I was just reading another thread about a bass player who was new to the instrument, and his pinky was his weak finger. I think that's the way we all started. For the brief period of time I was without a teacher, I refused to use my pinky unless it was absolutely necessary because it was so weak.
So, my instructor, in completely different lesson, made me do about 2 months worth of lessons using walking bass lines. The fingerings were something like (timing above)
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
G---------------------------------
D-----------2-5-2---------5-------
A--2-5-2--3-------2-5-2----2-5-2-
E-3--------------3----------------
It was just walking down a 12 bar blues chord progression in key of C. At first, it was killer for my hand, but after 3 or so weeks, I started noticing that my pinky was getting much stronger, enough that I could even start fretting strings of notes with it without issue.
And then a week after that, I had him teach me the intro to this song which is major and minor triads using almost the same fingering:
YouTube - ‪Metallica - Anestesia Pulling Teeth‬‏
Of course it's obvious that using that digit more will strengthen it, but I found that major and minor triads in these cases were great for building up my strength and coordination with the pinky. I find that this is a case of applied practice, versus just hitting notes with the pinky, and some of the examples were fun for me to play (especially Anaesthesia...)
You can put on a drum track or even a metronome and play the walking lines to a beat to work on your timing at the same time. I promise if you start to do it regularly, your pinky strength will increase. It only took me a couple of weeks, and now I use it a ton and I'm glad I have it's strength. I am by no means a great player, but I thought I'd share these fun exercises with you.
