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How to Develop Left Hand Finger Strength

The most effective things you can practice to develop left hand finger strength and dexterity are hammer-ons and pull-offs. They require a lot more precision so you will also become more accurate on your overall playing if you work on this.

My advise is to look for hammer-ons and pull-off patterns that are difficult for you and practice those most of the time. Play them over and over again with a metronome or drum machine until you can play them perfectly, and I do mean perfectly, many times in a row. At that point, increase the speed a little bit and keep going until you can play the pattern at a good speed for you.

You should strive to practice things that are difficult for you most of the time because that’s the only way you’ll become a better guitar player. Your body doesn’t have to develop new capabilities if you are always asking it to play things it can already play.

Some patterns that are easy to play with a determined group of fingers are difficult to play with others so take that into consideration when looking for things to practice.

This pattern for example is very easy for me to play it with the index and ring finger, but when playing it with the middle and pinky finger it’s a whole different story. So I should practice the pattern with those fingers until I can play it without difficulties.

E||------------------------------------------|
B||------------------------------------------|
G||------------------------------------------|
D||--------------------------------5h-7------|
A||-------5h-7------5h-7------5h-7------5h-7-|
E||--5h-7------5h-7------5h-7----------------|

If you want example exercises you can download this guitar pro file I made for this article. It contains four exercises you should practice with all the finger combinations you can come up with.

Remember, you should practice your weak points most of the time, because you will improve your overall playing a lot faster. Also, when improving weak points your strong areas also improve so you become a better guitar player faster.

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  1. Great article, there are many finger exercises and finger strengthening for all types of guitarists, and the main exercise is really just to keep practicing what you already know, and keep learning other styles, playing the guitar is a finger exercise in its self. Just practice, practice, practice

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