Flexibility exercises

[Chipsonfire]

Since I started playing, I've found that while my little pinky finger is getting stronger and more flexible, my middle and index fingers are having trouble with the flexibility. When I'm playing at the bottom of the neck, I can almost make the stretch from the 1st to fourth fret and its getting better, but getting the second and third is out of the question. I've started doing spider walk exercises and some other various things I've found. Any suggestions for exercises to improve flexibility?

[DocBop]

Usually its the ring finger people have trouble learning to control and build strength. What about up the neck past the fifth fret?

Many for assorted reasons like to use upright bass fingerings below the fifth fret. The DB book many bass players including BG players use is the Simandl book. It show the fingering basically it is index, second, and pinky.

Bottom line you just need to do exercises like the spider, but slow snails pace if you have to and focus on the second and third fingers until you develop the muscle control. Start with a place on neck you don't need to stretch much. You want control not speed at this point, speed develops on its own so don't think about it.

[Chipsonfire]

Originally Posted by DocBop

Usually its the ring finger people have trouble learning to control and build strength. What about up the neck past the fifth fret?

Up past the 5th fret is usually ok, but I'd really like to get that flexibility up. They're noticeably less flexible then the fingers on my right hand. I talk to a friend of mine (a pianist among other things) and he told me some stretches that he likes to do. I'll keep spiderwalking down in the lower frets and see if that makes a difference.

[steve66]

Originally Posted by Chipsonfire

Since I started playing, I've found that while my little pinky finger is getting stronger and more flexible, my middle and index fingers are having trouble with the flexibility. When I'm playing at the bottom of the neck, I can almost make the stretch from the 1st to fourth fret and its getting better, but getting the second and third is out of the question. I've started doing spider walk exercises and some other various things I've found. Any suggestions for exercises to improve flexibility?

These exercises helped me:

One Finger, One Fret Troubles

[Chipsonfire]

Originally Posted by steve66

These exercises helped me:

One Finger, One Fret Troubles

Awesome, I'll start doing that as well. The first one is something I can do at work so all the better