my left hand's "spring-loaded" pinky

[soontobedead]

hey there, people... got this problem here... i've been practicing arpeggios and fast licks to embellish some lines, but my left hand pinky is giving me a helluva lot of problems. Whenever i play fast lines where i have to shift my left hand fingers, i get this really fast snapping motion on my pinky, which causes my finger to recoil away from the fretboard and then when it comes back down (to fret the next note), it causes an irritating "clank" and it totally ruins the smooth sounding progression of the arpeggio .

The snapping motion comes from the 2nd and 3rd joints of my finger (closer to the tip, not the palm) and is controllable when playing softer, slower lines, but it really annoys me and deters from my technique in the case explained above.

Have any ideas on how to stop this from happening? i have to pay really close atention when playing so that i can control the recoil (so not to raise my fingertip too far from the FB), but this is kind of hard to do...

Thanks in advance

[BOOCAKE4U]

well, you probably know more than me, but my suggestion would be the ever popular "practice, practice, practice"...more specifically, using your ring finger and pinky exclusively to smarten the dumb bassturds up...also make sure your geometry isn't aggravating the problem (the angle of your wrist/fret hand, strap length etc)...hope that helps

[chaosMK]

It might help if you left hand thumb is in a position that faciliates playing. If you arent doing this already, try placing your thumb on the middle back of the fretboard, in line/parallel to the neck. It will put your pinky and the rest of your fingers closer to the strings in general.

[Daveman2]

Originally Posted by chaosMK

It might help if you left hand thumb is in a position that faciliates playing. If you arent doing this already, try placing your thumb on the middle back of the fretboard, in line/parallel to the neck. It will put your pinky and the rest of your fingers closer to the strings in general.

I dont know what everyone else thinks, but putting my thumb parrallel to the fretboard sounds like an incredibly painful way to play, and would make it impossible to play
did you mean perpendicular to the board, as parrallel with the frets?