either when I play guitar or when I dont play guitar. For example, I cannot to the Vulcan salute, if I try to move it all my fingers spread out instead of just my ring and middle finger. Is there any exercises I can do to improve my stretch in those fingers or is this just the way I am.

The reason this is important to me is because I cannot play an Asus4 or Bm chord without using my pinky, and I would really like the have proper form going forward instead of having this problem.

For a little more information I can move my pinky finger and index finger away from my other fingers without moving anything else with focus but I cannot do it with my middle and ring fingers.

3 Answers 3

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Not being a medical expert, not seeing your fingers, it's impossible to tell.

Bm - I think everyone plays that using pinky, and Asus is often played with pinky too.

Stick with what you have, and get by with that. Take a leaf out of Django's book, and adapt. Good luck.

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  • I thought that the "proper" way was with the ring finger, like so youtube.com/watch?v=6exqmYzRIbw
    – JSASCS
    Jun 29, 2020 at 15:41
  • My 'proper' way is to use fingers 2, 3 and 4, so the sus bit is with pinky. Reason is twofold - those three take up less room, for players with fatter fingers, and it's easier to return to basic A for that reason.You'll maybe find my way easier too. I really don't like these 'expert' lessons on youtube. Some are far more ex-spurt - a old drip under pressure..!
    – Tim
    Jun 29, 2020 at 16:16
  • in support of Tim: the video shows how to play the chord in isolation, but there will be a lot of times where that chord is used as an embellishment (part of a melody, a "walk up" to another chord etc.). In those cases you are quite likely to be playing Amaj and simply adding your pinky finger without lifting any other fingers. since the pinky is closer to the bridge, that fret "takes precedence" over the fingering closer to the nut.
    – Yorik
    Jul 1, 2020 at 19:10
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I have the same thing with my ring and pinky. for guitar, search the spider exercise. it helps a little with the separation but not with the stretch. The spider walk exercise is the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=spider+walk+guitar

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Every where you look you'll find the official proper methods to perform a task of any kind. The problem with them being "officially proper" is that these methods were developed by those folks that have no restricting characteristics in their abilities. There is a large enough percentage of musicians that do have restricting characteristics to their abilities and so they develop alternate techniques which work as well or even better and this can and usually does diminish the importance of being able to perform according to what is accepted as being official or proper. Ain't that grand?

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  • Thank you for your reply, I’m just asking because sometimes when I play fingerstyle I don’t have a choice to put my pinky there instead of my ring finger, because the pinky needs to be somewhere else. Because of these cases I want to be able to bend my ring finger. My main question was is there any way I can change the flexibility so I can do the Asus with my ring finger (or be able to make it bend away form my middle)?
    – JSASCS
    Jul 2, 2020 at 16:06

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