Why So Many Guitarists Ignore the Poor Pinky

Unless you’re Django Reinhardt, you’ve got a pinky that could be doing more for your guitar playing.

Taming that pesky little digit is something many guitar players struggle with, and a substantial amount of us never truly build equal strength among all of our fingers.

It’s strange how very isolated the pinky seems as we rip our favorite licks along the fretboard. It’s almost as if that little finger is being shunned by the bigger, more powerful fingers.

Those guys are practically bullies, flaunting themselves across the neck, having the time of their lives while the poor little pinky peers up longingly from the depths of his clawed reclusion.

While we can easily get through our guitar lives making minimal use of all our fingers, it is limiting in some more technically demanding methods of guitar playing, so strengthening your pinky should be something you’re mindful of. If you just give the little guy a chance, he might come through in a big way. Or, as we learn in the video below, he might not.

Tyler Larson is the founder of the guitar-centric brand Music is Win. His insightful, uncomplicated guitar lessons and gear demonstrations along with entertaining, satirical content about life as a musician receive tens of millions of video views per month across social media. Tyler is also the creator of the extremely popular online guitar learning platform, Guitar Super System. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Tyler has been teaching guitar for over a decade and operates a production studio in Nashville, TN.