Left hand fingering question

[FretFiend.]

I have been closely examining my left hand technique lately, and I've made some discoveries. When fretting a string, like the fifth or sixth, with my pinkie or ring finger, I have always bent both joints of the finger to do it, more or less curling the finger up and onto the string. Now, tonight, I discovered that with some effort, I can fret the string, and only bend the tip joint, keeping the other joints straight. I've seen pictures of this done, like in the Mel Bay books, but it seemed that I never could quite get my finger to work that way. This looks promising, I think. It made my fingers sore.

 

How many of you can fret a string, like the fifth or sixth, with your pinkie or ring finger, and only bend the tip joint, keeping the other joints straight? Is this something I should pursue?

[Oldskool Texas]

What benefit is achieved by this?

[Opa John]

I've never tried it, but I don't think I could even if I tried.

 

I can, however, bend my knees without touching my toes.

[FretFiend.]

Funny.

 

I can see it being useful. It makes the fingertip contact the fretboard more from a vertical position. It could help avoid unintentional contact with adjacent strings.

 

[Florida_Gator]

It's not necessary to keep your first joint unbent to achieve this. But, whatever works.

[riffmeister]

I do both, it depends on what the other fingers are doing.

[jamesp]

I'm not a very visual person. Maybe if you'd post a clip I could understand this better.*

What kind of music are we playing here?

 

*

[FretFiend.]

I'm not a very visual person. Maybe if you'd post a clip I could understand this better.* What kind of music are we playing here? *

 

I'm doing you a big favor by not posting a clip.

[Oldskool Texas]

It could help avoid unintentional contact with adjacent strings.

 

Conventional technique seems to accomplish this just fine, but pursue whatever technique works for you.