Exercises for Your Fingers
It can be a challenge to form some chords and an even bigger challenge to change chords smoothly. Building finger strength and dexterity will make chording and changing chords a bit easier. Overall, it will make a big difference in the quality of your uke playing.
Work through these exercises and choose just one to really focus your development over a few weeks. Once you see progress with one exercise, try the other one for a few weeks. Either one makes a great warm-up before playing!
When to Exercise? It’s a good idea to warm up your hands and fingers before every practice session. Start with the stretching exercises and then add one or more of these dexterity exercises to your practice routine.
Walking the Frets
Walking the frets helps your playing in several ways, giving you more dexterity, finger strength, and finger independence. And that means more accurate chord forms.
Begin with 1st finger (index), 4th string, 1st fret, then pluck the string.
Then 2nd finger (middle), 4th string, 2nd fret, then pluck the string.
3rd finger (ring), 4th string, 3rd fret, then pluck the string.
4th finger (pinky) 4th string, 4th fret, then pluck the string
Try the same pattern on each string moving across from the G (4th string) to the A (1st string – the one nearest the floor) and “walking up the frets” from the 1st fret to the 4th fret.
This is great practice for your fingers!
NOTE: Walking the frets helps your playing in several ways.
First, it helps you find the appropriate pressure to put on the string to sound a clear tone.
Second, it builds finger strength, dexterity, and flexibility.
Third, it helps your fingers become accustomed to the fret distances.
You can expand this exercise by walking the frets and then walking them in reverse! Starting at the 4th fret, then the 3rd, then the 2nd, then the 1st on each string.
Building finger dexterity, independence, and strength takes just a little time each day. The progress is incremental but the results can be surprising!
Staircase Crawl
This is similar to Walking the Frets but you will move across and down for your starting position.
Starting with the 1st finger, on the 4th string, 1st fret
2nd finger, 4th string, 2nd fret
3rd finger, 4th string, 3rd fret
4th finger, 4th string, 4th fret
Next, move over to the 3rd string and begin on the second fret:
1st finger on the 3rd string at the second fret
2nd finger on the 3rd string at the third fret
3rd finger on the 3rd string at the fourth fret
4th finger on the 3rd string at the fifth fret
Reposition your starting point moving over one string and down one fret. So for the 2nd string, you will begin on the 3rd fret and end on the sixth fret. Then move over to the 1st string and begin on the 4th fret and end on the 7th fret. See the fretboard diagram below and follow the numbers.
This is a good exercise for finger dexterity and helps with finger placement within frets as they grow narrower up the fretboard.
Staircase Crawl - Start with number one and continue through number 16.
